First - Yamato. While I'd had some exposure while visiting the grandparents via Boston channels to the giant-robot cartoons out of Japan, "Star Blazers", as it was released in the states, was truly something else. Sure, the Battleship was awesome, but instead of a giant, and even then, sortof cheesy robot (despite also fondly remembering "Shogun Warriors", you had a spaceship that looked like a battleship, interesting characters, nail-biting action, beauty, fighters that still look freaking cool, and a story that dragged you in kicking and screaming and would not let you go.
Given it was before the day of practical VCR's for most families, I cursed the days the bus was late, or my mom made me finish my homework first, because it came on minutes after I usually got home. When I later started collecting anime via tape-trading groups, I made it a point to get my hands on a few of the Yamato movies, which I enjoyed.
Looking back, the animation is definitely of its time from a quality standpoint, but the style and storytelling still hold up. It has a lasting audience as well, as repeated movies, the live movie, and the newer TV remake mentioned at Walkers indicate.
Next, Macross - which I first saw as the opening third of the Robotech TV series. I'd been looking forward to it a bit since I already had a couple of the "Robotech Defenders" models and the Valkyrie-based "changer" model which of course I'd recognized as sharing the same source as a number of the early Battletech mechs. Fortunately - because I had to leave for the bus before the episode would finish, we had a VCR in the house, and I was able to record - though I later lost - the entire series all the way through the last of the "Invid" ( Genesis Climber Mospeada ) episodes.
I was hooked, and that started my hunt for any and all other anime I could track down, and from there the various mail-based swap clubs, and some truly weird stuff. Among other odds and ends I got my hands on the Monogram model for "Cy-Kill" from Gobots which was actually a rebranded Cyclone from Genesis Climber. I also could do a pretty decent rendition of the transforming bike/suit armor in ink - not my illustration included.
But Macross - along with Crusher Joe and a handful of other titles - has stuck with me over the years where most of the other stuff I saw was forgotten to time and mediocrity.
It's a pleasure when you go back to revisit something you loved in your childhood, and discover that it holds up, rather than being an artifact of Childhood Nostalgia Disorder
Ditto experience watching "Star*Blazers" / Space Battleship Yamato. On after school and 6am Saturday morning -- the schoolbus was never predictable, but the effort was worth the watching! It helped to make up for the cartoon desert created by the 1968/69 immolation of US Saturday morning cartoons due to concerns about cartoon violence on kids.
ReplyDeleteI still fondly remember all the ben and Jerry /bugs bunny and similar cartoons that were available through the late 70's, but yeah, that stuff all disappeared. One reason I never could get into GI Joe - or many other cartoons too much, was no-one ever died, or was lost, or sacrificed anything. Star Blazers/Robotech spoiled me.
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