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Your thought on early American cartoon done by Japanese studios?

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 5:11 am
by Fireminer
While reading about Osamu Denzaki, I came across a bit of information about his involvement with the American cartoon show Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light. This is nothing weird, since even in the 80s beside the heavily-Americanized shows like Robotech, there were also American-produced, Japanese-animated series, most notable Transformers. I am just wondering what do you thinks of these shows at the time? Were they as interesting as imported anime to you? Did they help anyone to get into anime? Was there anything uniquely-Japanese about these shows' animation, composition, etc.?

Re: Your thought on early American cartoon done by Japanese studios?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 5:38 am
by davemerrill
the best of the bunch was Mighty Orbots, which Dezaki also worked on. Bionic Six was also a pretty good show. Galaxy Rangers was another one that developed its own fan base, fan art, zines, and other fan works, which was rare for a co-production. Among my friends, these shows weren't seen as "anime", precisely, but they were close enough, and people copied and traded episodes along with Japanese shows.

Re: Your thought on early American cartoon done by Japanese studios?

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 6:06 am
by DKop
Since your talking about co-production series Dave, one that i'd like to see either translated or even a fandub would be Reporter Blues. The theme song is catchy and it just seems like a really cool show to enjoy. I'm not sure if that sucker is tied up in licensing or if its even licensed to begin with, would be a cool title released by Discotek if they ever get their hands on it.

From what i've seen of Galaxy Rangers I really enjoyed, and I can see a small and dedicated fanbase coming from that.

Mighty Orbots is a fantastic little show, its too bad it only had 13 episodes. Gary Owens is an underrated narrator.

Re: Your thought on early American cartoon done by Japanese studios?

Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 6:35 pm
by usamimi
A lot of 80s and even 90s cartoons had a lot of their animation outsourced to Japan and Korea. iirc, Jem & The Holograms was animated mostly by Toei, which might explain why the opening looked so great. I wouldn't say there's anything all that "Japanese" about it. Same with the 80s Thundercats series, that was done by Pacific Animation in Japan (aka a lot of the folks that were leftover from Topcraft).