What's between Old School and New School?

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mbanu
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What's between Old School and New School?

Post by mbanu »

I don't count as Old School. I was watching dubs of The Noozles on Nickelodeon while I imagine most of you were out founding the first college clubs, or maybe even narrating raw tapes from a script at the local C/FO chapter meeting.

During the mid-90s I browsed rec.arts.anime through a connection at my local library. I was fascinated by the lists of fansubs, graded like rare collectibles and described in that sort of hush-hush excited tone that talked about how close they were to the laserdisc masters -- it sounded so exotic! I was never really a part of that world, though -- I guess I was too timid or maybe too young to send off VHS tapes to strangers' addresses.

However, I'm not sure I count as New School anymore, either. I vividly remember seeing E.Y.E.S. of Mars on TV one night, but never being able to find out more about it. My first "real" anime was Serial Experiments Lain, watched off a friend's DVD set in late 2001 (I think -- it might have been early 2002). I guess I would be considered part of the great Pirate Wave of anime fandom that came into being after the development of peer-to-peer software.

That generation has now been replaced with the modern generation of Streaming fandom, watching legitimate simulcasts at the same time as Japanese fans and having access to the original Japanese creators through Twitter as their normal, while being a little hazy on what a fansub is at all.

Hopefully I can learn more about the anime fandom of my Usenet youth -- the college clubs with weird acronym names, the Amiga fansubs, brick-and-mortar anime stores, Animerica, the finer points of blacking out a VHS tape. (^_^)
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
runesaint
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by runesaint »

Hmmm. "Middle School" , perhaps? In any case, welcome ^_^
-R
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DKop
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by DKop »

My binary definition would be something like:

Me talking to modern anime fan at a con: "Hey, you ever heard of 'x/y/z' series before in 1987?"
Fan: "What are you talking about? No I haven't."
My Label: An Old School Fan

Me talking to modern anime fan at a con: "Hey, you saw that new 'x/y/z/ series on Crunchyroll that came out last week that just aired in Japan, has been featured on the front page of Otaku USA and will play on Toonami soon?"
Fan: "Yea I totally love that show!!!"
My Label: New School Fan

It's not a solid definition, but that's kinda how my mind works. It seems that anime is still kinda a fad thing, so with newer series coming out and being really accessable to find on current streaming sites, current fans will say they are fans of anime because of those series. Chances are, if it was never on television in the states or doesn't have a slot on Crunchyroll, today's average fan wont know or won't care about it.

I label myself an old school fan because I still do some good old fashion "digging" to find something about a series/movie/ova that I want to check out. I will utilize every aspect of the internet, as I have been doing since 1999, to find out whatever I can about something in obtaining any amount of feedback or information about it. To this day, I want to believe that a rip of the English Dub of the original Sol Bianca is on the internet, because I know for a fact I saw it through a friends vhs tape that he tapped from STARZ network 15 years ago. I am also considered a member of the Sol Bianca fan club, which consists of me and.... myself at this point in time. I'd kill for a Sol Bianca art book, which I know one has to exist somewhere. Ok, where was I again...

I think the amount of research a fan will put into finding out about a series that they are interested in is one trait that goes into what defines them as a New or Old School fan. Of course, a New School fan can be someone that is on the path to doing research in finding out what they can on a director or character designers works and start from there in watching titles that take them back 30 or more years at this point, so long as their are fansubs of the material that exist for them to see it.

One of the great things about anime fandom to me is that I learn something new about anime just about everyday. A new series, movie, etc that you'd never thought existed or could exist might show up on an article on a blog one day that will gain your attention long enough to do your own research about it. I don't want to say newer anime fans don't want to research, but if they don't they won't stay fans for long. The ones that have stuck around and are still engrossed in anime decades later were the ones that took the time to seek out anything and everything by Japan that they found fascinating. I feel like that is something New School fans are lacking when everything is in front of them at once and they either get overwhelmed or push it to the side, because they don't find any personal merit to sticking with it because they don't have to go out and dig up information, which is something Old School fans like myself has done for years.

The key is that the fandom stick with you the more you dig that hole and uncover more and more information, and today couldn't be easier with how sites and encyclopedias are set up for people to find all they can on anime/manga/Japanese culture. Plus, that need to dig up those holes need to be around so that there is a future for New fans to be the Old fans in the future, and the torch must be passed on. Holy Damn, that was too long.
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Akage
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by Akage »

I personally hate labels. I've never defined myself as an 'old school' , 'new school' or some other offshoot-fan. I'm a fan of the artwork, though. That's what really brought me into liking this genre, so collecting and preserving the actual artwork used in making it is my focus. I think all of us have stayed around in this hobby for as long as we have because there's some aspect that we still, years later, have yet to grow tired of doing.

