The Old School Otaku Lounge

greg wrote:
Handheld games are the only games I can really play anymore. Unless it's a Saturday morning, I really don't get to play my consoles. I have all my consoles hooked up to our TV, but I rarely have the chance to play any games on it. Handhelds allow me to be selfish.

Do you have room in your house/pad for another TV? Almost any working CRT can be picked up at pawn shops for really cheap around here. Don't know if it's the same case where you are though.

Anyway, I watched Little Prince and the Eight Headed Dragon (AKA the film that influenced Wind Waker for the newbies), which marks the 3rd Toei Doga 'Golden Age' film I've seen this week. Technically, it is an astounding film...it doesn't look like anything animated around the world at the time--better production values than UPA, but more heavily designed and modernist than Disney. I daresay it might even be the most technically impressive feature length animated film of that decade, period. I find Golden Age Toei Doga's treatment of cute animals really funny, in general. Aside from the films where they use animals as anthropomorphic stand ins for all or most of the main characters, they are usually not especially funny or really have any personality at all. They are just there to look cute or provide cute breaks to the action. You could take them out and the movies woudn't be any worse for wear. Little Prince and the Eight Headed Dragon could be the only Toei Doga film I've seen thus far where they actually use a cute animal as the designated comic relief sidekick to the main HUMAN character in patented Disney style. Not that he's especially funny or even important to the film still.

It just goes to show how cumbersome the "cute animal comic relief" formula that Disney patented actually is in practice. Even Disney never really managed to get the right balance. It's one thing to use anthropomorphic characters for all the characters in a cartoon, but when you try to mix animals with humans in a cartoon, the results are often very unstable, with either the animals chewing the scenery away from the humans, or the animals being rather useless additions to the story. I'm trying to think of a cartoon right now where the cute animals and humans actually complemented each other and both added to the stories in an active way...I guess Animal Treasure Island?

llj wrote:Do you have room in your house/pad for another TV? Almost any working CRT can be picked up at pawn shops for really cheap around here. Don't know if it's the same case where you are though.

I responded, but I created a topic in the video games section for it to keep this topic from going on a tangent about gaming. My response is here, so let's talk there instead.

I watched like the first 20 episode of Prince of Tennis back in 2001, but then got caught up and sort of lost interest. Now that the original series has been over for sometime, I am watching it again from the start. Very silly anime but a lot of charm. The music is awesome. If you want to know why women love jerks, I think it is because of kids like Ryoma.

I am also watching Saint Seiya Omega. Midorkawa Hikaru FTW

I'm on an 80s OVA kick right now. To me the heyday of the OVA era is getting increasingly overlooked by anime distribution companies (even in Japan) and that's a shame. Many are like experimental B-movies that are worth restoring or at least see some sort of re-release on DVD. Unfortunately, a lot of the anime studios for some of the lesser known OVAs are defunct. I wish there were companies like Vinegar Syndrome and Synapse Films out in Japan who are dedicated to tracking down old OVA film negatives or at least some sort of transferrable masters (dupes or otherwise) to re-release some lesser known forgotten gems.

So anyway:

Leda: The Fantastic Adventures of Yohko (1985) - Rightstuf released this at the tail end of the VHS era (my copy says 1997) and when American anime companies were starting to release TV series, so this kind of slipped through the cracks. It certainly never came into my radar until several years later--I think I was too invested in shows like Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop at the time. Which is a shame, as it's visually quite impressive, and certainly a nice lightweight time waster. I suppose for late 90 anime fans who were starting to demand anime releases with more depth, Leda came off kind of old-fashioned, something that would have made a bigger impact had someone released it in 1994 instead. But now with the benefit of retrospect, it's one of those OVAs that has the feel of a lazy summer daydream. Perfect for a slow afternoon or rainy day.

California Crisis Gun Salvo (1986) - Considering that Studio Unicorn is dead and the rights to this OVA is up in the air, this is one of those sad cases where it may never see a re-release again. I'd first heard about this a few years ago from a few of the more snarky anime fans online who love to crap on the OVA era. Somehow this OVA came to represent, for a while at least, how the OVA era was full of poorly written stories with no depth. Justin Sevakis featured this in one of his ANN columns but he sort of snarked on it too, although he did at least compliment it in a backhanded sort of way as well, mostly focusing his praise on the visual stylings. Of course, its reputation has slowly risen as it started showing up in downloading sites and youtube as some fans saw something special in it. Having finally watched it, I think it deserves to be considered a classic of sorts from the OVA era. Yes, the story is thin, has details that go nowhere, and ends abruptly, but then again it's a 44 minute OVA, not Tolstoy, nor should it try to. And its visual style, exhuberance, and attitude more than makes up for the weaknesses in its story, which isn't even that bad actually--I've read a lot of short stories with similar plots and endings. It's essentially a pop-art road movie, a tour of 80s American culture through the lens of anime. And while it doesn't all make sense, it's never boring. It's a one of a kind OVA.

