Anime for Beginners

Either the best anime of all time or the most suspiciously motivated one
You decide!

-->

So as you may have noticed the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show played Gigantor last Saturday. On this blog and also on the show (You can find the podcast here) we mentioned the significance of the show to modern anime distribution in this country. It has occurred to me that anyone who is a fan of our show is probably a fan of cartoons in general and therefore may have a reason to be interested in anime. Of course it a bit frightening to try to access the medium; its hard t know where to start and there’s a lot of passionate fans who may be a little too passionate for your taste (i.e. fat men in schoolgirl outfits). Well your friend Beta Magnus is here to help. I’ll give you eight excellent anime that I feel are good for someone with little experience with Japanese cartoons. I’ll also provide a little background history with anime in general, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet and relevant to American audiences. Let’s begin shall we?

NOTE: Like with the Transformers blog I underestimated how much I had to say on the subject. Therefore this blog has been split into two parts. If you are more interested in the recommendations than a history lesson skip today’s entry and come back tomorrow for Part 2.

First of all I’d like to point out that I disagree with the notion that anime is inherently better than American cartoons as many fans seem to think. In Japan cartoons are just another medium for storytelling no better or worse than film, books, etc. The idea that cartoons and animation are strictly for children doesn’t happen over there. As a result cartoons of just about any genre you can think of targeting any and all age groups are produced in Japan while over here in the West the vast majority is targeted for children. Basically I say that it’s not that Japan is better at making cartoons it’s just that they don’t have their hands tied nearly as badly as creators in North America. Japan is capable of making many terrible cartoons (Kiddy Grade) just like we are capable of making fantastic cartoons (Justice League).

Second of all I will be honest; anime is flawed and not perfect at all. I think there are two main problems that can justifiably turn someone off from it. 1) Its foreign. I don’t mean to sound sort sighted or xenophobic but the fact is that the vast majority of anime was created by Japanese people for Japanese people and they are often littered with jokes, references and sometimes sensibilities that would go over the heads of most Americans. I can’t tell you how many times I scratched my head over some joke about some old Japanese fairy tale or a Japanese comedian reference or some such thing while watching these an otherwise enjoyable show (Or not so enjoyable often enough). They can still be fun t watch, of course, but depending on the cartoon it can be hard. Ranma ½ and Azumanga Daioh are great examples of popular anime that need a guide book in order to get all the jokes. 2) Its expensive. While you can still find free anime on TV (There’s an Anime Network now, I guess) the market is mainly a Home Video Release situation right now and it’s not cheap. Let’s say you want to buy a 26 Episode Series of something. Unless there’s a complete series collection be prepared to drop upwards of thirty bucks per volume (There’s usually between 4 and 8). And yes I’m aware that we live in the internet age and anime is only as hard to get as your BitTorrent connection lasts but I have never been a fan of pirating so I refuse to endorse such means. The result however is that if you want to watch anime on your own you better have a job.

Let’s move on.

Astro Boy: Pantless and Proud Since 1952

"Modern" anime basically can be attributed to the animating of the works of Osamu Tezuka, a manga (comic book) artist who was heavily influenced by Walt Disney. Several of his works over the years were turned in to TV shows or movies (Including what we call Kimba the White Lion and Astro Boy) and became very popular. This has been a backbone of anime since the 50s: take a popular manga and turn it into an anime. Though not all anime are based on manga a very large percentage is and we can thank Osamu for that. Anyway in 60s, as I said in the last blog, a lot of cartoons from Japan were brought over here as a cheap way to make money off children without having to do a lot of expensive animating. Gigantor, Speed Racer, Astro Boy and others are still fondly remembered by the adults who watched them as kids (I know because my father likes to talk about Astro Boy fairly regularly).

The trend continued through the next few decades but it didn’t hit the numbers of the 60s until the late 70s into the 80s. Battle of the Planets/G-Force: Guardians of Space, Voltron, Star Blazers, and Robotech all hit the States during this time, mostly in syndication. And boy did they get chopped up. Some of these shows weren’t appropriate for the younger audiences companies wanted to target but they were heavily edited until they were, sometimes to the point that they didn’t resemble their Japanese counterparts. At the time cartoons, regardless of their origins, were exclusively for kids.

Then Akira happened. Akira changed everything.

