It's been a bit since we did one of these, so I wanted to pick something of a bit more obscure subject to cover. This time I wanted to cover the current practice of character rot currently plaguing modern mainstream franchises and revivals. It isn't just an ignorance problem, it's an ignorance problem brought about by stubborn ego.
A lot of talk is spent about why so many properties forcibly change old things to "fix" them while a loyal cadre of people who got into it for what it originally was always complain about it. Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the customers who are wrong in these cases: it is the creators who willing ignore what they don't like or understand about the property and set about to "repair" its perceived problems. All while pop cultists who will consume anything let them uncritically demolish it because they too do not care much about the issue.
For an example of this very problem I suggest the above issue from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and franchise itself that has had one nasty identity crisis its entire existence, but only really became a problem when a certain sect of western obsessives got their foot in the door and started making demands instead of approaching the assignment with pure intentions. What you get is the mess above that completely misses the original intent of the project.
We go on a lot about how ideology is responsible for these trends, but the truth is that it all stems from an ignorant misunderstanding of a subject then, instead of correcting course, doubling down the way the ideology tells you to. In the end, it's ego. While artistic ego is real, when working with others one is meant to reign it in and collaborate to make the best of both worlds. At no point should you consider it carte blanche to run roughshod over everyone else and assume you are the final arbiter of what is right and good.
It's a strange narcissism that runs in this generation of creators that seems to be just about everywhere, even when it's completely undeserved. Whether in comics, TV, video games, and even books, there is a disturbing lack of humility to be found in it, even in something like an old stalwart property from the 1990s. Every 20th century IP is infected with this mentality now, and it appears to be completely inescapable.
However, what's not inescapable is the change in the independent spaces and NewPub. There you don't have to go through any of this decay because it's all owned by the original creators who have no aspiration to sell out to a dead industry for a quick buck. It's about building, not cashing in and going home. We have a duty to create, and we're going to do it.
In other news, there's a new podcast episode on the Patreon. This one is over an hour long and is about tertiary characters and creations and how they matter more than we might think. I also go on a bit where I think the industry is heading beyond this modern rut. It's an exciting one!
We've got quite a lot to look forward to.
Thanks again for all your support, and I'll see you next time!
Welcome back! I hope the new year is working out well for you!
For 2025's first proper post, lets take a look at the above video. It shows a bit of the evolution and changes of the animation industry in both the US and Japanese animation industries. Why certain things happened and why others did not. It's more of a general summary and history, so you won't get specific details on certain things, but the general gist of why things happened the way they did. Worth the watch just for the comparison.
That said, the main thrust of it can be gathered pretty clearly. Japan thought of animation as a medium to explore with stories and new techniques while the US never really considered animation as anything but kid stuff. This didn't change as the years went on. Even the "adult" animation we talk about these days was simply "adult" because it was subversive and winking at you that it was doing what it was because it was playing in a "kid" medium. As a consequence, exceptions aside, it never really grew up. It neve really wanted to.
I'll go a bit further than the video and name at least one of the culprits. If you've read here for a while than you probably know who I'm going to blame.
The US industry was also run by secular prudes like Peggy Charren since near the beginning, and this is an unavoidable subject. People that fought for complete censorship (No shooting villains, showing blood or death) for children while simultaneously fighting for complete freedom for adults to watch everything short of (and it would eventually include) pornography after a certain timeslot for adults. Where such people got the idea that poison stopped negatively affected you just because you turned a certain age is a mystery, but also completely nonsensical for moral crusaders to believe in. This is what happens when your morality is empty on the base of it. This helped contribute to the oddly stunted maturity of the industry that never really, and still hasn't, ever tried to grow up. This is what has led it into the wall it crashed into some time ago.
Of course, Japan has its own issues with over-corporatization and an increasingly rigid reliance on tired formulas, but it doesn't change that their base is still a lot stronger under them. They can still make things like Pluto or Frieren. This side of the pond can't make anything but "Billion dollar corpo/ nostalgia franchise slathered in late 20th century grey morality" which runs out of steam incredibly fast every time. The only new thing it has is cramming ever-changing modern sexual morality into whatever they do to make it more predictable. It cannot compete with the East, and we all know it. It can't even compete with its own past, at this juncture.
The most exciting US animation is entirely underground at this point and done by people who are passionate about the medium in a way the mainstream simply isn't (some exampleshere), despite how the individual workers might feel. The US isn't hopeless or finished in regards to the medium, but they are behind, and thankfully the newer generation, the one least enthralled with nostalgic throwbacks to dead days and constant subversion, are looking ahead. They are the ones who will steer the ship in the right direction.
Despite what the tone of this post might indicate, I am vey optimistic for the future of the medium, but I do think all the more interesting projects at this point (particularly in regards to the US) are coming from the younger generation in the indie sphere. Such seems to be the case for a lot of things these days, but it's particularly true here.
What we need going forward is our entertainment industries run by people who not only want to push things to the next level, but also hold no bitterness towards the past; people who think art has a meaning or purpose being consuming or giving the finger to someone they are bitter towards. Create something new, something fresh, and want to show it to both the young and old. Art can bring us together, it does not always have to divide or tear down.
Until we figure that out, I'm afraid a lot of industries are just going to remain stuck. So here's hoping 2025 is the year we make strides to turn that around.
Thanks for joining me in this fresh new year! It's going to be a good one.
The following is a three hour video that covers the delinquent genre of manga. It starts from the beginning and purports to be definitive as it is meant to go through the the past to the present. In a sense it does because the creator covers a lot of material to the point where it's actually a bit overwhelming to watch the full thing.
