The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

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Fireminer
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The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

Post by Fireminer »

Can anyone here please give me an explanation about whether is there a cross-appeal between the anime and furry fandoms in the past? I know of Fred Pattern and Mark Merlino, as well as the influence of furry on early Japanese animation societies, but were these exceptions rather than the rules? Wasn't a lot of anime fans and furry fans all started by first getting into science-fictions?
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NorthernKaleCity
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Re: The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

Post by NorthernKaleCity »

The relationship between anime and furry has always been there from the very beginning, Fire. Anime and manga as a whole, have always been hand in hand with all sorts of genres, including furry. You really can't have one, without the other.

I don't think furry has to rely on being associated with anime in order to validate itself, but that's just my opinion. I think furry now, is its own stand alone genre in and of itself, which is pretty neat.

I know it's not the answer you might be looking for, I just thought I'd offer something up to maybe help get the ball rolling.
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mbanu
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Re: The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

Post by mbanu »

If I understand correctly, this was because anime fandom drew not only from science fiction fandom but from Hollywood animation fandom, which was largely about animals that talked and acted like humans -- Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, etc. Part of it might have just been because the first American anime club was in LA, but also I think because at the time, interest in animation of any sort was dying out. Fred Patten actually wrote about this: http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/ho ... me-fandom/
Someone at that party asked Lantz, who worked on his first cartoon in 1915 and directed his first cartoon in 1924, what he thought had been the greatest technological development in the history of animation. The addition of sound to silent cartoons? The multiplane camera? The replacement of hand cel coloring by computer coloring? Lantz surprised everyone by insisting that it was the introduction of home VCRs in 1975.

I don’t know if he was recorded, but he said approximately:

“In 1975 animation was a dying art! All the theatrical animation studios were closed except Disney, and by 1975 even Disney was moribund. Animation for TV was all toy and cereal commercials, and was so bland that nobody but little children watched it. The very few festivals of animation were glorifications of the past, attended mostly by animation veterans and cinematic scholars, not the public. Then in 1975 the first home video cassette recorders came out. They took about a decade to become widespread, but suddenly the public was asking TV stations to show more classic cartoons so they could record them to watch whenever they wanted. Movie studios and whoever owned the rights to old cartoons found that there was big money in putting them out on video. The first video releases of old prints were later upgraded to remastered prints with original title cards. Today new animation features are being made because the studios know that they can make as much or more from video sales as from theatrical screenings. Animation that hasn’t been seen in decades is available again, and permanently for whenever anyone wants to see it, not just when its studio re-releases it theatrically or on TV. The animation industry was just short of dying when the first VCRs came out; now it’s bigger than ever!”
People who were interested in animation of any sort found themselves drawn together as they looked for access to films and recordings, and by meeting with one another there was a bit of spread and blur in interests, sort of like how many indie comic book fans will be kind of familiar with superhero comics.
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Re: The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

Post by DKop »

I can actually confrim Lantz stance on this from Fred article about when the commercial VCR hit the shelves when he talked about it in Newtype USA Vol.2 No.11, which you can read about other Fred's articles that I put out as a blog post not too long ago in honor of his memory on my site: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2 ... rious.html
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Fireminer
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Re: The past relationship between the anime and furry fandoms

Post by Fireminer »

DKop wrote: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:49 am I can actually confrim Lantz stance on this from Fred article about when the commercial VCR hit the shelves when he talked about it in Newtype USA Vol.2 No.11, which you can read about other Fred's articles that I put out as a blog post not too long ago in honor of his memory on my site: http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2 ... rious.html
Thanks for the heads-up! But for some reasons, I haven't been able to access any Blogspot page without using VPN.
mbanu wrote: Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:16 am If I understand correctly, this was because anime fandom drew not only from science fiction fandom but from Hollywood animation fandom, which was largely about animals that talked and acted like humans -- Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, etc. Part of it might have just been because the first American anime club was in LA, but also I think because at the time, interest in animation of any sort was dying out. Fred Patten actually wrote about this: http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/ho ... me-fandom/
Someone at that party asked Lantz, who worked on his first cartoon in 1915 and directed his first cartoon in 1924, what he thought had been the greatest technological development in the history of animation. The addition of sound to silent cartoons? The multiplane camera? The replacement of hand cel coloring by computer coloring? Lantz surprised everyone by insisting that it was the introduction of home VCRs in 1975.

I don’t know if he was recorded, but he said approximately:

“In 1975 animation was a dying art! All the theatrical animation studios were closed except Disney, and by 1975 even Disney was moribund. Animation for TV was all toy and cereal commercials, and was so bland that nobody but little children watched it. The very few festivals of animation were glorifications of the past, attended mostly by animation veterans and cinematic scholars, not the public. Then in 1975 the first home video cassette recorders came out. They took about a decade to become widespread, but suddenly the public was asking TV stations to show more classic cartoons so they could record them to watch whenever they wanted. Movie studios and whoever owned the rights to old cartoons found that there was big money in putting them out on video. The first video releases of old prints were later upgraded to remastered prints with original title cards. Today new animation features are being made because the studios know that they can make as much or more from video sales as from theatrical screenings. Animation that hasn’t been seen in decades is available again, and permanently for whenever anyone wants to see it, not just when its studio re-releases it theatrically or on TV. The animation industry was just short of dying when the first VCRs came out; now it’s bigger than ever!”
People who were interested in animation of any sort found themselves drawn together as they looked for access to films and recordings, and by meeting with one another there was a bit of spread and blur in interests, sort of like how many indie comic book fans will be kind of familiar with superhero comics.
So, you think that the beginning of the revival of animation brought many people together, and that crowd generated the need for organization, which led to the formation of anime and Furry fandoms?

That kind of makes sense, but I want ask some more about the "feels" that both early Furry and anime fans sought. If you think about it, both mediums were actually quite more mature than most things in animation during the time, correct? (The first thing that I came up with when putting "animation" and "Furry" together is Fritz the Cat.)

(Also, were American TV Animation in the 50s and 60s that bad as everyone said? And were this common throughout the Western countries, or just America? French and Italia must had had retained some respect for the medium, right?)
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