Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
Post Reply
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 476
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 3:26 am
Anime Fan Since: 2001

Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by mbanu »

People often mention the impact that Star Blazers fan clubs had in the development of early American anime fandom, especially outside the West Coast's C/FO-dominated landscape, but I never really hear anything about Battle of the Planets; was it not as big of a deal? I know there was an "International Battle of the Planets Fan Club" for a while, as well as the Pat Munson-Siter's Bird Scramble! APA, but I can't seem to find any info on what happened to them... anyone have any more info?
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
SteveH
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 10:30 am
Anime Fan Since: 1979/82 (depending)
Location: Michigan and the Sea of Stars
Contact:

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by SteveH »

Dave probably has better connections and memories, to my mind BotP was always an uphill battle for anime fans. Sandy Frank didn't just chop and trim scenes, change music and all the other things we consider bad today, he actually commissioned new animation (and credit to the studio, they did kind of try to match Tatsunoko. Kind of. Sort of. I don't recall the team being too off-model) to fill in the gaps and allow more exposition for cut or trimmed action.

It's REALLY REALLY hard to give a pass to 7-Zark-7.

I still wonder to this day if the robot in Gatchaman II was put there for Sandy Frank's use or otherwise 'inspired' (Squa Tront! Spa Fon! *Choke* good lord!) by 7-Zark-7.

But the ladies out there (and it was a goodly number of ladies) just used BotP as their catalyst and drank deep of the draft that was Gatchaman. In some ways it mirrored Star Blazers fandom where people would apply the American names to Japanese characters in untranslated media.
runesaint
Posts: 173
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2016 2:47 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1985

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by runesaint »

Huh. Thank you for reminding me of Patricia Munson-Siter, hers is a name I had not thought of for a while. I liked the books that she made back in the day to help people understand certain series, and I think that I have some of her art work in storage.
davemerrill
Posts: 1235
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:38 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1984
Location: the YYZ
Contact:

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by davemerrill »

The BOTP Fan Club connected a lot of fans via ads in Starlog and other places, and some of the club's members are still involved in anime fandom. I know there was a lot of crossover between BOTP Fan Club membership and the Bird Scramble Gatchaman APA that is still going.

AFAIK the club didn't really have any meetings, members were spread out across the US and activity seemed to be limited to reporting news about broadcasts, details about the series, and fan art in the newsletter.

I intend to write a Let's Anime piece about the club whenever I can get my act together enough to track a few people down.
botpv1n2p1.jpg
botpv1n2p1.jpg (141.65 KiB) Viewed 2371 times
SteveH
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 10:30 am
Anime Fan Since: 1979/82 (depending)
Location: Michigan and the Sea of Stars
Contact:

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by SteveH »

I do recall there were meetings staged, more like 'get togethers', at a number of SDCCs. It was James Long pretty much taking point under the eventual guise of the Official Tatsunoko Fan Club USA. Kind of a "hey let's all gather over in this place and talk about stuff!" deal.

Wendy would probably recall those. I always wanted to get to one of them but of course, never the cash.

There was an IRC (Internet relay chat?) gathering of Gatcha-fans, the name escapes me. And a mailing list. This is obviously more mid-90s. :)

I wonder how Ali is doing, the flying Gatcha-Gal of Alaska. And the others. :)
davemerrill
Posts: 1235
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:38 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1984
Location: the YYZ
Contact:

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by davemerrill »

James Long is the go-to guy, I think. He's the person I was advised to get in touch with by the person who sent me the scans of the BOTP fan club newsletters. What I don't know is when exactly they started getting together at SDCC, and if that overlapped with the activities of the actual fan club. I have a feeling it's the same people doing the same fan things, they just decided to drop the formalities.
User avatar
Drew_Sutton
Posts: 659
Joined: Tue May 07, 2013 6:19 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1994
Location: Atlanta, GA US/Hackistan, Internet

Re: Did Battle of the Planets fan clubs have any lasting influence on the anime club scene?

Post by Drew_Sutton »

It sounds like Steve and Dave have their club interactions covered - that BotP fans impacted the anime club scene in as much as they were mutually involved. But I can say that when I started trying to get some background on Gatchaman because I was interested in getting tapes, Battle of the Planets fandom was ever present, even in the late 90s/early 2000s. Using the Internet to find out more, you often had to sift through the BotP specific sites and information. Even though Gatachaman went through several dub iterations, BotP, G Force, Eagle Riders, Battle of the Planets was still the most talked about and referenced variation.
Akihabara Renditions: Japanese Animation of the Bubble Economy
Excuse me, I need to evict some juvenile delinquents from my yard.
Post Reply