That said, I don't actually recommend watching the entire thing. The first third of the video about the beginnings of the genre and what is considered a "delinquent" manga is the best material. After that the creator gets far too opinionated and misunderstands the appeal of many genre staples (and misses many crossover hits that expands said definition) because he has a very narrow view and specific set of expectations he wants out of it. So if you are interested in learning about what the delinquent genre is and its appeal, you're not going to get much out of watching the whole. Particularly if you've read some of the series covers and find his opinions on them off or bizarre.
But the first hour or so is very informative and a good sum up on where it came from and what the general appeal is. It also show the difference from other forms of delinquent culture across the world.
You see much of the appeal of delinquent stories isn't from bad kids doing bad things but from teenagers learning what it means to live in a world that doesn't have much use for masculine behavior, leaving the young stranded and alienated on how they are supposed to fit in. This atomized feeling is that heart of the genre which then can lead in any direction: from the split between good and bad kids, to traveling down the wrong path, or even learning to channel that energy in a direction that benefits everyone.
You can go in many directions, and the genre definitely has over the years. It's how you get entries as varied as Ashita no Joe, Akira, Yu Yu Hakusho, Tora Dora, and Slam Dunk, and characters from other related and bordering genres like One Punch Man, School Rumble, Fruits Basket, and Saiki K. Its themes are universal enough to be folded into even series that don't focus on delinquents. They remain an important staple in their stories.
The closest equivalent I can imagine in the West would be the works of S. E. Hinton. Most other stories over here tend to miss the appeal of these sorts of stories or characters, opting instead to make them heartless monsters or generic villains. Probably because we tend to see such characters as "bullies" and bullies are treated as very one dimensional. But while there can be overlap, they are usually not the same archetype. Regardless, that is usually how they are used and they always strike me as being very boring characters with not much to say.
That is a shame, because in my opinion, these kinds of characters always end up being my favorites, and I assume they do for many others as well. Feels like a missed opportunity.
Not to say Japan always does them well either. A large chunk of them simply stop at making said character a loud idiot with no redeeming features, and that's as far as it goes. But dig a little deeper and you usually find, in my eyes, the character who always ends up being the best one. I would be ecstatic if we would write more characters like these over here. In case you are wondering, yes, I actually do have many characters like this. And I probably always will. They highlight a specific failing of modernity that more writers need to touch on.
Plus they are always the coolest and funniest characters. There has to be a reason for that! Why else would they be such an important staple in so many stories?
Anyway, that's all for this week. In case you missed it, check out the new post from earlier in the week! It's a good one.
Have yourself a good weekend and I will see you next time!
Welcome to the weekend, I hope it's been a good week for you. Here is a last minute change of plans! I was not expecting this, but a perusal of my spam folder (if you sent me something and I didn't answer you, this might be the reason!) showed me a message from the creator of today's project. Stick around, because this is a good one!
Today we're covering a brand new fandub of the classic anime Zillion, a series that I covered on Wasteland & Sky ages ago. However, I believe the edition I covered is out of print now that Funimation has been absorbed by Sony. If you haven't seen the series, the first two episodes of the new fandub are up right now and as good a time as any to get into it. You can find the channel currently hosting the project here!
For those who need a refresher, Zillion was one of the original modern multimedia projects back in the day, being a light gun game by Sega on the Master system as well as one of the first anime produced by Production IG (in cooperation with Tatsunoko Productions) and is a great old time. Though a late '80s production, it has a sort of warmth and excitement to it that ran through anime in the '70s into the '90s before dying out in the new millennium. The series also holds up very well today despite not being very modern. That just helps it stand out all the more.
So what's Zillion about? One word: Adventure!
It's the future and humanity is expanding out into the galaxy. An unstoppable alien force has emerged out of nowhere, threatening our very way of lige, and now humanity's hope rests in the skills and quick trigger-fingers of a group of good-natured teenagers with attitude. With their super guns, ATVs that turn into mecha suits, and episodic adventures featuring exciting and inventive action set pieces every week, join our main trio as the get closer and closer to saving humanity and get better and better at doing just that.
They don't make 'em like that anymore, and, to be honest, they were already starting to turn away from making them like that even when Zillion was around and doing well. Regardless, this series is an easy recommend, especially for kids, and has a vibe that anyone can get into. The series is just unbridled joy and fun to watch with a surprisingly high production value and animation quality for a show that only ran slightly longer than a typical anime season of its time. Perhaps its multimedia origins helped it stand out, but it also helped it age very well.
Give the series a chance. It's still a great watch today.
The second episode of the brand new fandub is below. If you sub you can even watch more as they come out in the future! Unfortunately the original series is not available for streaming, and with Funimation gone the physical release is certainly out of print and not being released again anytime soon, so who knows if there will be another way to watch it in the near future. As well all know, streaming is not a good way to preserve anything as it is, so options are dwindling for a lot of things that should be much more easily preserved. Anyway, I digress.
That's all for this week! As a writing update, I just received an acceptable from two different magazines and will talk about those when I can. At the same time, there is one chapter of Phantom Mission left for next week, so get on the Patreon and catch up!
At the same time, I just put the cap on another short story that will release in the future. It's been a productive time. I've got a few more I want to finish off for the end of the year, so send some prayers out that I'll be able to do it. We all know as we get into Autumn that things start to get trickier both weather-wise and in other things.
Lastly, I just put out a new episode of the podcast for backers, as well. This one is on Y Signal and '90s Nostalgia. I talk quite a bit about how they mix in the episode here. If you ever wanted to know more about the behind the scenes on that weird tale, this is the place to hear it!
