Remembering those childhood animes:

I believe it is time for nostalgic feelings to kick in a bit and lead us into reflections of our younger years with watching anime. I will review a few shows (some that were meant for our age group, and some not so much), and decide whether they hold up to a standard we had of them when we were a bit younger. I will review only animes that are around 10 years old or older (by release date in the U.S. not when they were made) and decide if they have stood the test of time. Here we go.

Sup

I know there will be plenty I don’t touch on that you guys remember, but these are anime that I am taking from when I was younger, and even then, I didn’t get everything.

The List:

Yu Yu Hakusho
Oh! My Goddess(Manga)
Tenchi Universe
Vampire Hunter D
Cowboy Bebop
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie
Gundam Wing
Gunsmith Cats
Ronin Warriors
Dragon Ball Z

There are many more that I watched than that when I was younger, but I will stick to these titles, otherwise I could write an article that would take all day to read.

To make you happy though, here are a few that I thought of but decided not to write about and why:

Dragon Ball(because we all know the un-edited version is awesome)
Speed Racer(let’s face it, it’s pretty much American with how we dubbed it.)
Sailor Moon(I didn’t watch it that much)
Astro Boy(because I can’t do this classic justice in a review)
Big O(I would be unfairly mean to it, i can’t help myself)
Outlaw Star(saw some of it, but never watched enough of it.)
The other Tenchi Series (Didn’t watch them that much)

If I missed any, I apologize. I don’t like to get nerd rage agro, but if you must, leave an angry comment below the article.

All series will be rated on(out of 10):

Character complexity/Development
Animation quality
Plot
Fan Service(not necessarily skimpy clothing)
Presentation
Dubbing

Yu Yu Hakusho:

I'm gonna finger bang you.

This series was dear to me back in the day when I was watching it. Energy based fighting, training with an old woman master (who for the longest time I thought was a man) fighting in arenas against demons and so much more. And so much less.

Let’s face it, the character complexity in this series was about as shallow as a spring pond, the animation is mediocre, the plot is okay, and the fan service is about the one thing that caries the series. That is, the fighting. I’m not gonna delve too much into this series, but I will give my scores.

Character complexity/Development – 3
Animation quality – 6
Plot – 3
Fan Service(awesome fighting and violence) – 8
Presentation – 5
Dubbing – 6

Overall – 5

Oh! My Goddess(Manga):

Yes, Oh! My Goddess(or Ah! My Goddess for the current title). I decided to make an exception for this one because it was a large part of my getting me into manga and anime. It was the first manga series I read, and it still continues to be a great part of my fandom. Animation will be substituted for Art Quality in this one.

The characters are not overly complex in this series, but at the same time, they aren’t too shallow either. Sadly, even though she is awesome, I would argue Belldandy is one of the least in depth characters, but I think that is a part of her charm. The Art Quality is pretty good, but it is not amazing, just good. The plot is good at first, gets weak, then picks up later. Fan service is well done, Urd is a very fun and sexual character, and it is played out well in her character throughout the series. Presentation is pretty good. Overall a pretty solid manga.

Character complexity/Development – 7
Art quality – 7
Plot – 6
Fan Service(Urd, need I say more?) – 8
Presentation – 7

Overall – 7

Tenchi Universe:

What a putz

Ah, Tenchi, the bumble-headed idiot who had gorgeous alien girls fawning over him, yet all he wanted to be was a xenophiliac and go after Earth girls. This series was and still is entertaining however. I liked it, and I still do. The characters were somewhat complex, but still lacked some complexity, the animation is top notch, the plot was great, the fan service wasn’t (unless you count Washu’s brilliance. It has made geeks cream their jeans just to see the next invention she came up with), the presentation is great, and the dubbing is still pretty good.

