Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Tell the old school world who you are, and let us welcome you into the forum!
Post Reply
User avatar
Ganalef
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:34 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1993
Location: Oahu
Contact:

Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Post by Ganalef »

After spending my entire K-12 years largely isolated from pop culture as a whole (moved a lot, religious communities that excluded me, no TV or electronics) I found going to community college super refreshing. I instantly fell in love with video games and shortly afterwards discovered an interesting Japanese storyline to a 2d fighting game in a magazine. I'll share the story as I remember it:

This young male hero fell in a well that was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who drowned there once. Now, whenever he gets wet her spirit possesses him for a while.

This sounded like a gorgeous gothic story (and I'd still like to read it; I may, eventually, be forced to write it.) The tiny pictures that accompanied this sidebar-review of the game were also captivating, but I'll admit I've always been a bit captivated by the art style.

My next interaction with Anime-style art was porn, or more specifically with some graphics that had been ripped from an erotic Japanese game (I remember them vividly) that I found on a local BBS. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they went to an interesting story, and although I had access to some more conventional porn I found these pictures vastly more compelling as well as interesting.

I didn't know what the words Anime or Manga were at this point (I saw a pinup folder on AOL at the time and thought they must be the names of girls; I assumed that "anime" rhymed with "a lime" and misread "manga" as "marga.")

I learned shortly afterwards when I surfed to a local Anime BBS, saw the pictures, and started reading the scripts and synopses (scripts that were used for fansubbing, and synopses for anime that had not been fansubbed yet.) I loved the fanfics, too, and I saw the love that had been put both into making these scripts, synopses, works of art, fanfics, and even the BBS and forums, but also the love that was put into the original product. Also, I saw what I'd never really seen in nearly any American production; lovely stories with interesting characters that developed through stories that had a beginning, middle, and end.

I wasn't picky, at the time. I'd watch anything I could rent at Blockbuster that wasn't dubbed. Nowadays, I don't know if I'd be able to find the time for Outlanders (I had to look up the title using the lyrics of the song) but back then I not only watched it twice, I also placed a tape deck near the TV's speakers and added the songs from the show to my mix tape. I was working a McJob at the lowest end of the totem pole AND going through junior college, but still managed to pick up some blank VHS to tape trade with, went to the Anime BBS's "Get Together" nights (the highlights of my month, always), and hung out with my distant friends from the forums (Hi Greg!) as often as I could get the car. My first commercial VHS purchase was the 5-tape OVA set for KOR, and my Manga collection was small but read to shreds (I still have some of the Battle Angel from then.)

I remember once, as I walked to class, thinking how cool it was that Sailor Moon was going to come to US Television and how annoying it was that I'd have to wait almost two years to see it. Wow. Two years later, I had the bedsheets on my mattress (in a tiny spot in the apartment I shared with three other roommates.) I had a lovely picture of Ayukawa Madoka (Mai Waifu) in a frame, a Nausicaa poster, five volumes of Ranma, two of UY, four of Nausicaa, and the full set of Psychic Girl Mai (all of these were manga) and I would listen to seiyuu and soundtrack tapes I'd traded with people by mail from places like Texas and Canada. I was a strange alien creature to many, but I was happy in my way.

I eventually got a girlfriend. I'd talked to her via email. She thought the fact that I liked Japanese cartoons (I was evangelical, and often obnoxiously so, but not to her. ..though I wore my Lum T-shirt without even suspecting that I maybe ought to be embarrassed at having a bikini girl on my shirt) was as cool as any other niche interest in foreign art...right up until we became an 'item', when she decided that every example she saw (including fricking Nausicaa) was sexist and exploitative. I was young. I put my fantasy and otaku habits aside and eventually gave the stuff away to another Otaku.

...and, years later and after the eventual and unavoidable breakup, I only had a couple graphic novels (Alita) and a handful of fansubbed VHS left (Windaria (I also had and admit to liking the Macekered dub; they both have their own appeal), and it took a while for me to recover my life and, eventually, my collection.

I got to spend a while living in Japan, and while I found it difficult to satisfy otaku appetites there (I can buy toys, yes, but I still need subtitles on my movies) I found my more basic appetites well suited for the place; I miss the food every day and seriously considered, once, founding an izakaya in California, Hawaii, or some other place with a more Japanophilic bent.

Now? I stay closeted at work. It's not always wise to give your employers or cow-orkers too much 'intel' into the ways you're weird until you can trust them (whether they use the word 'weeaboo' or not, some people are just inclined to be tiresomely rude), and even largely benign normaltards are unworthy of entrance into my private life until they've passed a rigorous screening process (though I've got a few signs up for the savvy; an SOS-dan pin, a Laputa-stone, and a couple of go stones adorn my work bag.) I'm well over thirty, spend far too much time on unpaid overtime in order to demonstrate loyalty to the company, and don't get nearly enough time to catch up on all the series and manga (I wonder if there's another chapter or two of Genshiken out? Or Jellyfish Princess? Or Kojika?) that I want to. ..but I have fun anyway.