Thanks again for your support, especially in this tenth anniversary of Wasteland & Sky! I never thought we would be around this long back when I started, so it's very humbling to see that not only are we still around, but still thriving at the same time.
There's also a lot more to come, so stick around, and just wait! You're going to love it. We've only just begun.
It's been quite a week. Here's hoping the weather stabilizes soon because it's been pretty rough in my neck of the woods. I hope it's been better where you are. If only I could pick one temperature and weather pattern and be able to keep it for a week straight that would be great. It's been a real pain to adjust to.
Before we start, I wanted to remind readers that both the next chapter of Phantom Mission is up for patrons and the next podcast episode is also out. Phantom Mission is on Chapter 9 and we're heading towards the climax at breakneck speed. In the podcast episode I talk about The Pulp Mindset for over an hour. It's close to the fourth anniversary of the book (Wow, it's already been that long) so I wanted to go into it a bit. You can find it all at the Patreon here.
For those who are curious about the podcast specifically, there will be another free episode of it in the near future to give you a better idea of what it's about for those who are still debating on joining. Regardless, if you enjoy talking and hearing about the world of art and entertainment it's a fun project to engage in.
That's all for that. Now, let us get into today's topic!
Part 1
We talk a lot about the art and entertainment of the late 80s and early 90s as sort of a transformative period, an era of uncertainty but hopefulness and experimentation before it melted into generic muck by the time the latter decade ended. For those of us who were born before the end, we experienced firsthand as we were growing this period that was almost instantly erased and paved over once the new millennium hit. However, it only stands to reason that as Gen Y, the last group that connected to that era, got older, we would also begin to forget as we aged ourselves.
And that's why blogs like this exist. We need to keep context, we need to remember what it was like, and we need to not be steamrolled by those who wish to throw out all that came before for the next trend. The only way to make good new art is to build on those who came before, and we can't do that if no one properly remembers what actually did come before.
So let us go all the way back to a period simultaneously the most cherished and most hated, the 1980s, as we begin this story. It's about that maverick generation, the one that faded away from the mainstream without a peep as the 2000s came along. Perhaps you remember them; perhaps you are one of them yourself. Today's subject is the lost Gen X.
You probably generally know who they are, but what you might not know, or remember, is their true legacy as artists. That image has been almost lost to time. Much of that disappearance has been a victim of intentional revisionism and self-mythicization from the cohort, but there is more to it all than you might expect.
The truth is that as Gen X kids were coming of age in the 1980s they were entering the art world and putting their stamp on it. They were going to outdo their Baby Boomer parents and take on the world, leaving their mark on it as they did so. However, that aforementioned stamp is not quite what the mainstream narrative sells it as these days. It wouldn't be as profitable to be honest about what Gen X was or what happened to them.
The video series we are discussing covers today's topic in its own story. The series is called "Gen X Hate Revisited" by a YouTube channel called Cartoon Aesthetics. This series is a three part exploration of that transitional time where Gen X kids, the last fully analog generation, came of age, put their stamp on the world of art, and then slowly faded away into the crowd almost overnight. Specifically, this series covers one artist as he rose to fame with his own creation during this very period and shows just how it all sort of fell away as time passed and the market shifted. In fact, his story contains the perfect encapsulation of that generation's story.
As someone born and labeled as a member of Gen Y (someone who falls in the crack between the fully analog Gen X and the fully digital Millennials), and was the first cohort who grew up on this of sort of material back in the day before witnessing it fading as the 1990s wore on to be replaced by bland corpo slop, I've always been fascinated with what exactly that group of young adults were trying to do. It wasn't as if you could ask them--Gen X were mysterious and cool, and prone to be embellish or talk around their own motives. If anything they truly are the unreliable narrator generation. Though unlike the Boomers, it's definitely a voluntary attitude they grew up with and put out of their own accord. They were the older brother generation.
Gen X weren't their parents, but, despite what the memes might say, they didn't full reject them, either. They weren't staunch traditionalists, but they also did not hate the idea of new approaches to old mediums. What they were doing back in the day had a lot of nuance that has been lost over time. What has been traditionally labeled as "cynical" in regards to this generation of so-called "slackers" might not have been anything like that at all.
At least, it didn't start there.
In the first part of this series linked above you can see the shift in comics, music, and, eventually, animation, as a younger generation filled with vigor and spirit to travel new trails took charge of industries that weren't yet subverted and locked up by washed up cliques. Truly, if you engage in Gen X art up until the early '90s you notice a distinct identity, an originality, that sticks out and puts its own unique stamp on the art world.
Then the growing swamp of pop culture noticed their existence.
The video series does a very good job tracing the changes of that transitional period as well as the attitudes of a lot of the people around at the time before self-awareness and ego took the wheel and sent everything down a path that would culminate in the dead-end known as Cultural Ground Zero. Of course, the series being discussed doesn't go into that mess, it's out of the scope of the subject, but it is fascinating to see some of the mentalities that would eventually lead their industries into the ditch before the 21st century hit.
A comic that perfectly encapsulate the uncertain Gen X era in question is the comic called Hate starring underground favorite character Buddy Bradley. This is a series about the young Gen-Xer in question as he moves away from home to Seattle in the early 1990s in the same period it all exploded to mass appeal. You might imagine how that goes. Though the writer was part of the cohort known as "Gen Jones" (a label rarely used today), it made his observations come from a slightly different perspective than you might think as he wrote his younger character living through the time period they all were living through at the time. It's a time capsule of an era few seem to discuss much anymore. Though perhaps there is a reason for that.
