REGRESSION – Volume One: Falling Away From the New ~Part A~ Too Young Be You For Nastalgia / First Chapter _ Looking Back
Holy Shit that anime looks OLD!
The current season is easily the best this year. The past 2 seasons were a whole ton of ‘meh’ sprinkled litely with decent and leaving only 1 to the light of OMG WIN, that being Kure-nai. This season has a number of spectacular, a gathering of great, and a group of good. There’s still a handful of shitty, but there’s so much good you barely notice. In any case, this is one of the few seasons that you really should look out for.
But the currently airing shows are not everything. A lot of you seem to have what I am going to call a ‘cut off point’ in your anime watching history. I’ve noticed that a lot of people watching the shows airing right now are people who haven’t seen that much anime. It seems to me like a lot of people have seen some shows that got them into anime and then started following what was airing now and never looked back. It could be from any point in time – some people started watching anime back when Adult Swim started and after seeing the shows on there started watching the new stuff out of japan. A lot of people started in 06 with Haruhi and a lot more in 07 with anything Key and worked from there. As a result there are a shitload of people who’s top shows are all popular things from the past couple years – things that someone who doesn’t watch new anime would never know about, but things that someone who’s seen anime before 2006 would never have on their list.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking what you like. But it’s really funny when I see someone who has Shakugan no Shana in their top 5 but has never seen any of the similar shows that came before it which they might like even more.
I know it’s difficult for you, too. Old anime can be unattractive. Once you go back past 2000 then anime is all drawn by hand and shit. Though if you still like Cowboy Bebop or Evangelion or Slayers or whatever, you really should have a problem with that anyway. I’ve seen a ton of people looking for anime recommendations who will throw in the phrase ‘I don’t want anything made before 2002.’ What a great way to miss out on all the awesome stuff that came out before then! I mean besides the obvious aforementioned classics like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop, a lot of the greatest anime around cam out in the 90s that anyone would probably love if they gave it a chance. If you like any romance, you will love Kare Kano (His and Her Circumstances). If you like shows such as Nanoha, you’ll love it’s predecessor CardCaptors Sakura. If you like harem anime, Ken Akamatsu has a bunch of series from the 90s and there’s Tenchi and others. Mecha fans will adore Martian Successor Nadesico and many other of the post-Eva mech shows. Even if you’re a fan of dating sim adaptions only you could go a couple years back and watch To Heart or something. And everyone, and I do mean everyone, should see Revolutionary Girl Utena, period.
And that’s just the 90s. There have been great anime coming out forever. Fans of shoujo can watch things like Rose of Versailles from the 80s, mecha fans can see all of the Gundams of the era, back when Gundam was good. Anyone who love Gurren Lagann should see the classics like Gunbuster (Top wo Nerae). If you like shows about badass motherfuckers, Space Adventure Cobra is the way to go. Just explore a little – don’t only watch the shows that are new or are just now coming out – go back and see what you missed.
- Unable to Properly post about currently airing shows – DigitalBoy
I’d argue that hand-drawn animation often does things computer-assisted animation still can’t. There’s a certain attention to detail in City Hunter for instance, that I see nowhere else these days.
I fully agree. There’s some really great stuff out there that people miss because they’re so caught up with what’s airing now. I actually started my blog thinking I’d write about older shows and then somehow never got around to it. After all, will most people even read posts about shows from 20+ years ago?
It’s true that a lot of old anime does have major quality problems compared with what we watch today but I view that as part of the fun. There’s something exciting about seeing completely hand drawn animation or if it’s really bad then there’s often unintentional hilarity to be had. Of course some recent anime looks like crap too (Musashi Gundoh anyone?). I always point out Macross: Do You Remember Love? as an example of older anime that still looks absolutely gorgeous. Although that is a movie so it did have a higher budget.
Indeed, even though I hate Escaflowne it makes a lot of modern mecha anime look like fucking shitcakes.
And Ibrevis, unfortunately no, no one will read about old anime. I know because I have a blog and I get no fucking comments.
I remember when I was blogging Speed Racer I only got comments when the movie came out. I’ve been watching old Anime since I discovered Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba The White Lion back in 2006. Old 60’s anime, which is really old school, has a certain quality to it despite the kids show cheesiness, which you don’t see any more. That’s not to say Speed Racer isn’t really violent, or Kimba isn’t filled with death and pathos (the Lion King ripped it off so badly it’s not funny). These old shows have something to say that’s often overlooked in favor of flashy visuals that are sometimes used to cover up a bad plotline.
In my Animated Spree posts I’ll probably cover some old shows worth watching too.
I’m sure you can guess my stance on this. That said, I can’t really blame someone who wants to stick to anime made after 2002, or whatever cut-off date you want to impose, since most fans are in it to be entertained by modern stuff, not edified by classics. It’s just a failure to see that archaic animation can be entertaining too, and it’s probably a failure of the same kind as my failure to see that harem anime (for example) can be entertaining too . . .
The good resource should be brought in bookmarks
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