The old-school anime DVD/BD news thread.

[llj]

I do hope that people who don't have it will get it, though--this is SUCH a gorgeous movie, I feel like it's slipped through the cracks into obscurity now that time has gone by...I remember when it was on every anime fan's must-see list, now I rarely seem to hear about it anymore. :/

Times have changed too. This kind of film doesn't hold as much appeal for today's anime fans as they did for older fans. It's long, it's slow, and it kind of meanders. In today's "instant gratification" generation, that's poison. And the rape scene--while it was certainly contentious back in its day, anime fans back then were at least able to discuss it in more contextual terms. Today, it's largely seen by modern anime fans in more simplistic terms: "Does this make me feel good about Shiro or not? The answer is not. Therefore I do not like him anymore. Why does Riquinni try to ignore it? This scene doesn't make sense." etc etc

(For the record, I do think the scene by itself is problematic in some ways, but I don't think its inclusion in the film is problematic. It belongs. There, I said it.)

[greg]

I want to compare the attempted rape scene to the so-called "love scene" in Blade Runner. The context of these two scenes is very different, but they both involve the protagonist forcing (or attempting to force) love onto their love interest. In Blade Runner, you can say that since they are both Replicants, they are only given a short few years to lie and to understand the human emotions that life entails, thus they are both very insecure and struggling. In Honneamise, I think it just shows Shiro in a very, very low point in his life. He makes a very bad move and gets knocked on the head as a result. Afterwards, she plays it down and tries to ignore it. Maybe it's her religious way of forgiving him? If that's so, then the grace she shows him helps lead him to salvation at the end. For at the end of the movie, when Shiro is high in orbit, above all the war and sin, surrounded only by the cosmos and God, he embraces the message of salvation that Riquinni has taught him. He originally was just going along with the religious act because he had the hots for the girl, but in the end, he becomes serious about it.

At least that's how I see it!

[kndy]

oh yeah, the old set is gorgeous! Comes in a nice box, little artbook, dvd, and blu-ray. Someone posted a pic on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media ... F8&index=0

I doubt that Sentai's will be as ~fancy~, but the fact that it's even getting a re-release is good enough. Hopefully kids will see that it's from Gainax and pick it up, lol.

The VHS version was ok, but suffered from poor transfer, imo. (The old DVD release was even worse--Manga just transferred the tape footage digitally, ugh, it was BAD.) You'll love the blu-ray, I'm sure!

I agree...Sentai releases don't come with swag. Maybe a postcard.

Any Blu-ray or DVD release from Bandai Visual years ago are pretty expensive. The fact is that they were among the first to release anime on Blu-ray when many were not buying anime on BD (as they supported HD-DVD), the prices were expensive. To this day, anime fans who see my picture from 2010 send me an e-mail to offer me money for "Jin-Roh", "Yukikaze", "Freedom" and "Wings of Honneamise".

I did get the recent "Gurren Lagann" set from Aniplex, I have the original from Bandai...and there are two differences. Bandai included a manga and the vocal soundtrack, the Aniplex comes with more swag but no manga and the music soundtrack (no vocals).

---------
As for the film, I tend to thing that "Wings of Honneamise" is a product of its time. I think that a lot of the things we saw that were awesome then, are not so awesome now to the younger generation.

The fact is that we appreciate certain anime, music or forms of entertainment that were a big part of our lives at the time.

I recently had this discussion when it came to Entertainment Weekly's, what was "The Last Great Rock Album". Back in the '80s, people would say Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard or guns n roses. In the 90's, people feel strongly that Nirvana was the band of all time while those in the UK felt OASIS was the greatest. Now, people feel that White Stripes, Green Day or Mumford & Sons are the best and I see Gen-Y trying to make their reasoning of why people think that the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Doors, etc. were great bands for their time but when compared to today's bands, it's not the same.

When it comes to public perception towards anime, sometimes I feel it depends on those vocalizing about certain releases. For Bandai, "Akira" was a major seller on Blu-ray, they marketed that whole release as utilizing superior technology for picture quality and sound. The buzz for the release was phenomenal.

"Wings of Honneamise" was released and only a few would vouch for the Blu-ray release and part of that reason is because many of the old timers who loved the film were not Blu-ray adopters.

Whereas, a classic arthouse film or important film from the Criterion Collection or Kino would receive fanfare from the older fans who have adopted Blu-ray, it was not like that for anime.