The second part of the series covers Hate itself more in-depth here:
Part 2
I recommend watching the videos for yourself, as it is a great look at a time period long gone and currently being sold as something it's not in order to both sell to Zoomers who have no context for it or for crusty Gen-Xers (and Ys) who have bought into the revisionism so they can consume more product and feel more important doing so.
The truth is actually not in the plentiful "Gen X is tough and younger generations are all weak" memes floating around like old Boomer jokes on Facebook, but in how they dealt with how rapidly the world was both changing through technology and, even though no one really noticed at the time, how it was breaking down socially. Things were "weird" and insane because the old ways were being forgotten and tradition and ambition was starting to fall through the cracks. It turns out it wasn't really a new era being born, but the beginning of the end of the old one. This is partially why it's been a subject of scorn and deliberate burial over the years since the '90s ended.
This is the trickiest part a lot of formerly Authentic (capital "A" like they would have wanted) Gen X era artists have when creating art today. They built themselves back in the day on Authenticity as the highest good and key to being Real, but so many have since bought their own hype and locked themselves into preset personality patterns that they forgot who they once were, where they started from, or why they did any of this in the first place, all to keep up with the Joneses of modern trends and attitudes. Their distinct identity is long gone and lost with the passage of time. I could name countless examples but I'm sure you can think of them yourself. There is no shortage of Gen X artists that have lost their edge for Safetyism and modern mainstream acceptability.
What the "Gen X Hate Revisited" video series does is present a good case with Peter Bagge's Hate just what that Authenticity would grow to be without the influence by artificial pop culture hype and untethered to nostalgic expectations of those who want this cohort to be a certain way in Current Year. Bagge remained authentic to his original vision and, as a result, managed to create a piece that works both well as both a time capsule and a series removed from it to stand on its own feet. You get to see that generation in a way you never really get to anymore and he does it by never forgetting where he came from in the first place.
This is mostly because, for all intents and purposes, as I hinted at before, that Gen X cohort doesn't actually exist anymore. Those people are all gone, the party's over, everyone got in line and marched in file out of town, into corpo world as the 1990s drew to a close. They deliberately made themselves irrelevant the very moment they could, almost like a final jest on their old image. Where they went, nobody knows, but the people left who still use that label are hardly who they used to be, and what they tend to be is unrecognizable to what the cohort once was.
So much Gen X art as a whole has simply vanished over the years and has since been absorbed into the safe muck of the ever-creaking corporate mainstream (See: Tim Burton. There, I gave an example) that it's hard to wonder if that Authenticity ever really existed in the first place or maybe it just needed a few bucks to be guided in the Right Direction. The question still remains: where did everyone go since the millennium pulled them all into a vortex of bland? Whatever happened to that distinctive identity? What did it become? Where are they now, and where are they going?
You might get some examples in the third part meant to wrap the Gen X Hate Revisited series up. You can watch it below:
Part 3
I'm not going to comment on the third part and will instead recommend watching it for yourself and coming to your own conclusions. There is little point making judgement on a generation that is still around and still young enough to really do anything or go anywhere. The point is more to see where they are now and where they might go while they still have the chance to do it. Baby Boomers might be locked in to their current path due to their age and inability to change. For Gen X, however, the road is still very much open.
I will say one thing before we wrap it up here, and that it is strange that the Authenticity displayed here, one that was so common with Gen X back at their peak, today feels even more like a relic of a generation that once refused to stay dead. They definitely aren't dead, but sometimes it feels like they were always meant to be, and clinging to the mainstream was the one way to avoid that fate. Does that make sense? I'm rambling at this point, just trying to figure it out. Regardless, they aren't dead, and they aren't done yet. No one really is. There's always a chance to change.
I don't want any of this to sound like I'm throwing stones here. Gen Y has done just about everything I talked about. Our "authenticity" was "objectivity" and leading the charge for materialism acceptance through long-dead trash like New Atheism. In pursuit of relevance and acceptable corporate trends to base our identities around we allowed ourselves to turn to bland inoffensive goo--our legacy is melting down in the 2000s to allow the current state of product worship to be the baseline in appreciating art and entertainment. We basically helped create the current monster of corpo slop worship. Anything negative I can say about Gen X can be applied just as harshly to me and mine. We have not been the preservationists we once saw ourselves as.
The generation that were the excited younger brothers of Gen X back in the '90s turned into wannabe Millennials, hipsters, and consoomers, over the last quarter century, clinging to dead childhood brands that are the last thing around to remember our existence from when we mattered. And all we want is to be left alone to die in the corner with as much cheap plastic crap as we can. What a glorious legacy that will be!
If anything, my generation is worse at all this. Gen X might have faded away, but we threw ourselves off the train before we even got to the stop we were being dropped off at. They still have much to offer, even today, that we could have passed on ourselves if we weren't too busy hoarding corporate products and useless baubles instead.
All that aside, it was an interesting look into generational trends of modernity. Nothing has really changed, it's just gone faster and faster beyond the speed of stability since the back half of the 20th century. Sooner or later (certainly sooner) the wheels will come off and the whole thing is going to derail and fly off a cliff. It's not sustainable, and everyone knows it.
Generations of people can't live separated from each other only to be disposed of when the next trend in line comes around to be cashed in on, rinse and repeat. There is more to us than what we can offer for some corporate monolith that doesn't care either way what happens to us. Whatever the future holds, it won't be in that. It can't be--the 20th century is over and that train is long out of steam. It won't always be this way, whether we want it to be or not.