Tobira wo Akete (1986) - Not to be confused with a later 1995 anime of the same title (which seemingly has no relation to this one), this 80 minute OVA is, like Leda, one of those 'young girl gets sucked into a strange fantasy world' stories which practically is its own genre in anime. There are a few things that stand out here, though. The first is that the girl is in college/university instead of high school/junior high, and the second is that before she is even sucked into another world, she is established as being some kind of mutant with telekinesis power (or as the Japanese like to say, ESPERs). Oh, and she smokes, but isn't quite a "bad" girl either. So right from the get go, she's not really your typical anime heroine. Anyway, she gets sucked into a medieval type fantasy world where she is supposed to be the reincarnation of a legendary queen who has to lead a band of rebels to take down an evil ruler...a fairly typical story. The production values are rather average for an OVA, but has some appealing 80s style character designs by Setsuko Shibuichi. I'm a bit puzzled as to why it's not more well known by old-school western anime fans. It's got a lot going for it for western audiences: all the female characters in this anime are strong and independent, it has a likeable cast, it's got appealing character designs, and the story--while not original at all--is paced and told well enough. Really surprised nobody here ever picked it up in the 90s. It was apparently animated by 2 studios: Magic Bass and Magic Bus...although given the similarities of the two names I'd almost suspect that they are actually the same studio with one being an offshoot of the other created specifically for a "special" project. Magic Bass only has two credits under its belt according to ANN: this and Magic User's Club. Magic Bus is still active today and has a long list of supporting animation credits under its belt.

Here is some info on it: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclo ... hp?id=2281.

I suspect it's license-able, although it may no longer be good business sense to take a flier on a relatively obscure 'old' anime like this with no past tradition or marketable connection to anything more popular out there. The full movie is on Youtube, though, so if you have 80 minutes to waste, check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Leda! A year or so ago, I saw a garage kit on display for Leda, and I was like, "Ehrmigersh, I vaguely remember this anime!" I've never seen it, and I had no idea that it was ever released in English. I see that it's on YouTube, presumably subtitled, so I would like to watch that. Tobira wo Akete sounds interesting, too. I love the Valis series of games. They don't contain fantastic gameplay, but I am a sucker for the "young girl gets sucked into a fantasy world and becomes a sword-wielding, armor bikini-wearing maiden" genre. It would've been fantastic if Valis had been released as an OVA series in the late '80s/early '90s. There are some commercials for the game from Japanese TV that contain some anime, so that's as close as we'll ever get. Unfortunately, Valis was later revived to be some computer H game. I would love to see these games remade with improved gameplay with combo moves and such, while remaining 2D (and hopefully sprite-based). Ah, but only in my dreams, I suppose.

I love Valis! I've tried to play every version of each game out there; the PC Engine ones are the definitive ones, but they have control issues for a few of the games because of the lack of buttons. The Genesis versions control better but are often missing some levels found in other versions. If they ever remade the games while maintaining the 2D gameplay, it probably would be a handheld. I think there are amateur game makers out there who could probably do a pretty good fan remake (much like the Streets of Rage Remake project), although I don't know how Telenet would react to that, even if it's not for profit. I remember Sega shut down the SORR project for a while.

I think Valis could definitely have worked as an OVA series...the stories were involved enough that there's enough material to fill at least 6 half hour episodes, maybe even more.

My favorite "young girl gets sucked into a fantasy world" series is still Twelve Kingdoms...Tobira wo Akete sometimes plays out a like a prototype version of Twelve Kingdoms.

Yeah, I gotta love that "chicks with swords" fetish, especially when it includes impratical bikini armor. "Chicks with swords" is what got me interested in Fate/Stay Night, and is my primary motivation for checking out Sword Arts Online that Yusaku talked about a while ago.

Speaking of chicks with swords, I have a Devil Hunter Yohko vinyl kit I want to get started building this year.

Jean Luc Godard once said that all you need is a girl and a gun to automatically attract a built-in audience. And I agree with you: we can add a girl and a sword to that claim, too. I have to admit that my anime collection is pretty heavy on both, so obviously I've instinctively followed that philosophy long before I knew it was a philosophy. And while I don't always need the girl to have a bikini, it sure helps!

Speaking of model kits, I actually do want to get into model kit building some day, although probably when I feel more secure financially to afford collecting them and have settled down a bit. I certainly wouldn't mind a few more "chicks with swords" models on my office desk to add some personality to my workspace. Right now I only have the Voltron Toynami on my desk and it's been handled by my coworkers quite often, though, so I'd hate to think how many grubby hands would be all over any scantily clad anime model I put in my workspace.

greg wrote:Yeah, I gotta love that "chicks with swords" fetish, especially when it includes impratical bikini armor. "Chicks with swords" is what got me interested in Fate/Stay Night, and is my primary motivation for checking out Sword Arts Online that Yusaku talked about a while ago.

Speaking of chicks with swords, I have a Devil Hunter Yohko vinyl kit I want to get started building this year.

I have been watching "Panty, Stocking, and Garter belt". The show is PowerPuff Girls the Southpark version. It stupid, raunchy, and funny. I also been watching a lot of Slayers via the Funimation subscription I got this month to supplement my Netflix subscription. I am about to start all the Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo episodes on Funimation.

I didn't care for Slayers when it was new, but I saw the first two seasons a few years back and I enjoyed it.