I have probably seen more discussion on the "Wings of Honneamise" on Blu-ray on The Aging Otaku Lounge than the anime on Blu-ray forum I created on Blu-ray.com years ago.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=101899

The forum is one of the popular on the site BUT you can read some of the posts and see the differences of the fans who watch anime now on Blu-ray versus discussions we had many years ago on rec.arts.anime, VBBS, etc. about animated series or films.

It's sad to say but when it comes to classics, the only discussion I have seen for classic anime on Blu-ray was for "Akira", "Gunbuster" and "Ninja Scroll". Today, many people (particularly those who purchase Blu-ray) are driven by anime with magnificent picture quality and immersive surround usage via its lossless track. Granted, people were the same back in the LD years but when it comes to anime on Blu-ray and those discussing classic anime on BD, there is that group who thinks its a waste because they were never created in HD originally or it's too expensive to fix up for Blu-ray ("Akira" was expensive and also "Dragon Ball Z" which was canceled after the second Blu-ray release ->http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2 ... ay-release).

Oops got to get back to work....

[llj]

I want to compare the attempted rape scene to the so-called "love scene" in Blade Runner. The context of these two scenes is very different, but they both involve the protagonist forcing (or attempting to force) love onto their love interest. In Blade Runner, you can say that since they are both Replicants, they are only given a short few years to lie and to understand the human emotions that life entails, thus they are both very insecure and struggling. In Honneamise, I think it just shows Shiro in a very, very low point in his life. He makes a very bad move and gets knocked on the head as a result. Afterwards, she plays it down and tries to ignore it. Maybe it's her religious way of forgiving him? If that's so, then the grace she shows him helps lead him to salvation at the end. For at the end of the movie, when Shiro is high in orbit, above all the war and sin, surrounded only by the cosmos and God, he embraces the message of salvation that Riquinni has taught him. He originally was just going along with the religious act because he had the hots for the girl, but in the end, he becomes serious about it.

At least that's how I see it!

That's pretty close to how I see it. I also think Riquinni is pretty flawed, herself. She's someone who would prefer to ignore her own problems by distracting herself with something else. So her reaction the next morning really isn't that surprising. It's kind of implied that her life generally isn't too great, and with Shiro basically being the only person who responded to her religious ads, it seemed to illustrate that she didn't necessarily *expect* anyone to actually join in her religious enthusiasm.

At the same time, their relationship is profoundly altered by the attempted rape, too. When Shiro says goodbye to her, you get a pretty good sense that they're never going to see each other again, and the awkwardness between them during that last meeting kind of shows how they'd never be like they were before that night. But despite that, there's still an invisible bond between them. I think that's what Shiro's speech at the end, and the falling snow, also implied.

A lot of fans have said that the movie would be "perfect" without the scene, but the fact is, the movie wouldn't necessarily make sense without it, either. It may not be a crowd pleasing moment (which is what most viewers tend to look for in their entertainment), but it's not necessarily out of place, either. As you said, Shiro had the hots for her from the very beginning, so it's not like he was initially a nice guy looking at her solely out of benevolence. And his dedication to bettering himself as a person in the final 3rd of the movie is his way of trying to make up for his "sins". That's what I think anyway.

[greg]

The fact is that we appreciate certain anime, music or forms of entertainment that were a big part of our lives at the time.

That can be used to justify our love for rather dated movies like Big Trouble In Little China, Buckaroo Banzai, or Pretty In Pink, but you can't ignore the fact that with each generation, entertainment gets more and more dumbed-down. When I watched Seasme Street, Grover was the coolest. Children these days may think that he's boring. He doesn't talk with a whiney voice, doesn't spaz out enough, etc. So now it's Elmo. The generation before my own could watch epic movies like Lawrence of Arabia, and while I could enjoy long movies, others in Generation X weren't too keen on it. With the new Generation Y... forget it. Attention spans have been reduced too drastically. Movies nowadays must have nothing but explosions. In the '80s, an action movie like Die Hard was great, even though it all occurred in one building. Now, the scope has to be so much greater, the explosions must be so much bigger, the action has to be so much more over-the-top, etc.

Everything has to be about instant gratification. Unlocking achievements in video games, for example. I remember when beating a game was considered an achievement. Movies these days just can't keep it simple. They have to make the movies overly complex, which invites tons of plot holes and obvious questions about character motivations and such.

Wings of Honneamise is just lost on younger people because it doesn't have enough action or whatever in it. Too much philosophy and slow pacing. Not enough explosions and panty shots. It isn't dumbed-down enough.

[kndy]

The fact is that we appreciate certain anime, music or forms of entertainment that were a big part of our lives at the time.