But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to learn from the past to help us carry forth to tomorrow. Even if the world ends, we can't stop. Art doesn't stop. We don't, either. We have to keep the torch alive and burning and continue passing it on. That is every generation's duty to the next. It will never change, no matter how different we see ourselves as.
Perhaps that's the question to ask in all of this. Can we keep that torch alive and burning, or are we destined to finally be the ones to fumble it into the ground and leave the future generations in the dark? Is there still time to adjust and recalibrate our aim?
Welcome to the weekend! Let us talk about adventure, though not the sort one usually talks about these days. We're going way back to the late 20th century today.
I don't think I have to reiterate how big the Disney Afternoon was in the late '80s and early '90s. While the company itself did not do so hot during the 1980s, they still tried whatever they could to try and stand out from the crowd. Some of that stuff holds up better than others. One of its projects was to create a block for syndicated cartoons (airing every day of the week) called the Disney Afternoon which had the goal of producing near theatrical quality animation for an entire two hour block at 65 episodes. They carved out a two hour block on the ABC network (this was before they bought it) and spent the next decade more or less owning the after school timeslot. As a result, it ended up being one of the most impressive projects of its time.
But what was more impressive were the series it produced. You see, a bunch of simple gag cartoon series wouldn't be enough to hold kids' attention every day of the week (a lesson they would unfortunately forget by the end of the block's run), so why not make full-throated adventure series in the style of popular Disney comics from years past? You could also mix and match it with well known Disney characters as well as new creations. That is exactly what they did, and the final result was a smash hit.
Much has been said about some of the more popular entries of the block, though truth be told it was all uniformly great up until the time of Gargoyles, which would end up being its crowning achievement and the peak of the entire project. Believe me, that one is still great today. However, you've heard about most of these many times before: DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, the aforementioned Gargoyles, and even the more slapstick-inspired Goof Troop. But little is said about what is probably the hidden gem of the entire block: TaleSpin.
Though the series was based on the movie based on the Kipling stories, it took quite a bit of inspiration from other sources to produce its unique setting and style. It's not quite as comedic as Darkwing Duck, as high energy as Rescue Rangers, or as full of danger as DuckTales, but it has its own groove where it comfortably sits in the middle of them all and can bend in different directions depending on the episode airing that day. This makes it quite an interesting series to revisit because you never quite know what you're going to get.
The interesting part about TaleSpin is that it was probably every kid's least favorite series on the block at the time it aired, but now as adults they would easily consider it one of the best if not the best one. It wasn't even that kids didn't like it at the time--they liked it a lot. It was more that it was surrounded by DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, and Darkwing Duck, for most its run, series that appealed more to their youthful sensibilities. It's really as you grow to appreciate things like pulp adventure serials, screwball romance comedies, and general wonder, that you truly grow to get it in a way you couldn't when younger. It's aged extremely well.
I linked the above video talking about the show's production and how it was received when it aired, and you could tell that critics even at the time disliked adventure stories. The number one criticism of the series (and pretty much the block as a whole) is how it was aping and reheating "Spielberg/Lucas adventure stories" for dumb kids. Such a thing, again, is indicative of the hatred of the pulps the mainstream press has pretty much always had, since they did not even know DuckTales did not originate as a cartoon in the first place. None of these series were reliant on movie formulas--they were reliant on old comic book and serial storytelling that had worked countless times before them. It was an attempt to update an old style for newer audiences. They also proved that it could still work on audiences that had no nostalgia for the format.
Of course, Disney had major success in the '90s thanks to moves like this, but it would eventually go to their heads and by the 2000s would almost implode in on themselves, relying on John Lasseter era Pixar to carry them for a good while. But for my money, the studio itself peaked here with these productions and would never quite hit these highs again. Many people consider A Goofy Movie a swansong to the Disney Afternoon era (since it had so many of the same people working on it) and I'd probably agree since not long after the film the block caved in on itself, dying out with the very decade it helped usher in. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come.
Regardless, if you've not seen these old series in a while, or have young ones or relatives that have not experienced any of them, they really do hold up surprisingly well. Check out the video above for proof of that. I would still call them some of the best things the studio ever put out.
Adventure and wonder never fall out of date.
That's all for this weekend, and I'll see you next week!
January might be the coldest and most boring month of the year, but it doesn't have to be. Typically it's the time to form new habits because there isn't much to distract you yet before the year starts rolling on. At the same time, it is also the time to revisit old forgotten things and learn from them before they get lost in the flood of everyday life.
For the first lounge post of the year I wanted to focus on one of the strangest, yet perfectly understandable at the time, phenomenon of the late 1980s and early 1990s. No, not the Japanimation boom you might or might not remember, but s specific popular creation from it. I wanted to share with you the story behind the very unique and of its times anime OVA, Bubblegum Crisis.
This is the story of four women working as mercenaries wearing specialized mecha/power armor called "hardsuits" to battle evil threats in a cyberpunk future world. There is also a lot of killer music, action, and heartfelt emotions along the way. It only lasted for 8 episodes before production troubles split the team of this once in a lifetime project up, but it has still remained a classic of the genre for anyone who remembers it. The series was also highly influential in ways that are still felt in the industry today.
How do you appeal to guys? Pretty simple. Incredible action directed by some of the best animation of the time, attractive women that still blow away the ones in the mainstream industry today, and some of the most exciting music of the time period (in ways you might not expect), all team up to form a complete package of cool.
Motorbikes, power armor, and beautiful women!
Appealing to the male audience can sometimes lead to things you might not expect. Bubblegum Crisis is one of those seminal works of Japanese anime that will probably never fully disappear. It's simply too unique and too well done to over be forgotten.