I saw this movie when I was 7 years old and now I'm afraid of teddy bears

Based on a manga (Surprise surprise) Akira was released in Japan in 1988 and was a hit. Surprisingly it was brought over to American theaters later that year and soon afterwards released in the video market where it did very well. The film was very violent, filled with mature themes, and armed with a bleak ending. This wasn’t for children and Generation X loved it. Despite being old farts today (Unlike me and my hip and young Generation Y contemporaries) at the time many of them ate it up as being cool and so not mainstream. It wasn’t an odd sight for parents to visit their kids in college and find a copy of Akira on their bookshelves. The success of Akira led to the creation of distribution companies that exclusively worked on bringing anime to North America.

This was a “good news, bad news” sort of thing. The good news was that good Japanese cartoons were being brought over to America with limited editing to “dumb it down” for children. The bad news was that distributors for several years picked a lot of violent and sometimes grotesque movies to license (Fist of the North Star and Ninja Scroll come to mind) which started to give the medium a bad reputation that everything from Japan would scar your children for life because of how violent, sexually charged and ultimately depressing they all were. I recall the Sci-Fi Chanel (Now called SyFy for some reason) playing this up a lot during the early 90s when they showed a lot ton of anime movies in their primetime slots and later Saturday Mornings (Not to be confused with our Saturday Mornings). In a lot of ways it was the opposite extreme to the early days of Astro Boy.

Featuring 100% More Robot Sex Than Astro Boy!

This problem cooled down a bit during the mid-nineties as a greater variety of shows made their way to video markets. But anime popularity wouldn’t explode until the early 2000s. This was the result of a turning point caused by the arrival of a show called Dragon Ball Z.

Cue ominous music...

Originally a manga (Oh really?) called “Dragon Ball” by Akira Toriyama it was turned into a cartoon with the same name in 1986, before it became “Dragon Ball Z” by 1989, but it wouldn’t be until 1996 that it made its way to American syndication. Despite being one of the most beloved TV shows in Japan it didn’t do very well here so it was canceled after thirteen episodes (Ending on something of a cliffhanger) and the next season went right into Dragon Ball Z despite skipping over a hundred episodes of exposition and character introductions and development. The American DBZ was also plagued by content censorship and editing that made scripts utterly ridiculous at best and unintentionally hilarious at worse. Though lasting much longer than its predecessor DBZ was also canceled due to ratings (Also on a cliffhanger). Despite all this the show was a cult hit and many anime fans became staunch defenders of the cartoon declaring it was America who had ruined it and the original Japanese was not only superior it was one of the best shows ever made (Fact: It wasn’t). After several years of die-hard fans whining about it Cartoon Network started playing old reruns of the first American run of DBZ. This time it was a giant hit which led to new, less censored episodes being produced (i.e., dubbed) resulting in some of Cartoon Networks highest ratings and making several people a lot of money.

Pictured: President of Cartoon Network circa 2002

With the strength of DBZ and the anime market in general proven Cartoon Network began showing as much anime as possible, including older shows from the 80s (Robotech) and never-before-seen new ones (Outlaw Star, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing). Ratings were great and the anime market was doing fantastic business. This was the Golden Age of Anime in this country.

You my well recall in the early 2000s just how much of this stuff was everywhere. Book stores, video rental places, all over the TV; you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting same anime somewhere. Ranging from kid shows like Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon to more mature shows like The Big O and FLCL the numbers of anime important were the highest they’d ever been. Anime movies even started to get mainstream theatrical releases (Princess Mononoke) with strong critical praise. The market came down eventually and these days it’s somewhat in a bad way but even now we can still see the impact of those times in stores today. Still anime is harder to find on television than it was eight years ago (Unless you have the Anime Network, I guess) and almost all series and movies have to be bought in stores (Perhaps just as God intended) but sooner or later it will be back in the spotlight. Since the 60s, 80s, and 2000s all experienced big anime booms perhaps by 2020 big eyes, blue haired weirdoes will again take over popular media.

A popular example of modern anime in all its

-->horror splendor

Tomorrow I'll give you my picks for good starter anime for newbies.

