Old Anime VS New Anime

[greg]

I didn't get Sci Fi Channel until 1999, like one week before the final episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 aired. So anyhow, I just watched this video of Apollo Smile and I was impressed. I figured she would be annoying and speak Japanese with a terrible accent, but she's actually pretty cool. I was expecting her to be an annoying weeaboo anime girl or something, but she's actually decent and somewhat low-key. She also did the voice for Ulala on the Sega Dreamcast! Cool!

[kndy]

I grew up with old anime and I still review new anime. But my feeling is that you have your good and your bad on both older and newer anime. Part of what I like about today's anime especially on Blu-ray is the video quality but also how much sound engineers put into their sound to create an immersive experience.

I do admit that back then, part of the excitement was discovering anime and meeting people with that similar interest and of course, extending to the convention scene.

But things have changed so much in terms of the fandom and even the conventions but in terms of anime, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for "Maison Ikkoku", "Kimagure Orange Road" but also for modern series such as "Clannad".

[xsquid]

Okay, I'm late to this party, but...

You have to take the shows on their own merits, not whether they're pre- or post-CGI.
Just like live-action movies, good special effects will buff a good story, but the best SFX can't save a bad story. We all have our favorites from the past, so I suggest this as a standard:

Would modern techniques make the show better? If so, how?

I loved VOTOMS, for example, but I loved it even more watching The Pailsen Files. It's not that the concept of the series changed in any way, just the tools for rendering that concept had improved. The Scopedogs and others looked more like the machines they were, which made the human cast appear more human. The battles—especially the massed battles—showed the 'Dogs in their element, with their combat turns and spent cartridges spilled everywhere. They really looked more fearsome than in the old days, and I believe that the computer-generated polish was the main cause of that.
No one seems to think that such techniques were out of place in Ghost In The Shell, now do they? Although it's confined mostly to backdrops and rolling shots, it's still there, and no one complains.

But would Kimagure Orange Road have been better in that style? I don't believe so, and I'm sure most here would agree. It wouldn't have truly improved the visuals, it would have added nothing to the story.
Very few things went boom in KOR, and no artificial glossiness was needed in Hikaru's eyes, nor Madoka's hair. That's not what we watched it for.

Even the studios that use it don't use it all the time, nor everywhere. It's best suited for mecha-intensive shows, and not always even then. Gundam Unicorn has tons of it, but it was used quite sparingly in, say, Big O.
If all else fails, remember: Sturgeon's Law applies to everything.

(There, let's see if that ruffles some fur!)

[greg]

That's a very good point about Votoms. I think that the new renderings made the show more exciting. Even so, I think that the original Votoms set the bar for gritty war mecha, with the robots trudging through jungles and wading through rivers. Gundam didn't get that gritty until the 08th MS Team series.

As for the updated retelling of Area 88, though, I may be inclined to prefer the original. I should re-watch the new version again sometime, since it's been a long while since I watched it.

[Daishikaze]

I think the thing that most modern stuff lacks in Passion: both in show and behind the scenes. Behind the scenes its not hard to see why there is much less passion in their work, Its a hard thankless lifestyle living on poverty level wages. But in show? I'm not sure why there is less passion, less pathos. Whatever it is, things done in anime seem to be done with much less conviction than they used to be. There is much less of the "Damn the Torpedoes!" attitude that made them do awesome yet physically impossible things with reckless abandon, and yet pull it off so brilliantly that no one cared.

Thats not to say there isn't any passion left, but the number of shows really throwing it out there have dwindled. Ring Ni Kakero is a good example, as is anything done by Yasuhiro Imagawa in the last decade, Or the Go Nagai revamps and of course, many sports shows. But this is a drop in well compared to all the anime made today.

Also I think Corporate marching orders are stifling the creativity more than a little bit. I think they are keeping too tight a reign on some of the more creative types, I could be wrong.


This is all just inane babbling from someone who isn't on the inside, and really doesn't know whats happening over there. Feel free to ignore it.

[Net-Lex]

New anime doesn't suck IMO. Check out Kekkaishi and Natsume Yuujin-chou (for anyone who likes yokai related anime).

[r-18]

like every thing else some is good some is bad some is just meh...that applies to both new and old...

[greg]

They just don't make much real science fiction stories anymore these days. Sure, they have some robot shows, but nothing on a grand space opera scale anymore. Sure, there's Macross F, which I haven't seen, but it used to be that there were tons of such shows. Within the past 10 years, truly compelling SF shows have been Planetes and Moonlight Mile. I enjoy Galaxy Angel and stuff like that too, but the halcyon days of epic shows that do not have annoying endings are just bygone memories, it seems.

[danth]

I feel like I want to kill someone when I hear about "dated animation" or how colors in old anime looked "washed out." Like in this blog post. They show scenes from Gunbuster that look amazing - super detailed, beautiful drawings with colors that pop - and then scenes from Diebuster - no detail, not very well drawn, and the colors look faded and boring. In the second DieBuster image, it looks like there is some haze washing out the color, and the last image looks like it was drawn in Paint.

I just don't see how people can talk about 80's anime being "dated" or having "washed out colors." I feel like the universe is playing some sick joke on me, because 80's anime looked so fucking good.

[danth]

Sure, but to be clear I'm not saying old shows don't need remastering.