Now, saying Bubblegum Crisis is of its time seems redundant. It looks 80s, feels 80s, and oozes 80s from every orifice. That said, its roots go back further than that, and its impact lived on beyond that cultural high decade for Japan.
This is why I am sharing the above video with you detailing its entire wild production history. It's a crazy story, unlike any other, and in it you will see not only the importance of cultural osmosis, but the importance of imagination and wonder to really affect people in ways that truly count. This is why younger guys can watch it today and still find a lot to take from it while being blown away by what it does.
Nonetheless, if you are either a creator yourself, looking into a very specific time in culture like the 1980s, or just generally enjoy wild real life stories, I highly recommend the above history of Bubblegum Crisis. There was nothing quite like it and will never be again.
Of course that doesn't mean there is no anime worth your time today. Last year's Pluto was excellent and one of the best anime releases in recent years, and this year seems to have than a few interesting projects on the way.
It's just not quite the same as this era, and will never quite hit the same way. Not that it can, but that makes this time all the more valuable to remember. The past might be a different country but it should still be the same world. We are meant to carry on from it, and help build in new directions for generations to come.
Regardless, Bubblegum Crisis is still very cool today and you should still watch it. And really, that's all that matters.
What if you learned an entertainment company you enjoyed fondly as a young one fell apart? Even worse than that: what if you saw the entire thing coming from a mile away, but not only could you do nothing to stop it, the people in charge thought they were succeeding instead? How exactly what something like that come about?
Well, it turns out that we have no shortage of such examples in the modern world, many I've even highlighted before on this blog. However, today I wanted to highlight one project in particular that was such a specific sort of failure that it can only have happened to one company on one project in particular. That's right, this is about RoosterTeeth and Gen:Lock.
For those who don't know what either of those are, and there are plenty these days, RoosterTeeth started out back in the 2000s as one of those user-created content mills based on the properties of others, much like Machinima was (remember them?), who started with the comedy series Red Vs. Blue. RvB was a Halo parody using in game assets to make comedy skits and observations about the video game and pop pop culture itself. It was very much a 2000s era product, as its very name shows, and could not have been made at any other time.
Red Vs. Blue did well, eventually leading RoosterTeeth into trying something more ambitious. Using their talents, they endeavored to make an original universe spearheaded by a man named Monty Oum. He worked on the last few seasons of RvB and was responsible for such viral videos as Haloid (a Metroid/Halo crossover) and Dead Fantasy, (a Dead or Alive/Final Fantasy crossover) which is a 2000s era project if there ever was one. This new project, of course, would be RWBY.
I'm not going to bother to go into RWBY, that whole thing is a story in itself, but suffice to say it was popular. It was so popular that RoosterTeeth attracted a lot of attention from outside parties, many eager to see if they could cash in on this burgeoning "new" form of entertainment. Naturally, this meant more projects would come about.
One such product is the now infamous Gen:Lock, their attempt at a "modern" mecha series. It is now more well known for its failure than anything it did while it was around. There is a lot to go over, so I recommend watching the video above to get the entire experience. Suffice to say, it was an unbridled disaster, spurring from both the worst aspects of independent creators AND the worse aspects of corporate interference. Gen:Lock runs the full gamut of mistakes, bad luck, ineptitude, and does it in such a way that is almost impressive.
As you watch it keep the events in mind for whatever it is you are passionate about, and remember them. Things can always get worse--don't choose to make them worse yourself. Remember what the purpose of art and entertainment is and try your best to not fall into this hole yourself. A lot of the problems described, especially those that happened near the end, are very much turning into common mistakes today in the here and now. This whole event is becoming far too common, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking it should be acceptable.
That's all for today! November is here, and the weather is turning chilly. Be sure to keep warm and have yourself a rest.
Every industry today works on an overly corporate belt loop of product without regard to much aside from cost cutting. We've talked about how kid cartoons aren't even made for kids today, but not so much why every cartoon looks the same. Sure, it's cheap, but its never been this blatant before. What is the moment that lead to this downfall?
The above video merely goes into the greater trends in the industry, but doesn't really talk about the root issue. Where did it come from?
I have to be honest, it's that the industry has never really cared that much for creativity except when trying to establish a foothold. Whether the Disney Afternoon, early Nickelodeon, or the early imports of Japanese anime, these hits all came about from risks taken by putting trust into the creators to do what they do best.
With the way the industry is now, risk is forbidden and to be avoided at all costs. Even worse when there is no audience growth as they aim for older audiences who want childish animation instead of animation for kids or adults. There is no incentive for creativity anymore, and therefore the industry is in a death spiral. It won't actually die, but it will continually mechanize itself until the point that AI can replace a creative team that isn't hired to be creative.
Perhaps that is the end goal. Who knows? But every since the introduction of flash animation, industry insiders have defended every move their bosses have made to cut costs, streamline processes, and mechanize creativity.
When machines can be programmed to do what they themselves dumb down their own industry to do, should we be surprised? You can make the argument that "at least there was human input" but don't forget that every change since the millennium in animation has to remove the human element. A machine taking charge is just completing the cycle already begun long ago. If you don't like the loss of humanity then you should have questioned why every change made since digital came in has made the industry more sterile.
Why can nothing still look as good as old Tom & Jerry or Popeye shorts? Why is anime allowed to have more variety of genres? Why do hand drawn cells and traditional animation at their peak still blow away even the best CG over a quarter of a century after being replaced? Why is "better than nothing" considered a worthy standard worth maintaining? At what point should you demand more instead of accepting constantly lowering standards?