SMCS Companion Piece #6: Gigantor

Beta on Gigantor

This week’s cartoon on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show is the classic Japanese anime Gigantor, despite all my protests. Why did I dread this so much? Simple: it’s an anime from the 1960s. Let me explain; anime is pretty neat. Long time SMCS listeners may recall that back before DJ Muppet joined the show I was co-hosting not only this show but also a J-Pop themed show that came on right after it Cyberia Café (RIP). Like with all other hosts of that show I was a big anime fan. As any anime fan I, like so many of us, tend to get a little annoyed with lackluster dubbing that tries to turn a Japanese cartoon into an American one by changing names of people, places, and even altering plot in order to trick you into thinking this was a product of the West. This has been a problem for years even if it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. The most recent example I think of is the insanely popular One Piece which due to terrible voice acting, removal of “offensive” violence and cutting of entire episodes caused the franchise in this country to fall apart. While it makes billions and possibly the most successful anime/manga franchise of all time in Japan it’s only a moderate success in the States (It was so bad that Japanese companies are now hesitant to bring their big name anime here for fear of more ball dropping).

Pictured: Axis Super Weapon

Several historically relevant anime had this happened to them as well, including Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon (Really badly, in fact), Robotech and Star Blazers. But it was the 1960s that the trend started. Speed Racer, Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and others brought over to America and altered as the producers saw fit. Now I know that if it wasn’t for these producers anime may have never made it to America but that doesn’t make it any less painful to watch.

EDIT: It has since occurred to me that Gigantor, Seed Racer and the others were imported during a time where the memory of Peal Harbor was still pretty fresh in people's minds and it wasn't all forgive and forget. So naturally they'd want to Americanize as much of this Japanese cartoon as possible in order to avoid offending people. Not that that makes me any less annoyed, of course.

Anyway I don’t plan on writing an entry about bad importing (Not today anyway). Let’s take a look at Gigantor.

If this was real World War II would have ended differently

Like many Japanese cartoons Gigantor, originally known as Tetsujin 28-go (Iron Man 28), started as a manga (Comic Book). It was first published in 1956 and ran through 1966 and was written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. It was turned into a cartoon series in 1963 and became super popular. Later a man named Fred Ladd, who earlier realized that if he brought pre-made Japanese cartoon Mighty Atom (Later known as Astro Boy) he could print money, adapted the show into what we now refer to as “Gigantor”. Armed with an awesome theme song and the usual altered character names and situations the show did well in the West as it had done in the Japan. Testusjin 28-go went on to be a popular franchise getting remakes and movies all the way through present day, some of which have had Gigantor counterparts.

The cartoon was about WWII Japanese scientist Dr. Kaneda who tries to create a super weapon in the form of giant remote controlled robot in order to murder as many Americans as possible. He finally completes his creation after twenty-seven failures but by the time he does the war is long over. Also his heart explodes, presumably because God hates it when you create doomsday devices. Rather than dismantling the weapon or turning it over to the United Nations it’s given it to Kaneda’s 10-YEAR OLD SON! What the hell, Japan? Anyway the boy, named Shotaro, uses the robot to fight monsters or something. Now that’s not the best premise for a Red, White and Blue audience so we need to tweak things a bit. Gigantor, unlike Testujin, takes place in the FAR FUTURE YEAR OF 2000!!!!!! Gigantor wasn’t a diabolical Japanese WMD in this version! Also Shotaro is hard to pronounce so we’ll call the kid Jimmy Sparks with a straight face instead.

Bow down American scum, for I possess Gigantor!

Also get me some juice

Now this show is doubly historically relevant. First it’s one of the first anime to make it to our fair country. Regardless as to how you feel about it certainly planted the seeds for the 80s boom of Japanese cartoons that included Akira’s unexpected popularity. The other thing is that it’s the oldest version of any Super Robot series I can find so therefore I assume it’s the originator of the genre. For those of you not familiar with “Super Robots” as genre just think of any giant robot cliché; that’s a mainstay of Super Robot.

-Giant Robot that may be alive? SUPER ROBOT!

-Controlled by a (Hot Blooded) young boy or a cute high school girl? SUPER ROBOT!

-Said controller doesn’t use cockpit to work the robot? SUPER ROBOT!

-Rocket Punch? SUPER ROBOT!

Not to be confused with “Real Robot” which is shows like Mobile Suit Gundam where the robots are mostly mass production weapons no different from tanks. Gigantor was probably the first robot show and therefore should be celebrated for that fact. I will say that even if it was the original giant robot I would argue that it was Mazinger Z that is the most important for the genre as a whole. That’s story for another day.

Mazinger Z, also a WMD in the hands of the Japanese

Also check out this badass theme song

For more on Gigantor click here

For the Saturday Mornign Cartoon Show blog/podcast click here

Review: The Book of Eli

I’m writing this soon after I watched the film in order to keep it fresh in my head. Therefore I’m probably more likely to say rude and thoughtless things.