Your experiences, especially those such as watching anime on DVDs (who does that now?!), will one day be considered as a trait of an old school fan. I don't think any of us thought about such experiences as strolling into Suncoast and buying anime on VHS as something that would define us as being old school back then either. You simply did it because that's how things were done. Sending in VHS tapes (or buying them from a fansubber) was no big deal back then either. It was just how you got around to seeing anime that would likely never be licensed in the US (or would, but not until 20 years later).

DKop, I did a quick search of YJ for you. I did come up empty handed on the Sol Bianca art book, but there was an old Pioneer US DVD release set and a couple cels-

http://shoppingmalljapan.com/cgi-bin/se ... f196188783
http://shoppingmalljapan.com/cgi-bin/se ... s147605036
http://shoppingmalljapan.com/cgi-bin/se ... c184868787

If you see something of interest and don't want to join a deputy service, I can pick it up for you. I'll keep checking on the art book though.
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by DKop »

PM Sent. If you can keep your eyes out on one let me know, id appreciate it.
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by usamimi »

Welcome to the forum! Hey, I think you def can call yourself an old school fan, seeing as I also watched the Nickelodeon dub of the Noozles. :lol: There's no "requirements" when it comes to being a fan of something, regardless of what people might try to dictate to you: you like old school anime? You're an old school fan, regardless of how long you've been into it. ;) I hope you enjoy it here!
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by davemerrill »

"Old School" is a fine bit of slang, but its definition changes wildly depending on context.

And remember, no matter how old school something or somebody is, there's always an older school out there somewhere.

Welcome to the forums!
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by Drew_Sutton »

Yet another welcome to the forums!

I like Runesaint's "Middle School" idea - if anything because I think trying to put oneself into some arbitrary trinary bracket, where they have to determine their own endpoints, like that sounds incredibly awkward. Much like middle school itself.

I think each person would vary so drastically as to what would be considered "Old" and "New" School that everyone winds up in their own "Middle" School. Shows like Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball Z were at the forefront of my first few years of fandom, so I can immediately bond with other fans over those shows. Most of those fans are probably around my own age, plus or minus a few years (DBZ really skews things though). However, go up a few years when we had the Pokemon boom; I was never into it, so when I meet people at cons who are five or ten years younger than me, they embrace this thing that's been a huge part of their lives and fandom and I don't quite relate. While I think it's productive to talk maybe about waves of fandom - which shows were released in the US when and garnered a lot of people into the fandom - trying to put fans into some classification isn't as productive.
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mbanu
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by mbanu »

Drew_Sutton wrote:Shows like Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball Z were at the forefront of my first few years of fandom, so I can immediately bond with other fans over those shows. Most of those fans are probably around my own age, plus or minus a few years (DBZ really skews things though). However, go up a few years when we had the Pokemon boom; I was never into it, so when I meet people at cons who are five or ten years younger than me, they embrace this thing that's been a huge part of their lives and fandom and I don't quite relate.
For me, Pokemon was a nostalgia trip, because it reminded me of the Nickelodeon anime I watched as a kid. I knew I was too old for it, but I was still a fan. (^_^) I don't quite remember how, but it was with Pokemon that it dawned on me that the Nickelodeon cartoons from when I was a kid, that weird E.Y.E.S. of Mars film I had seen on the Sci-Fi channel, and the stuff they were talking about on rec.arts.anime were in fact all the same thing. I had Usenet access through the local library, but it was text-only; my understanding of anime back then was reading descriptions and then trying to imagine what it might look like. (^_^;)
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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Re: What's between Old School and New School?

Post by SteveH »

I dunno. I subscribe to the 'inception point' or 'catalyst anime' idea. The tipping point, that one show that took you from "I'm just watching this thing" to "I have GOT to learn more about this!!" territory.

And there are tiers to this. Off air kidvid syndication. Afternoon Toonami kidvid slot. The mass market retail tidal wave (genesis in the Toonami layer), Nighttime Toonami 'for adults hurr huur' , and probably others. Maybe just general "der Internet' is the current entry point.

It's about delivery and exposure. Note, if you look at that in terms of time and technological development the exposure becomes smaller and smaller.

Is there a 'learning curve' now? Is it just simply consumption via fire hose? I don't know.
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