Until we address that, nothing is going to change.
In other news, the Gemini Man Kickstarter was funded! If you are a backer, check out the recent update and see just what is happening next. I'm still deciding on some things, but I'm still planning on sending out the first book of the series for digital backers once I've got all my ducks in a row. This has been a long time coming!
That's all for this week, hopefully I can get the blog back to normal again. I know some of you are probably sick of hearing about Gemini Man by now, so don't worry. I'll be heading back into other subjects again now that the campaign is over. I've got some subjects I definitely want to go over in the near future.
Welcome to the weekend! I hope your week has been as wild as mine has been. Starting a Kickstarter campaign and having it fund in 24 hours is exciting stuff. It wasn't quite what I expected to happen, but I can't say it's not a pleasant experience.
Nonetheless, it's the weekend. Time to unwind!
Today, I wanted to go over two things in particular, but before we get to the update on the Kickstarter, I wanted to share a rare find I recently stumbled across.
Years ago, back during Japan's bubble economy, the anime landscape was known for wild and weird OVAs unlike anything you had ever seen before. From weird projects like California Crisis to Megazone 23, it looked as if the sky was the limit. I want to share one of these with you today. Once such anime was known as Leda: the Fantastic Adventures of Yohko, one of the most influential OVAs of its time. This is an older portal story in the vein of A Princess of Mars or Escaflowne, meant to reach a more classic state of wonder. This OVA is not very much like a modern Isekai as we know them today, and that is much of what makes it great.
In Leda, a young woman writes a song for boy she likes, and her love transports her to a new world where an evil sorcerer wishes to use her talents for his own ends. It is her love that is the true power in this anime. Our main character must don the sword of the goddess and cross the land to put an end to this evil so she can get home and present her true feelings to the one she loves the most. It is the sort of romance one does not see too much in anime anymore, never mind one with this much wonder.
Some have complained that her crush isn't well defined or that there isn't any heavy worldbuilding on this one, but both miss the point of the OVA. It is love that transcends time and space and gives us the power to be the best we can be, no matter who we are. The particulars are not the point of this influential anime.
What you might not know about Leda is that, while it was popular and well respected in its day, is fairly unknown in the west even back when it released. However, there was a very rare, infamous dub that was once thought lost to time. That is, until it was put up on the Internet Archive. Now you can see this influential OVA and the rare dub in the same place since no one knows if it'll ever get released again. Rights issues with old OVAs are kind of dicey these days, never mind ones like this that never had much presence over here to begin with.
Nonetheless, Leda is a good watch and holds up well today, especially in a post-Pulp Revolution era where old OVAs are getting more attention in the west than they have in years. You'll have a good time with this one.
You can find the rare dub version of Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohkohere. Better check it out before the archive gets gutted thanks to certain OldPub authors scrounging for pennies to give to their masters. We might soon lose preservation efforts like this forever if such folks get their way. No legitimate artist should be for such things.
But that is just one of the things I wanted to mention today.
In other news, here is a new update on the Gemini Man Kickstarter! We funded within the first 24 hours and are now looking towards extras, including new stories and art to be included in the overall package. The initial campaign was to fund cover art for the big magazine-style omnibus release of the trilogy, and that will be commissioned once the campaign has ended. This is all thanks to the generous backers who jumped in so early.
The artist for the cover will be Manuel Guzman, the man who did the cover for Book 3, Gemini Outsider! He went above and beyond on that one. You can see the cover art process for Book 3 below. He did great work on this and I can't wait to see his work on the full trilogy cover! It's been a long time coming and we're so close to the end.
As for the final release, I just got my pre-release copy (without a cover or bonus content) of the paperback copy in the mail recently to look it over, and this thing is a behemoth! We're talking three novels and over 200,000 words and 300 wide pages. This thing is unwieldy, but that is how you want a full trilogy to be. It's definitely stuffed to the brim, though should we hit the stretch goals it will be even more packed.
That's a bit hard to believe from my perspective, but it's been a wild campaign so far. Let us see just how wild it will get be the end! There is plenty of time left to go!
Like I said, this is one huge project. That is why I wanted the readers to be a part of the process and help shape the final project. A full trilogy release like this is an undertaking unlike any I've done before. It's been a real strange journey.
But we have even more of the campaign to look forward to. We still have a month left and I have other surprises to share with you before we get to the end. Check out the campaign page and back today! You're going to love this one.
Welcome to the weekend! Hopefully you're having a good one.
This above video was posted on Twitter just a few days ago, found on a VHS tape from 1999. It really shows you the different about how things were back then versus how they are, especially anime. They were also advertised much differently, as well.
For those unaware, anime was known as the alternative underground option that was sold on hardcore action and adventure and the weird. Throughout the '90s, thanks to companies like Streamline Pictures, ADVision, and Manga Entertainment, anime quickly became the source of bizarre, wonderful, new worlds, as the mainstream western industry was slowly being swallowed up by the changes brought on by the ACT and the streamlining of animation as safe, corporatized, edutainment product. Even by 1999, anime hadn't fully broken out in the West, but it was on the cusp, as the video shows. People wanted actual variety.
This was still the time period where there was a sizeable audience for animation aside from those wanting "comfy" shows where nothing happens and everyone learns a Captain Planet-style lesson at the end. This was all that existed even though viewers still had a hunger for wonder. They still do, but it's not as obvious today was it was then. Back then the western industry's take on animation was completely one note and harmful to creativity. It led to the dire state of things today.