Character complexity/Development – 7
Animation quality – 9
Plot – 6
Fan Service(very meh) – 3
Presentation – 7
Dubbing – 7

Overall – 7

Vampire Hunter D(sadly not blood lust):

Vampire Hunter D, a dhampir after my own heart. This series(two movies, and a manga) is still considered to be one of the better occult animes out there. The characters are fun and fairly complex, the animation is decent, the plot is amazing, the fan service, yes the fan service, and the presentation is sweet. The dubbing is not very good sadly, then again, it was dubbed a while ago.

This movie is really good, but Blood Lust was better. Better animation, better story, better everything. That’s not to say the original wasn’t still awesome in its own right.

Character complexity/Development – 6
Animation quality – 4
Plot – 7
Fan Service(boobies! oh yea, and the occult) – 8
Presentation – 8
Dubbing – 6

Overall – 7

Cowboy Bebop:

Bruce Lee would be proud

Now I am playing with fire. If I give this a bad review, I could be expected to be lynched along with my cat(once I get one). Luckily, this series could go down as one of the best anime series of all time.

Cowboy Bebop is and always will be one of the greats. It has great story, great animation, great characters, and the Americans did it right with this one, some of the better dubbing anime has ever seen, especially for its time.

Character complexity/Development – 8
Animation quality – 9
Plot – 8
Fan Service(space fights, Bruce Lee combat, and corgis) – 7
Presentation – 9
Dubbing – 9

Overall – 9

Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie:

I loved this movie as a kid. It was Sonic (who I totally was obsessed with), and it was also anime. Win! The movie was fun to watch. I still like it a lot even though I am older now. It does have its problems though. The characters are cardboard cutouts, there is not much fan service (unless you count the scene with homage to the games), and the presentation is so-so. I love the plot even though it felt kind of rushed while watching the movie.

Character complexity/Development – 4
Animation quality – 7
Plot – 6
Fan Service(it’s Sonic) – 5
Presentation – 7
Dubbing(I think it was good) – 8

Overall – 7

Gundam Wing:

This is a series that I thought made a much better movie (Endless Waltz) than it did a show. It was still decent though. It tried to make the characters complex, but they usually just came off as emo teenagers. The animation was good, the plot was decent, the fan service was pretty much limited to pretty boys and mechs, the presentation was okay, and the dubbing was okay as well. Overall it is a decent series but nothing amazing. The 0083 series was a much better more thought out series, and so was the original Gundam if you ask me.

Character complexity/Development – 5
Animation quality – 8
Plot – 6
Fan Service(Mechs and pretty boys) – 6
Presentation – 7
Dubbing – 7

Overall – 6

Gunsmith Cats:

This series is ****ing awesome. That’s all I can say. It is great. It is wonderful, but yes it isn’t perfect. I love the characters, but they are quite non-complex, the plot is nothing overly special, and the dubbing is very just okay. Otherwise it is a solid series.

Character complexity/Development – 4
Animation quality – 8
Plot – 6
Fan Service(girls and guns, **** yea!) – 8
Presentation – 7
Dubbing – 6

Overall – 8

Ronin Warriors:

This one sits in a weird place for me. It was amazing in childhood, and I have a lot of fond memories of it, however, the series originally played on Toonami is nothing like the un-edited series. The characters are okay, the animation leaves something to be desired, the plot was mediocre, fan service was limited to swords and toned down violence, the presentation was lacking, and the dubbing was not very good. That said, here’s the numbers.

Character complexity/Development – 5
Animation quality – 4
Plot – 5
Fan Service(swords and ronin, weee…) – 3
Presentation – 6
Dubbing – 5

Overall – 5

Dragon Ball Z:

Last, but not least, Dragon Ball Z. It was a great time in my childhood, when I was blossoming into my geekdom with anime and it was an adventure waiting to happen (okay, maybe not). Dragon Ball Z was great in childhood, but unless you are watching the uncut version as an adult, the original does not hold up. The characters are bland. The Plot after the first three seasons is stupid, the fan service in the cut version is limited mostly to toned down violence, and the only things it has really going for it is the presentation and the dubbing. The numbers here are for the original cut Toonami version, not the uncut. Seriously, go watch the uncut original Dragon Ball, not Dragon Ball Z, and you will see a show truly worth watching.

