BraveMSW Intro

Tell the old school world who you are, and let us welcome you into the forum!
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BraveMSW
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2012 6:01 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1978

BraveMSW Intro

Post by BraveMSW »

Hello. My real name is Darren. Born in 1970, my father took me to see Disney's Fantasia in 1975. I was blown away, up until that time cartoons were silly Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera stuff. I never knew somebody could animate dinosaurs and images from dreams.

My first clue into the world of anime, was when watching Battle of the Planets I could detect the change in animation quality from the Gatchaman footage and the newer, much more stiff, 7-Zark-7 stuff. And I would ask my parents about this, but they had no clue.

But in 1979, afternoon on thanksgiving day, we were at my grandparents whom just got cable tv. Me and my younger brother were flipping through the channels and all of a sudden we were watching Diamos. Which I immediately recognized from the Shogun Warriors toy line. And I was hooked.

Back then, living in a small town in mid-west flyover country, you didn't have many options for learning about 'Japanimation' (as it was called back then). But there was Starlog magazine, whom infrequently covered the growing anime fandom scene. Of particular note was the classifieds in the back, I would write to each one that use the word 'Japanimation' within it's copy.

By 1984, I had a copy of Fred Schodt's Manga! Manga! book and I knew about all the series that formed Force Five, Voltron, Starblazers, BTOP, etc. That year Harmony Gold put out a full page advertisement in Starlog Mag. for their upcoming VHS release of Macross...At that point it seemed that most of the sins of Americanizing and editing the shows (Force Five, Voltron, BTOP) were over...But, Harmony Gold switched gears and instead we got Robotech.

While Robotech was on air, I was using my contacts from the back of Starlog Mag. to find out anything I could about the Select Convertor Toy line, L-Gaim, and this new (back then) show called Zeta Gundam.

1986 was a year of my "firsts" for me, first job, first bank account, got my drivers license, and picked up my first import Japanese robot toy in a Japanese box courtesy from the Galactic Trade Federation (mail-order business advertised in Starlog) the DX Zeta Gundam.

In 1987 my family took a vacation to the west coast. I was able to visit Books Nippon in LA, picked up a couple of NewType issues (both with a couple pages of Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories) and some Z Gundam art books...

Wow, didn't mean to write so much. Suffices to say, by the time 1995 rolled around I had most of the Streamline VHS catalog and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the speed in which new shows appeared...Never mind when DVDs were introduced.
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greg
Posts: 2159
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:00 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1989 (consciously)
Location: Shizuoka-ken, Japan
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Re: BraveMSW Intro

Post by greg »

Gosh, that is so cool! I loved Starlog magazine. I would read it at the magazine rack when Mom would take me to the grocery store. She'd never buy it for me, so I just had to quickly read through it while she shopped. My library also carried it.

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Daniel
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Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:56 pm
Anime Fan Since: 199X年
Location: USA

Re: BraveMSW Intro

Post by Daniel »

Welcome, Darren!
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llj
Posts: 1185
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 2:36 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1985

Re: BraveMSW Intro

Post by llj »

Hey Darren

Nagano's Five Star Stories were a staple in late 80s and early 90s Newtype issues, weren't they? Going by all the issues I have from that time, it feels like it ran for DECADES.

Also, I recently picked up bunch more early 90s Newtype issues at a sale, and a few things leapt out at me:

1. The Silent Mobius movies were getting a TON of attention in Newtype (of course, Gundam 0083 was too, but that's not surprising considering the magazine, but then Silent Mobius was a Kadokawa published manga)

2. There weren't that much truly notable early 90s TV anime to feature other than Nadia, Yawara, and occasionally Tekkaman Blade. I think Nadia was either a major feature story or on the cover almost every other month during 1990 and 1991 in Newtype. Everything else was a bunch of kids' shows and you could really tell Newtype wasn't much interested in them. The majority of the magazine covered OVAs and American movies. I'd always said that many people really don't know how bad TV anime got in the early 90s, and TV anime didn't get interesting again until the OVA era crashed.
gaijinpunch
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 8:03 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1980
Location: Tokyo

Re: BraveMSW Intro

Post by gaijinpunch »

Welcome.

I've got some older 80's mech stuff lying around here that I, one day, would like to watch. Five Star Stories is one of those weird ones that I had on VHS for the entire run of my collection and I never watched it. :-/ I think by the time I got into the fan sub scene, it had been shown to death at cons. I think I have it somewhere. Need to watch.
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Heibi
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Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:37 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1976
Location: Kansas
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Re: BraveMSW Intro

Post by Heibi »

I had a subscription to Starlog. Welcome to the lounge.
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