My beloved of ten years (er, we've been together for ten years. She's not a minor) is also otaku, and she integrates those of my videos that she likes into her shelves, passes manga to me if she thinks I'll like it, and occasionally condescends to try out something I recommend to her (some day I'll get her to watch Madoka Majika.) I've got my own library/room decorated as an Ayukawa shrine (with random figurines on the shelves too--but I try to limit the stuff I own; my possessions are starting to own me as it is) and I make regular trips to the not-so-local Japanese foods store to get some of the foods I fell in love with.

I'm out of steam.

I heard about this forum from Greg. I don't spend a lot of time on forums (my time is limited) but the idea of interacting with, er, gentlefolk who were otaku before it was mainstream is interesting from an admittedly elitist viewpoint, and I'm even more interested in interacting with people who have an adult's perspective on things and are also otaku.

I read a few blogs, but Ogiue Maniax is my favorite.
~ I miss SLMR's tagline lists.
User avatar
greg
Posts: 2159
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:00 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1989 (consciously)
Location: Shizuoka-ken, Japan
Contact:

Re: Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Post by greg »

Wow. I figured that even though I've known you from the glory days of otakudom in the mid-90s, I would learn a lot about you once you started posting. Those days at the Anime Archive BBS were wonderful and full of fond memories. I used to spend so much time posting on the Anime Echo and the Robotech Echo.
Ganalef wrote:This young male hero fell in a well that was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who drowned there once. Now, whenever he gets wet her spirit possesses him for a while.
Wait, are you talking about Ranma 1/2? The drowned girl doesn't really possess Ranma, he just becomes female. Anyhow, you're talking about this game, right? This was the first game I bought for my SNES. In fact, I bought it about a week or so before I bought my SNES at Babbage's in the mall.

Your post started making me think back to what my first anime VHS purchase was. Maybe it was the Robotech videos that had 2 episodes per tape?
My presence on the Net, with plenty of random geekiness:
My homepage
My YouTube channel
My Flickr photostream
My Tumblr page
User avatar
Ganalef
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:34 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1993
Location: Oahu
Contact:

Re: Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Post by Ganalef »

greg wrote:
Ganalef wrote:This young male hero fell in a well that was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who drowned there once. Now, whenever he gets wet her spirit possesses him for a while.
Wait, are you talking about Ranma 1/2? The drowned girl doesn't really possess Ranma, he just becomes female. Anyhow, you're talking about this game, right? This was the first game I bought for my SNES. In fact, I bought it about a week or so before I bought my SNES at Babbage's in the mall.
That is exactly what I'm talking about. And yes, alas, the story as I understood it from a review about a video game developed from an anime developed from a manga was a bit...different than the actual story. I enjoyed Ranma...until it, like all of Takahashi's work, "takahashi'd" (or one-trick-pony'd itself into tedium and lack of character development and continuity (I can't bear to get rid of it, but I only really enjoy the first three or six volumes and I never collected past volume 16 or so)), but while I loved it, I have never forgotten the story I *thought* it would be. *That* story would be beautiful in a different, and partially better way.

It's not the only one; there are other stories I've heard about and then watched/read and found that my expectations were for something even more awesome. Example: Nanaka 6/17. In this story, there's a high school girl girl who suffers a head injury and loses all memory from after she was 6. In order to make sense of why she's in an almost grown-up body, she 'realizes' she's a magical girl, and that her power is to manifest as a grown up to fight evil. That's what I heard the story was. What the story actually was was similar, but doesn't really take the situation as seriously as I'd like. It's still one of my favorites now.

On an unrelated note, I remember even at the age of 11 or so I had a pencil bag with the Sanrio (ish?) kids on it (with their big eyes and rainbows and other nonsense) and I liked it. I liked other cute things too (I had an advent calendar, and the face of the girl drawn behind the 8th was cute.) So I was both drawn to the cute style and the weird stories that they either had or that I imagined they had. (The story behind Utena is interesting; it, like so much of what Japan puts out, is a story of the conflict between giri (duty/role, sorta) and personal desire. Utena decides to do something greatly in conflict with her giri, and even though she succeeds, tragedy is the only possible result of such defiance. Eventually.)

But I babble. I tried to go get a simple dinner of just some fish meat, and I ended up with the server giving me free drinks. And now I'm babbling.

I have never once managed to sit through an episode of Speed Racer. Or, for that matter, Samurai Pizza cats.

