least essential OVAs of the 1980s

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davemerrill
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least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by davemerrill »

An in-depth exploration of the 1980s OVAs that are completely the LEAST essential viewing for any anime fan.

http://letsanime.blogspot.com/2013/10/t ... f-80s.html

Fun to write, sure to spark discussion (and has!)
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Captainbubby
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by Captainbubby »

A rather good list I think; Some of those are enjoyable fluff but some are utterly unremarkable and deserve to be forgotten.

I'd place Digital Devil Saga at the top of that list, as a Violence Jack/Urotsukidoji/Angel Cop veteran, no Anime has made me feel
quite as...icky...inside as that aforementioned title. It's not especially violent, but I recall the whole production making me feel rather unsettled in some strange way that is difficult to articulate.

I do appreciate the wording; the term "least essential" is devoid of the malice present in a lot of similar lists and encapsulates what I love about the OVA scene in the 1980's: The huge passionate creative force that was more willing to experiment and fail than to make something that was, first and foremost, commercially viable.

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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by Heero »

I'm impressed that I haven't seen ANY of these (I expected at least one piece of disposable fluff that I would remember from my college days). I'm half-tempted to look for a few if only to spark some awful nostalgia. (I recently bought "Panda & the Magic Serpent" (western release of Toei's "Hakujaden") which has some truly AWFUL dubbing and shows it's age, but the 10 yr old in me will love it forever)

But if nothing else, thanks for this line which is awesome:
Mugen is on the case to protect Tokyo’s exotic dancers!
davemerrill
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by davemerrill »

Some readers have taken the article to be a list of OVAs I hated, which it isn't, and others thought it was a list of MOST essential rather than the opposite. Reading is fundamental, I guess.

I would find it hard to work up any real malice or hate about an anime video. It's an anime video, it's not going to leap out of the DVD player and kill anybody. On the other hand, I did review a few titles for Anime Jump that were lousy enough to inspire feelings of righteous indignation towards the companies that were foisting such junk off on an unsuspecting public, and I still am kind of irritated at the short-sightedness of the "anime industry's" behavior in the boom times.

There's some stuff about the different circumstances behind my first exposure to each of these OVAs here: http://terebifunhouse.tumblr.com/post/6 ... ntial-ovas
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Captainbubby
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by Captainbubby »

davemerrill wrote:Some readers have taken the article to be a list of OVAs I hated, which it isn't, and others thought it was a list of MOST essential rather than the opposite. Reading is fundamental, I guess.
Yes, I'm afraid a large swath of the Internet read things as either black or white; anything remotely subtle will result in the reader merely choosing black or white.

Something that IS completely terrible (Like Crystal Triangle), would paradoxically be MORE essential than the enjoyable (Dead Heat) and less-than-enjoyable (Roots Search) fluff shown in the list.
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by yusaku »

When i think of the least desirable anime titles to own i think of hentai, anime porn. The storylines are usually really repetitious and boring. I do not buy the stuff anymore. Yet, more mainstream anime i can get in the mood for most anytime.
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by usamimi »

I thought it was a great list! I'm pretty sure I've only seen Pink Shock, The Humanoid, and Digital Devil Saga. Pink Shock & Humanoid were both pretty boring, and DDS was kind of cheesy/weird but had some pretty decent animation. The rest, I think I've only ever seen advertisements/screenshots of.

Going back and watching some older OAVs has really been eye-opening for me. Stuff I remember loving as a teenager, now I shake my head a little and wonder just what the hell I was thinking. :lol: I've been considering doing a podcast ep all about terrible OAVs someday, if I can figure out just exactly how to outline it...
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by davemerrill »

part of the anime club culture of that era was that Japanese animation was this rare, precious thing, so we'd watch damn near ANYTHING as long as it was a Japanese cartoon. That meant episodes of aggressively childish TV shows next to bloody gory OVAs full of bare breasts and beheadings and defenestration, followed by an episode of Creamy Mami, followed by an episode of Star Blazers. Didn't matter, it was all anime. These days the audience is a lot more stratified and not many series have a wide appeal.

Of course, this meant that we spent a lot of time watching absolute junk, not having the experience to realize that it was absolute junk and that it probably wasn't worth our time. It's amazing to see these videos 20 years later with subtitles and to find out that even with subtitles, sometimes they make no sense.
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by usamimi »

davemerrill wrote:part of the anime club culture of that era was that Japanese animation was this rare, precious thing, so we'd watch damn near ANYTHING as long as it was a Japanese cartoon. That meant episodes of aggressively childish TV shows next to bloody gory OVAs full of bare breasts and beheadings and defenestration, followed by an episode of Creamy Mami, followed by an episode of Star Blazers. Didn't matter, it was all anime. These days the audience is a lot more stratified and not many series have a wide appeal.

Of course, this meant that we spent a lot of time watching absolute junk, not having the experience to realize that it was absolute junk and that it probably wasn't worth our time. It's amazing to see these videos 20 years later with subtitles and to find out that even with subtitles, sometimes they make no sense.
YES! I totally agree with you about all of these things. Even when I was running my high school anime club in the 90s, it was still like this. We were still watching Ninja Scroll followed by random Japanese episodes of Pokemon. XD

And yeah, a lot of it was junk. Some of the junk is still enjoyable, but some of it is genuinely terrible junk, lol.
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Re: least essential OVAs of the 1980s

Post by davemerrill »

It's like how we used to watch music videos on MTV. In the words of Matt Groening, "These last ten videos have been crappy. Maybe the next one will be cool." That was pretty much how I spent the summer of 1983.
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