So far on this blog when I've spoken about something I've been giving some of the background of whatever it was I was ranting about. I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by trying to tell you what anime is. I'm just going to talk about my experience with it, some of the things that I have enjoyed and why I have more or less stopped watching anime.
If I think far enough back, I remember the first anime I ever saw, although at the time I didn't have any idea what it really was. In fact, I'll go ahead and say, I didn't know what anime actually was until I was much older, easily sixth of seventh grade. The anime I first saw was the original Dragonball, no Z or GT added ( GT still making no sense in my head since that acronym means Grand Tourer, as in Mustang or MGB GT. Expect a car post at some point). I was about seven years old and my brother and I had only recently been given a television by my grandfather for Christmas. On Saturdays, still being young, I would wake up and eagerly watch Saturday morning Cartoons, usually on Fox. (Insert nostalgia for the old days when Saturday and immediately after school were the only times to see decent cartoons here.)
So, when I say wake up, I mean early. Earlier than I'd get up for nearly anything not actually important now, so, like 6:30-45. Fox's good shows didn't really start until eight or nine, so no new Power Rangers or anything of the kind for a while and ABC didn't have anything on yet either. But Dragonball started at seven and they played two episodes. Being hungry for cartoons, I watched Dragonball, of course. Now, I don't remember much about it, I know now that it was still the first half of the series, the first quest for the orange orbs.
Moving on, the first anime that I actively sought out was on the first airing of Toonami, Robotech. This was a show that I adored, it was everything a ten year old wanted, giant robots that transformed into jet fighters fighting against giants in literal suits. IN SPAAAAAAACE! How could things get any better, right?
Fast forward til I was about twelve and we move from Robotech to Gundam Wing and I become aware of anime. A friend of mine and I both watched it and we started from the beginning and watched it all the way through and the film Endless Waltz. Looking back on it now, it was terrible and only built on the cliches of anime, teenagers that save the world! But, twelve year olds simply don't care, they find something they love and stick to it, and this was like Robotech, only one gundam had a scythe and that was rad! Also, blood.
We move on again and we really hit the point when I was most into anime as a thing. So we all know, I'm skipping Dragonball Z because there's nothing more to be said about my opinion either at the time (yay, martial arts fireballs!) or now (awful! hilariously so!). Three series were airing on Cartoon Network about this point, I was in high school and, again, my friends and I were watching them. Those three series were the Tenchi series (sue me, I was an adolescent boy), Outlaw Star (which I watched but never really enjoyed) and finally, the important bit, Cowboy Bebop.
Bebop represents an important development in science fiction in my opinion. I loved it when I saw it, the series had a fairly adult plot and adult characters with awesome jobs (bounty hunters) and humorous characters (Ed). The semi-post-apocalyptic world was expanding into space, but instead of having the utopia of Star Trek or the powerful central authority of Star Wars, we are left with a loose confederation of colonies and space stations. These population centers had various levels of advancement and wealth and all of the characters were realistic, they had problems and could hardly make their ends meet financially.
If you ask me, Cowboy Bebop thematically represents a stepping stone and potential inspiration for one of my favorite series ever (to a point, I get tired of watching the same short series of episodes and movie over and over again), Firefly. It's not wonderful, but it's not quite hell, the settings of each are realistic ones.
Now, if you look at these excerpts that I actually remember from my short run of pursuing anime you will see a common theme. SPAAAAAAAAACE! Most of these are fantastic science fiction set in space with varying levels of adult themes. But, also like I said, I'm not into anime anymore, outside of things like DBZ Abridged. I had a long conversation with a friend who much more of a anime fan than I am.
The conversation led me to a kind of understanding of why I gave up on anime. While talking about Bebop, I asked her, and eventually the question got around to a bigger fan, what is the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop? And I was told that there really hasn't been. I'm expositing that this probably means that, while there may be similar series, there isn't a really good one.
I can't say what really happened there, but since then it seems like popular anime, at least state-side, has been aimed at much younger audiences, Naruto, One-Piece (which I understand has been horribly butchered), and the like. Even the bits that are more adult have had a strong shift away from science fiction and much more toward fantasy, which ought to be right up my alley (and somehow isn't, also expect a rant on that).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't really understand why there can't be a good, new series of anime that is sci-fi and in space. I mean, I know about the Eva remakes and several Gundam series ( like G Gundam, aka Pokemon Gundam), but these are not really the same thing.
Here's what we need, space anime... IN SPAAAAACE!
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