That can be used to justify our love for rather dated movies like Big Trouble In Little China, Buckaroo Banzai, or Pretty In Pink, but you can't ignore the fact that with each generation, entertainment gets more and more dumbed-down. When I watched Seasme Street, Grover was the coolest. Children these days may think that he's boring. He doesn't talk with a whiney voice, doesn't spaz out enough, etc. So now it's Elmo. The generation before my own could watch epic movies like Lawrence of Arabia, and while I could enjoy long movies, others in Generation X weren't too keen on it. With the new Generation Y... forget it. Attention spans have been reduced too drastically. Movies nowadays must have nothing but explosions. In the '80s, an action movie like Die Hard was great, even though it all occurred in one building. Now, the scope has to be so much greater, the explosions must be so much bigger, the action has to be so much more over-the-top, etc.

Everything has to be about instant gratification. Unlocking achievements in video games, for example. I remember when beating a game was considered an achievement. Movies these days just can't keep it simple. They have to make the movies overly complex, which invites tons of plot holes and obvious questions about character motivations and such.

Wings of Honneamise is just lost on younger people because it doesn't have enough action or whatever in it. Too much philosophy and slow pacing. Not enough explosions and panty shots. It isn't dumbed-down enough.

It irks me when the younger generation try to justify of why these films work for us back then and doesn't work now.

[llj]

It's not that there aren't good, challenging, unique anime today, and it's not like there weren't awful, dumb, pandering stuff 20 years ago. It's just that the reasoning for fans "getting into" anime today are different than they were 15, 20 years ago. This stuff wasn't just sitting out in the open waiting for an audience to stroll by like it is now; you actually had to seek it out. As such, many people who got into anime before the big 2000s "boom" were actively looking for something different, something that wasn't necessarily typical "mainstream" entertainment. So the more weird, experimental, non-crowd pleasing stuff was more readily embraced. That's not to say they were always successful or even profitable, but there was a decent chance they would still find an audience. As anime got more popular though, the reasoning for getting into the hobby changed.

Fans today give lip-service to unique or experimental anime today, but you'll find at the end of the day, their wallets only open for familiar fan-pleasing properties like Shonen Jump anime, harem, moe slice of life, etc,. And I'm not just talking about Japanese fans here. For all the bemoaning American anime fans heap on Japanese otaku ruining their hobby, American anime fans really aren't much different. I always laugh when I see those anime message boards filled with rants about "moe" by posters with a new "moe" avatar nearly every week...


Anyway, I'm pretty sure we went on these "back in my day we had starve for our anime, kids get off my lawn, etc,." rants a few months ago, and I'm pretty sure I posted something like this here before, so I'll stop before I get carried again.

[davemerrill]

Back in MY day we were delightfully entertained by Tom Mix two-reelers and the intellectual stimulation of Mack Sennett comedies, while enjoying the fine literature of Nick Carter adventure serials. And phosphates, nothing like a cold phosphate on a warm July day as the band plays the latest Sousa hits. Where's my straw boater?

[kndy]

Back in MY day we were delightfully entertained by Tom Mix two-reelers and the intellectual stimulation of Mack Sennett comedies, while enjoying the fine literature of Nick Carter adventure serials. And phosphates, nothing like a cold phosphate on a warm July day as the band plays the latest Sousa hits. Where's my straw boater?

Lol...

Ummm... I have a good collection of Tom Mix 8x11's and have a large collection of Mack Sennett comedies. Hehe..



BTW, if any of you oldies knows where this Tom Mix photo is from, please let me know!

[danth]

It's not that there aren't good, challenging, unique anime today, and it's not like there weren't awful, dumb, pandering stuff 20 years ago. It's just that the reasoning for fans "getting into" anime today are different than they were 15, 20 years ago. This stuff wasn't just sitting out in the open waiting for an audience to stroll by like it is now; you actually had to seek it out. As such, many people who got into anime before the big 2000s "boom" were actively looking for something different, something that wasn't necessarily typical "mainstream" entertainment. So the more weird, experimental, non-crowd pleasing stuff was more readily embraced. That's not to say they were always successful or even profitable, but there was a decent chance they would still find an audience. As anime got more popular though, the reasoning for getting into the hobby changed.

This is something I just realized fairly recently. An entire generation of old-school fans got into anime through Robotech, or at least the Macross portion, which was a pretty smart show. It was incredibly sophisticated for a cartoon with believable characters and a great story that sucked you in for the whole 36 episode run. I think a large portion of the fan base it created were just blown away by the sophistication of it and wanted more of the same. And it was a real-robot mecha show so it got a lot of the hard sci-fi audience as well.

Now compare this to someone who got into anime through Dragon Ball Z.