How Japan’s ‘BBC’ is rewriting its role in the Second World War

[Syt]

I watched Star Blazers as a kid.

And Voltron.  And Robotech too.

I was a big Captain Future fan.

[Tonitrus]

I watched Star Blazers as a kid.

And Voltron.  And Robotech too.

Oh, and this one too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVkueSuO-GU

[celedhring]

I think all anime fans should give Eva a chance.  Agree that it is not everybody's cup of tea (it certainly isn't mine).  Having watched it, I think there are valid reasons why it is commonly considered a masterpiece. 

Don't have the time to watch Cowboy Bebop yet.  Has been sittig on my harddrive forever.  It is most famous for its use of Jazz music, composed by the legendary Yoko Kanno.  That's all I know. 

First time I've ever heard of Samurai Champloo.  I will try it out 

I loved Cowboy Bebop in a purely sensorial level. Fantastic music, fantastic animation. The storylines never did much for me, though.

[Syt]

I was a big Captain Future fan.

The German soundtrack actually helped - they composed a completely new score for the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ8H2csE9bU

[Monoriu]

Besides Yoko Kanno's music, there is another reason why I'm interested in Cowboy Bebop.  I am a fan of Megumi Hayashibara, one of the best seiyuus Japan has ever produced, and she is in Cowboy Bebop. 

[Josquius]

Interesting.
Even my English speaking Japanese fans agree CB is a rare example of an anime where the dub is better.

[Monoriu]

Interesting.
Even my English speaking Japanese fans agree CB is a rare example of an anime where the dub is better.

I gave up on dubs 20 years ago.  I grew up listening to Cantonese dubs of Japanese anime.  When I was in Canada, I was cut off from these Cantonese dubs and had to rely on video tapes.  Those came with Chinese subtitles only.  I was pleasantly surprised that, even though I couldn't understand a single word of what the Japanese voice cast was saying, their performance conveyed the emotions of the scenes infinitely better than the Cantonese dubs.  Never looked back.  No idea about the quality of English dubs. 

[celedhring]

The first anime I remember watching was "Ulysses 31" when I was 4 or 5 years old. I have great memories of it. Might have to rewatch it some time to see how it holds up; I remember the imagery of a futuristic retelling of Greek mythology being amazing and the show scaring the shit out of me when I was little.

The thing I remember the most is their starship. It looked boss.

[Josquius]

Interesting.
Even my English speaking Japanese fans agree CB is a rare example of an anime where the dub is better.

I gave up on dubs 20 years ago.  I grew up listening to Cantonese dubs of Japanese anime.  When I was in Canada, I was cut off from these Cantonese dubs and had to rely on video tapes.  Those came with Chinese subtitles only.  I was pleasantly surprised that, even though I couldn't understand a single word of what the Japanese voice cast was saying, their performance conveyed the emotions of the scenes infinitely better than the Cantonese dubs.  Never looked back.  No idea about the quality of English dubs. 

They are generally horrible.
Even beyond a much cheaper voice cast theres  a large amount of Americanization too. To my non American ears there's a big disconnect between this being something from one foreign place but with artificial aspects of another foreign place. There was a British dub of invader lum once which was awesome.

Seriously though cowboy bebop does buck the usual trend.

I was into anime in the days before broadband (before many people were. Now so damn many kids are...) so I had to take what I could get and that was usually dubs. How did you avoid them 20 years back? I guess HK gets more anime than the uk did?
I also had a similar but worse dub problem with Hong Kong movies in those pre DVD times

[Monoriu]

My first two anime shows were Gundam 0079 (the original one) and Queen Millennia, when I was 5 or 6.  Both are very serious, even depressing shows, with on-screen deaths left and right.  Queen Millennia was particularly bad.  (spoilers ahead) The protagonist (a kid only a few years older than the then me) lost his parents to an explosion right in front of him in episode 1.  Yes they were killed off for real.  Episode 2 was about him listening to a recording of his father's last words.  Then, for the next 42 episodes, there was a constant threat of the end of humanity.  Then the title character died.  Gundam was not much better.  Colony drops, nazi-style uniforms and speeches, deaths in the billions, deaths of named characters every 2-3 episodes or so, destruction of entire colonies shown in graphic detail, shots through the head shown clearly on screen with no room for any other interpretation.  I think the death rate of all the named characters is like 50%.  From the very beginning my experience with anime is that these are serious affairs, perhaps even more cruel than the live-action TV drama. 