Character complexity/Development – 3
Animation quality – 6
Plot – 6
Fan Service(explosions and seizures) – 5
Presentation – 8
Dubbing – 8

Overall – 6

Well, that is the shows I had planned on reviewing for now. Thanks for sticking with me, it was a lot of shows to get though. For those geeks who are freaking out that I gave a show that they liked a bad score, or those who hate a show and I gave it a good one, chill out, it’s just my opinion. I am not making these a law, they are just my personal reactions to the shows I used to watch and what they mean to me as an adult. I might plan on doing the shows from the early to mid 2000′s, but I might have to break that article into several posts if I am going to cover it with any sort of dignity. That’s a lot of material to go through. Leave your comments and opinions below, feel free to argue some of my points that I made(not that I am going to change the article anyway, but feel free.) and until next time, this is Phorden.

I say maybe.

It’s not that there aren’t a couple of pretty good anime coming out from time to time from our beloved
friend to the east. There is some good stuff, but it seems like in the past say, 5 or 6 years, there has been
a steady decline in the quality of a lot of things coming from Japan. I have several possible reasons for
this. I outline them below.

The industry is dying:

It is a possible factor that the industry as a whole is just not producing anything good. They might have
just run out of ideas, and in desperation have put out whatever crap they can muster.

The Japanese Culture:

The Japanese culture could be an influence on this. The Japanese culture is usually very resistant to
change, therefore the fan base is asking for the same old things they have seen before because they
really don’t want to see anything new. They want the typical high school drama, they want the same
old giant mecha stories. This is a very possible reason for the decline in the anime sub culture.

Risk vs Gain:

It could be the anime industry itself.

Much like the American movie companies, few of the anime companies might be less willing to risk
capital on a new idea, when the risk for it loosing that money is too high. They are using what has
worked in the past. It may not yield large revenue, but it is usually a system in which even though the
gain isn’t as large, the risks are a lot less.

Thoughts:

My guess is really that it is probably a combination of all three if possibly not more factors than that.
I can’t really say if the anime industry will make a recovery or not. It could slowly die a sad and
depressing death, or people could come along and make things that are more amazing than we have
ever seen before.

All is Not Lost!

Just because anime is not doing well in Japan, (or at least not as well as it used to) does not mean it still
won’t have a place. Here in America, anime is stronger than ever. The fan base continues to grow, and
for the first time series that do not tend to do really well in Japan, (Soul Eater) sometimes will do well
enough in the states that it can make it just in the American market. Now, with this rapid growth in
America comes a couple of problems.

One, the industry here is bringing over whatever anime does mediocre at best there, and assumes it will
sell. It used to be that they were very careful about what series made it here, so that even though our
anime selection was smaller, the stuff that came out was mostly quality. I think this could be corrected
in the states if the anime industry here paid more attention to what non-translated anime titles were
getting good reactions online. I think then, we could have a balance between amount of content and
quality of content.

Two, The industry claims to be suffering from people pirating series instead of buying them on disc.
I don’t think that it is necessarily the fans fault for doing this. A lot of the series coming here are not
that special, and are really the same old thing over and over. They need to go back to the way of being
pickier with what they bring over, and listening to what the fans want. Yes, there will always be fans
who will pirate, but people do pirate less if the content that you are selling is actually good.

I don’t want to sound like I don’t like any of the new anime that is being made or brought over. I have
found at least a few series that I have enjoyed. I have recently gotten into Baccano, I have mostly
finished Eden of the East, and think it is gold. I also have gotten into a French anime, (Yes French)
called Wakfu. It is brilliant, and I highly suggest you watch it. I will be cosplaying as Nox from that
series for the Anime Detour con next april.

I would now like to hear what any of you think about the industry in general. Do you think it is
suffering? If you do, do you think it will recover? Leave your comments in the section below.

All images taken from www.animecharactersdatabase.com