Categories
Anime Film

The Castle of Cagliostro

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Continuing with my 80s anime run, last night I watched the Lupin the Third movie The Castle of Calgiostro. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, I’ve seen this movie countless times (and my wife even more), but it had been a while since the last time I watched it, and so it made for a fun revisit (and my wife ended up watching it too). It’s such a fantastic film, and feels like a perfect blend of Lupin and Ghibli (while being a proto Ghibli film). I had so much fun watching it that I was still in the mood to watch some more Lupin after, so went and watched the first episode of the original Lupin the Third series, that aired in the early seventies (and I believe Miyazaki was involved with the second half of that series). Tonight I discovered that a new Lupin series had aired last year, so started watching that as well (the first 2 episodes).

Categories
Anime

Dallos

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Next up in my 80s anime stroll — I’m not necessarily following the exact order given in the primer, and instead watching stuff when I’m in the mood for it — is Dallos, which has the distinction of being the very first OVA (“original video animation,” or direct-to-video, if you will) ever released. It’s also worth noting that it was directed by a very young Mamoru Oshii, who was of course later known for his Patlabor and Ghost in the Shell films. There are 4 volumes, and I’ve watched the first one. It’s not blowing me away, but I’m still digging it. It follows a Mars colony that is in conflict with Earth (reminding me of Gundam), and the best part is when they start configuring work mech components for use as weapons. I look forward to watching the rest.

Categories
Anime

Daicon III & IV

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Following on my 80s anime playlist, I re-watched the two Daicon shorts, which I still find to be fantastic, especially the second one. These are animated shorts that were created for two conventions — Daicon III and IV — and have never been released commercially since they liberally borrow from all sorts of famous properties. Daicon IV is especially glorious, with its use of ELO’s “Twilight,” and was created by a who’s who of now famous anime directors — it was also the inspiration for the opening to the Train Man (Densha Otoko) series. Here are versions on YouTube: Daicon III & Daicon IV.

Categories
Anime Film

Aim for the Ace!

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You may remember that a few weeks ago I shared a really great primer on 80s anime. Since I’ve been enjoying dipping back into some of those old series, I decided to go one step further and try following that complete primer, going through everything that is recommended. Since it sticks to movies and OVAs, it’s not as time consuming as you’d think.

First up on the list is Aim for the Ace! (Ace wo Nerae!), a 70s series that follows a high-school girl as she competes in tennis tournaments. It’s one of my wife’s favorite series (she played tennis as well), and so I definitely knew about it but had never watched any of the TV series. The movie I watched, which came out in 1979, is a condensed version of that series, and you can tell, as it just zooms past so many things, feeling a bit manic at times. I quite enjoyed it though, in part for the fun 70s fashions and style, but especially for the very interesting ways they animate the tennis action. Sure, it’s over-the-top and pretty emo, but I liked watching it.

Categories
Anime Film

80s Anime Primer

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Following on the 80s anime I’ve been watching and posted about (Zeta Gundam, Macross, Queen Millennia), I’ve come across this really great primer to 80s anime. The list — that goes from 1979 to 1990 — is watch-friendly as it’s completely made of movies and OVAs (direct-to-video), so it’s easy to sample a lot of these (compared to having to get through an entire series). For me, it’s definitely a nostalgic list, and features a lot of stuff that I’ve either watched or knew about, but haven’t thought about in years. Think I’ll need to revisit quite a few of these.

Categories
Anime TV

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross

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I recently noticed that the Robotech series from the 80s was added to Netflix (in Canada), and so I thought I’d start watching it. I have memories of really liking the series back when I was kid, but also that I had barely watched any of it, probably because it was only available on cable, which we didn’t have — so I probably only caught episodes here and there at a friend’s house. So I excitedly sat down to start watching it and… I couldn’t get past the first 5 minutes. Never mind the fact that broadcast quality is surprisingly poor (I guess they didn’t take good care of preserving the original tapes), but what really got to me was the voice acting, that made my ears bleed. I was curious to see if watching the original Japanese series would make it better, and it indeed has.

Robotech was famously made up of 3 different series from Japan, slightly edited to make it all work together, so it could get over the minimum required number of episodes for syndication at the time. The first series that was used is The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which runs 35 episodes. I’ve watched the 4 so far, and not only is the voice acting so much better (well, except for Minmei, who can be a bit grating), but so is the music, as well as the general quality of what I’m watching — and even from just the few minutes that I watched of Robotech, I could tell that they did some weird editing as well.

It’s yet another piece of 80s anime on my current watchlist (alongside Zeta Gundam and Queen Millennia), but I like alternating between these shows, watching a few episodes here and there. And it’s good to finally get a good look at the Macross storyline — and if I enjoy this, I’ll probably continue with The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, which was the second series to get incorporated into Robotech (the third series that made up all of Robotech, Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, wasn’t even part of the Super Dimension series).