Imagine my reaction when I was told by some adults that anime was all about cute girls, teddy bears, helpful mascots and kiddie stuff. 

[The Larch]

My flatmate also recommended Evangelion, Samurai Chombla

Evangelion is massively overrated. Samurai Champloo is great, as is Cowboy Beebop, which was made by the same folks.

Those three are part of the very few anime I've watched and by far the bigger names. 

Evangelion starts super cool, giant robots fighting giant monsters, what's not to love? There's also a certain mystique around it, some mystical background, and then in the final third of the show it gets...really weird. I read somewhere that the author has some kind of mental issues and the producers thought that when he was off his meds he wrote better stuff and that when he was medicated he was way too tame for their tastes, so they made him go cold turkey on his meds and that's when he wrote the final episodes, which are totally and completely unhinged. I mean, one of them is just a black screen for most of the episode, with characters talking off screen inside the mind of the main one.

Cowboy Bebop is great, space opera adventures with kick ass music. It has a "serious" storyline but I enjoyed the one-shot adventures much more.

Samurai Shamploo is a samurai show with contemporary urban stuff jammed into it, like hip hop and grafitti artists and so on. Cool swordfighting and light humour.


The good thing about those three is that they're relatively short, so they can be taken on easily. They're not monster sagas like Dragon Ball or One Piece.

[Monoriu]

I was into anime in the days before broadband (before many people were. Now so damn many kids are...) so I had to take what I could get and that was usually dubs. How did you avoid them 20 years back? I guess HK gets more anime than the uk did?
I also had a similar but worse dub problem with Hong Kong movies in those pre DVD times

Ever since my early childhood days, the HK TV networks broadcast anime.  I think there were around 2 shows every day back then.  These were dubbed in Cantonese.  There were more during the weekends.  I just recorded them for future viewing.  When I moved to Canada I rented tapes that were subtitled. 

[Monoriu]

Evangelion starts super cool, giant robots fighting giant monsters, what's not to love? There's also a certain mystique around it, some mystical background, and then in the final third of the show it gets...really weird. I read somewhere that the author has some kind of mental issues and the producers thought that when he was off his meds he wrote better stuff and that when he was medicated he was way too tame for their tastes, so they made him go cold turkey on his meds and that's when he wrote the final episodes, which are totally and completely unhinged. I mean, one of them is just a black screen for most of the episode, with characters talking off screen inside the mind of the main one.

Another version I read is that Eva was made on a very tight budget.  They ran out of money for the last two episodes. 

Major spoiler of the original ending of Eva ahead.  Don't read if you plan to watch Eva.

You have been warned. 




A Star War analogy would be, when Luke enters the Emperor's throne room in Return of the Jedi, the screen cuts to black.  Different characters appear inside Luke's head, and talk about his psychological problems, his traumatic childhood, his relationships with other characters, his love history etc.  After doing this for like half an hour, Luke would suddenly imagine a galaxy where all his buddies and himself would go to school happily.  He suddenly got the idea that this was a possibility that he should work toward.  Then all the characters, including Darth Vader, Palpatine, Han Solo, Leia etc came out of no where to give him a round of applause and congratulate him on finally figuring this genius plan out. 

End.

No need to tell the audience what happened to the death star, the space battle between the rebel and imperial fleets, no mention of the Ewoks.  Just an ending like that. 

[celedhring]

Yeah, I remember that ending. Pissed me off so much, makes the Sopranos finale look great in comparison.

Loved Evangelion otherwise. The monster design was so unique at the time. And yeah, the mystique was intriguing (but unfulfilled for the most part).

[Duque de Bragança]

I was a big Captain Future fan.

The German soundtrack actually helped - they composed a completely new score for the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ8H2csE9bU

Known in French-speaking countries as Capitaine Flam, and yes composing a new score was often done as well, though parts of the original funky score could be found in the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4-89PqmsOU



PS: As for Ulysses 31, this is an interesting case. The animation is Japanese but the scenario and character design is European, French to be precise since there was Jean Chalopin and René Borg behind who wanted for instance the characters to properly animated at 24 fps (anima = soul).


Both are immensely popular among the over 30 crowd nowadays.