I watched every fricking second of Princess Tutu, and I'd do it again. It was awesome.
~ I miss SLMR's tagline lists.
User avatar
Daniel
Site Admin
Posts: 525
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:56 pm
Anime Fan Since: 199X年
Location: USA

Re: Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Post by Daniel »

Hey Gana! Welcome!


Your intro's title put a smile on my face. :) And of course I loved reading through your post as well. :)

Ganalef wrote:I learned shortly afterwards when I surfed to a local Anime BBS, saw the pictures, and started reading the scripts and synopses (scripts that were used for fansubbing, and synopses for anime that had not been fansubbed yet.) I loved the fanfics, too, and I saw the love that had been put both into making these scripts, synopses, works of art, fanfics, and even the BBS and forums
I mentioned this in my reply to Greg's intro post so I don't know if you've seen this already, but I've got a fair amount of old digital stuff up here that you might like: http://animepast.net/Museum/Old_Digital_Stuff/

Ganalef wrote:My first commercial VHS purchase was the 5-tape OVA set for KOR, and my Manga collection was small but read to shreds (I still have some of the Battle Angel from then.)
Battle Angel is one of my favorite animes, and I've always wondered how it stacks up against the manga... If you'd be willing to talk about that, I'd like to discuss it. :)

Ganalef wrote:I got to spend a while living in Japan, and while I found it difficult to satisfy otaku appetites there (I can buy toys, yes, but I still need subtitles on my movies) I found my more basic appetites well suited for the place; I miss the food every day and seriously considered, once, founding an izakaya in California, Hawaii, or some other place with a more Japanophilic bent.
Got a list of the names of your favorite Japanese foods?

Ganalef wrote:My beloved of ten years (er, we've been together for ten years. She's not a minor) is also otaku, and she integrates those of my videos that she likes into her shelves, passes manga to me if she thinks I'll like it, and occasionally condescends to try out something I recommend to her (some day I'll get her to watch Madoka Majika.)
Hmm, a match made in heaven!

Ganalef wrote:I've got my own library/room decorated as an Ayukawa shrine
:shock: Got any pictures?

greg wrote:Anyhow, you're talking about this game, right? This was the first game I bought for my SNES. In fact, I bought it about a week or so before I bought my SNES at Babbage's in the mall.
I'm finding it difficult to resist the temptation to go try out the Ranma SFC games.....

Ganalef wrote:but while I loved it, I have never forgotten the story I *thought* it would be. *That* story would be beautiful in a different, and partially better way.

It's not the only one; there are other stories I've heard about and then watched/read and found that my expectations were for something even more awesome. Example: Nanaka 6/17. In this story, there's a high school girl girl who suffers a head injury and loses all memory from after she was 6. In order to make sense of why she's in an almost grown-up body, she 'realizes' she's a magical girl, and that her power is to manifest as a grown up to fight evil. That's what I heard the story was. What the story actually was was similar, but doesn't really take the situation as seriously as I'd like. It's still one of my favorites now.
Have you ever written any fanfics?


I also see that you've got a YouTube page. Would you mind if I stuck a link to it on the AnimePast Links page? I'm trying to have that page be a hub with links to all the pages that this forum's members are working on. Your YouTube page'll be in good company with Greg's stuff :)


Anyhoo, welcome aboard! I'm glad to have you here! Please make yourself at home!
Daniel
User avatar
Jen526
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:46 am
Anime Fan Since: 1992-ish
Location: Akron, OH

Re: Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!

Post by Jen526 »

scripts that were used for fansubbing, and synopses for anime that had not been fansubbed yet.
Ha! The days of having printed scripts. I vividly remember get tapes of Kiki's Delivery Service and Nausicaa along with a big stack of that old tractor-printer-paper all accordian'd together and trying to follow along. It never worked out very well.
I remember once, as I walked to class, thinking how cool it was that Sailor Moon was going to come to US Television
My local paper had a HUGE article about Sailor Moon on the front page of its entertainment section when she first arrived. I about plotzed in excitement. :)
Now? I stay closeted at work.
Ah, that's always a question for me as a "grown-up" in this hobby... how much makes sense to share and try to engage with non-fans about it. I've never really been one to wear my fandom on my sleeve, so it stays hidden for the most part. Since I started collecting a few figures, I've gotten a bit more willing to display my anime stuff in my house, but I'm always kinda jealous of the folks with otaku-caves and walls of posters, etc. I let myself set up figures in my office and bedroom, but it's usually just a couple shelves - nothing so elaborate.
I'm even more interested in interacting with people who have an adult's perspective on things and are also otaku.
This. :) Agreed very much.
I watched every fricking second of Princess Tutu, and I'd do it again. It was awesome.
Amen. It's very close to a masterpiece, in my opinion. Ballerina hippos and freaky cat dancing instructors and all. :)
Post Reply