So I want to first point out that there are not enough black main characters in movies like this. I mean this movie is at the end of the day a Post-Apocalypse science fiction film akin to the Mad Max series. Have you noticed in fantasy and sci-fi flicks you usually don’t have the lead played by a strong African-American? Sure it’s not unheard of but usually we’re either sidekicks or it’s a comedy tongue in cheek kind of film and Eddie Murphy is the one starring in it. Normally it’s a white guy running around saving the world, though sometimes it’s an Asian guy, and frankly it bums me out.Where ’s my hero? Where am I being represented? Really only Will Smith movies have this going on but I’ll share a secret with you: Will Smith is awful.

Wooo! Haha!

The Book of Eli stars Denzel Washington, who has proven that he can play a murdering badass without it looking out of place (See: Man on Fire), as the wandering hero "Eli". It also stars professional movie villain Gary Oldman as the boss of a town Denzel comes across. It also stars Mila Kunis which is normally a strong reason for me to stay away from a film but I’ve been a a lot more forgiving of her limited acting range ever since I learned of the talent black hole that is Megan Fox. Tom Waits is also in this movie playing the same role he played in Mystery Men, Domino, and Wristcutters: a grizzled and eccentric (Possibly magical) old man. That might be typecasting but whatever; why mess with success?

"Eli" in a rare moment of not killing white folk

The plot of this film revolves around Denzel wandering through the barren wasteland of a post apocalyptic United States carrying an important book and generally slaughtering anyone who gets in his way. He stumbles across a town that Gary Oldman evilly runs but as luck would have it the sinister fellow just happens to be searching for the very book Denzel is protecting. Therefore violence ensues as Oldman and his goons repeatedly attempt to relieve Washington of his possession. Along the way Mila Kunis just sort follows Denzel around for no real reason other than to almost get raped by bandits.

Of course the major theme in this plot is the importance of faith; something Washington’s character has in abundance and something Oldman’s character wants to use as a weapon. Which is fine. I can think of no more important scenario where having faith is important than after society implodes. The plot is not exactly the deepest thing ever written but it gets the job done and also delivers on a whole lot of shoot outs and sword fights. Did we really need them? Who cares? Cut his freaking head off! The world presented is also nothing we haven’t seen in other films before. No reinvention of the wheel here, folks. It’s a wasteland that is inhabited by cannibals, highwaymen and illiterate rapists and suffers from a shortage of water. Everyone wears sunglasses because it’s really sunny. And also takes place in the southwest.

Washington is pretty good in this film. He won’t win any Oscars for it but he does a solid job. His character doesn’t really require much: shoot some guys, cut some guys, say some prayers, be polite. Oldman does what he does best and pulls off another solid antagonist performance to add to his resume. Mila Kunis…well she’s not great. The girl needs to learn how to emote. She’s usually fine until she has to express something other than neutrality then it gets really insincere really fast. That’s all her performances though, not simply this one. It’s sort of tragic funny that she has share the screen with such well respected actors. Simply put she can’t keep up.

Just attractive enough to warrant being in movies

I liked the action scenes and I thought the plot was pretty decent, but there were some aspects that bothered me. Like for instance it’s stated that the movie takes place about thirty years after the world ends and yet somehow there’s still a decent supply of guns, ammo, cars and fuel. I understand that a lot of it was being hoarded by a warlord but c’mon! Thirty years is a long time to keep three or four cars on a full tank and in working condition. This happens a lot in these types of films. If we’re several decades past the Apocalypse I would like to hope we’ve mastered the use of a machete and not still trying to utilize useless guns. Also the ending bothered me. I won’t get into details but I felt that it dragged on way too long and that the big reveal at the end was sort of lame.

Wrong type of machete but still crazy awesome

That said this was a very enjoyable movie. It wasn’t too dumb and wasn’t overly pretentious. It had a good amount of action and an important lesson about faith that I happen to agree with. While it’s not close to perfect its well above the line of being entertaining.

I give this film 4 Adorable Pandas out of 5

Pros

-A Black Protagonist in a Science Fiction film

-Played by Denzel Washington and not Will Smith

-Gary Oldman delivers yet another solid villain performance

-Fun action and a decent plot

-Hey its Tom Waits!

Cons

-Mila Kunis needs acting lessons

-Unsatisfying ending

-Nothing new as far as this genre goes