Well, had a pretty busy Saturday this week, considering it was New Years day and my nephew's 3rd birthday party. That said, rather than try to watch a whole anime series or movie, I though I might just talk a bit about how I got interested in the genre in the first place.
To start at the beginning, I have to go back to the heady days of the mid 1980s. In the days of my youth, personal ownership of VHS and other Home Theater equipment was only just becoming common enough for the birth of a new kind of store. The Video Rental store. Even in my hometown of Marshalltown Iowa, there were several rental places one could go to. One such place was in the Mall. The name escapes me, but I remember it vividly, walking around with my parents and marveling at whole walls covered with movies I hadn't seen. It was mind boggling to a kid who had grown up to that point on rabbit ear channels and occasionally basic cable if we were lucky. Anyway, this rental place had a policy that I just loved. For every 1 or 2 movies your parents rented, the kid could pick out one for free. And being the youngest in our family by several years, I was usually the only one picking out kids movies. Even though I must have seen all of the free movies available at one point or another, there were 3 favorites that I kept coming back to, and it was these three that undoubtedly inspired me to seek out anime in the future.
First and Foremost. Transformers: The Movie.
I had watched the show any time it was on as a kid, but the movie was a whole different story. First of all, it was the first time I ever heard a cartoon character curse, and I remember being terrified that my parents would not let me watch it anymore as a result. So I would fast forward it myself so they wouldn't hear. But more importantly, it was action packed and full of scenes that were heartbreaking for a young fan of the cartoons, most notably the Death of Optimus Prime. In the show, Prime wasn't really a character as much as a kind of Act of whatever God Cybertronian's believed in. He was good incarnate and seemed untouchable, almost immortally powerful and wise. So when the first act of the movie ended with him being beaten to death by his mortal enemy Megatron, it was hard to believe it could actually happen. This was the first "Cartoon" that had told an interesting story and didn't talk down to me just because I was a kid. Sometimes, good people die, and the best people die defending others and doing what is right, like Optimus Prime. Of course that was all cheapened later when they gave Prime a Comic Book Ressurection, but it really did shake up my idea of what a good cartoon was.
Second, Voltron.
Just watched the First Episode of Voltron, and holy crap, is the voice acting atrocious! Well, besides the narrator, one Peter Cullen, Optimus Prime himself. One of the characters (who's name was changed from Shirogane to Sven) sounds exactly like Sven Hoek from Ren and Stimpy. But when it comes down to it, the animation and the concept of 5 robots combining into one was just too cool. These days, the egregious over editing that was common in the 80s when it came to anime shows aimed at kids (the original show GoLion was intended for adults and was Brutally Violent, Voltron is a show that was edited together from scraps of footage and written with kids in mind), the almost intolerable voice acting (with notable exceptions), and the fact that I got a little burnt out on combining robots by Power Rangers some years ago, this show is almost unwatchable for me. But it still holds a nostalgic place in my childhood memories.
Third, Getter Robo G
It took me years to track this one down again. I knew it by the box art as a kid and absolutely loved the show. I must have made my folks rent this one 20 times. Through the mists of time, I have forgotten whether this was heavily edited for the American market or if it was an actual attempt to bring the original show to the states. I just remember loving the idea of 3 ships that combined together, but could make 3 very different Gestalt robots based on which robot formed the head. I remember the fights being intense and the enemies seemed very scary at the time. Full episodes can be found on You Tube, and I watched the first one to confirm it was the show I was thinking of from my childhood.
These shows were all either made for American audiences in Japan or shows for Japanese teens and adults Edited into Kid shows. It wasn't until a few years later that another rental place in town and a certain programming block would introduce me to the fact that Anime was more than just Giant Robots. But that's a story for another Saturday Anime.
To sign off, I'd like to begin a tradition on this blog of playing an AMV from a random show I enjoy. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, AMV's are Anime Music Videos edited together by fans and for every good one you find, there are about 100 bad ones!
And Now, your moment of AMV Zen...
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