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Post by GRWelsh on Jul 1, 2020 14:08:30 GMT -5
I got nostalgic and started re-watching the anime series from 1998. This was the first anime I ever loved, and it is still my favorite ever, because although it still has the Japanese quirkiness you can tell it is a love-letter to American culture. It has references to film noir, cowboys, Blacksploitation, jazz, blues, heavy metal, space shuttles... the list goes on and on. Some of the standalone episodes are good but not great. What really elevates it are the character backstories with the overall story arc and the music. I recently read that the character of Radical Edward was at least partly inspired by the musical composer, Yoko Kanno, who is an eccentric genius. I first watched this series when taping Adult Swim back in 2004 just to see what animation was like at the time... There were a few other shows I really liked as well, like MISSION HILL and HOME MOVIES. Some were just too weird for me to recommend like AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE and THE VENTURE BROS. (parody of Jonny Quest), SEALAB 2021 and HARVEY BIRDMAN: ATTORNEY AT LAW (parodies of other old Hannah Barbera cartoons). Honorable mention goes to another anime produced by the director of COWBOY BEBOP, Shinichiro Watanabe, named SAMURAI CHAMPLOO -- not quite as good but still excellent with lots of humor and American cultural references and great characters and overall story arc.
P. S. This has nothing to do with the live action version of COWBOY BEBOP that Netflix is producing right now. I have no idea what that will be like, but it is hard to imagine it will live up to the greatest anime series of all time.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 1, 2020 16:06:56 GMT -5
I think that I finally understand Japan's energy for anime but I don't get the American love. My daughter watches some cringy stuff. She was into BLACK BUTLER. Weird. Couldn't watch. Then ATTACK ON TITAN which she forced me to watch the entire series. Now she is into JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE. She was explaining that it's something about American-like characters dealing with good and evil over generations. I told her that I overmocked ATTACK ON TITAN so I probably can't watch JOJO.  |
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Post by GRWelsh on Jul 4, 2020 11:58:28 GMT -5
It seems like each generation of Americans is able to 'get' anime more than the previous one. My younger cousin in her 30's is a huge anime fan, far beyond what I am. She likes the stuff that to me is just alien and bizarre. I grew up with Speed Racer, Starblazers and G-Force, so I've always liked at least some of it. I liked Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Record of the Lodoss War. AKIRA was like a litmus test, and some people thought it was the best thing ever, and I appreciated the artistry of it but found it weird and incomprehensible... I should probably watch it again and give it another chance. All I remember is impressive motorcycle animation and a kid growing out of control into a deformed monster. COWBOY BEBOP on the other hand has the perfect amount of accessibility for Westerners, and I can vouch for it and SAMURAI CHAMPLOO. I've tried to watch some others that are highly rated, like TRIGUN, FULL METAL ALCHEMIST and ONE PUNCH MAN but they just didn't hook me. NEON GENESIS EVANGELION took a while to win me over -- it's like this weird deconstruction or inversion of the giant robot genre. I need to give GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX (another with music by Yoko Kanno) and DEATH NOTE another try. Anything by Studio Ghibli is worth checking out. I was surprised how much I enjoyed ONLY YESTERDAY (1991) as it was just contemporary drama, yet it was excellent.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 4, 2020 12:29:38 GMT -5
Yeah, my daughter was into DEATH NOTE as well but I couldn't watch the series. I watched the movie though.
I think Japanese exhortations do not translate into Western-looking characters in the animes because in Japanese they sound more rhythmic but in English it sounds like a mild person turned maniacal instantaneously.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 4, 2020 12:32:46 GMT -5
What I mean is centered in Eastern mentality but looking westward seems more palatable then American translated accepting into Western mentality which seems awkward.
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Post by geneweigel on Jul 4, 2020 12:40:46 GMT -5
I think the clunky and hard intro of Japanese into Western culture was seeing James Bond in Japan with implied sex with two ladies as an automatic norm in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967). Politically correct and "G" mentality pushed all that sensual mentality down and then it just lashed out in the 90's in quite a lot of this manga and anime material which I think is the driving force. A sort of little secret for Westerners to get away with. A sort of "its just a comic" kind of thing.
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