At the time, animation itself was caught in a false dichotomy between "kid" and "adult" instead of just being a medium to translate ideas and new worlds. It was not really treated as a place of possibilities, and it still isn't today. This shallow dichotomy only worsened over the years to the point where now Adults primarily watch programming for Kids, and Kids primarily watch programming for adults . . . if they watch modern western media at all. It has gotten that broken over the years. This is what decades of letting a problem fester instead of addressing it does.
You didn't read that wrong. The majority of people watching the network where the material "isn't made for them" but for children, are nearing middle age. Children are no longer watching.
This comes hot on the heels of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block now taking over all of the prime time slots on the channel. This is a channel on its death bed. Children no longer watch television, never mind cartoon channels. All that remains are adults who want to watch children's programming (ostensibly) aimed at them instead. So children are consumed in the once adult internet and adults are consumed in the once childish network. Though CN still is kid focused in their material, it is just adults wanting to watch Captain Planet-level material instead of demanding more things in the vein of Gargoyles or even old HBO fare like Spawn, something that could be built on. They want children's programming, for whatever reason. This is a weird backwards mentality currently dragging the whole industry down and keeping anything original from being made. Eventually the independents will be all that is left. The mainstream did this to themselves
The above world of 1999 isn't around anymore. It's trapped in the same cliché product mill that things like Isekai are currently trapped in. There is no attempt to reach wider audiences or try new things. There isn't even an attempt to do justice to old things. It's just the same things rehashed over and over again to dwindling audiences. The only animation trying anything at all in the vein of what used to exist, are independent creators. The mainstream has decided up is down, down is up, adult is childish, childish is adult, and everything is backwards, and the people still there, what little remains, likes it that way. There is a reason these industries are only shrinking and dying: there is no growth here. There is no future down this road.
Anime's obsession with "comfy" also exists, but at the very least they are trying things like the new ONA idea to bring back some of that wonder again. There are still some new projects being attempted. They have not completely given up like the West has. There is a reason Japan has consumed the West in their animated and comic book mediums, and isn't just because Japan is better at it. It is because the West has given up entirely. Hopefully we will be able to right the ship sooner than later, but it will only happen in the underground. The mainstream West is done.
All that is left are the mavericks. Be sure to seek them out and support them when you can! That is where the future lies.
That's it for this time! Have some more promos, this time from 1997, to tide you over. Enjoy your weekend!
Today I just wanted to share a quick project for you. This is an animated pilot called Lackadaisy, an animated pilot that takes place during prohibition era St. Louis, starring quite the cast of characters. One glimpse of this and you'll be able to see: Animation isn't dead.
Somewhere between Don Bluth and the Disney Afternoon, Lackadaisy aims a bit heavier than how artificial the medium has become, but still manages to try for an All Ages approach. Thing is, All Ages used to mean a different thing before the ACT got involved and splintered what the industry was even able to be.
It's only a half hour of your time, and down completely independent, so be sure to give it a shot. At this point, it should be obvious to anyone that the mainstream has no interest in anything aside from the same degrading formula they have stuck to for decades now. Anything outside of that would seem like a breath of fresh air, even more when it's quality like this.
As we've been saying in the PulpRev for years, any change that is going to happen will come from outside the system. We have to explore new frontiers.
It is the only way forward.
That's all for this time. April is finally here, and warmer weather is just around the bend. Have a good weekend and I will see you next time!
The weekends are important. You already know this, and there is no point telling you that as if you don't, but there is a specific greatness to this time of the week that goes completely overlooked in this age of constant activity, bad shiftwork, and unending job hopping. That being, the importance of leisure and relaxation.
For kids, the existence of Saturday Morning Cartoons were the perfect encapsulation of such a thing. Before they were destroyed by the very same people currently censoring everything unchecked today, Saturday Morning Cartoons were the one place where kids could relax and have fun after a long week of work.
This is what things like TGIF used to tap into, though for the entire family in that case. There is something to a thing as a simple as a television block being so capable of drawing out so much excitement and anticipation from an entire set of people that hasn't truly ever been studied by all these supposed Pop Culture scholars of today.
Here is a brief piece on the history of Saturday Morning Cartoons found online. It's short, but a good primer for those who might be unfamiliar with the time period.
Saturday Mornings were the closest things kids have to a true rest day, at least in the modern world. No other day really came close, especially not the way parents would treat the rest of their activities as time blocks to be filled in. We all knew kids like that back in the day. Perhaps we do that ourselves today. Regardless, it's no way to live.
There is a reason commercial compilations still exist on YouTube
Think about it.
After the dreary "reality" you have been forced to endure all week, you finally survive and make it back home to rest. After emerging from said rest you awaken into a world of wonder and excitement, taking you to new worlds and possibilities far away from what you know. Not only that, but you also share it with your friends and families, your entire community. You all experience this together, and you all grow to experience the same sensations as you get older and older.
This is how, even nearly a quarter century from their unceremonious implosion, Saturday Morning cartoons remain such a positive memory for everyone who experienced them. Everyone who was alive for the short period those blocks were around still remember and thinks highly of them. You won't find anyone who lived with them calling them down. They were important, and they remain so, even years after they were shut down and taken away.
In an age where we don't see much of a purpose to most work, leisure doesn't quite seem like the reward it once was. Now it merely is treated as a break between the dreariness of modernity. There isn't much there these days.
Do we have an equivalent to Saturday Morning Cartoons today? Is there an adult equivalent to bring us together into a shared experience?
No, there is not. There is nothing at all that unites us, not even for one morning out of seven in a full week. Even putting aside cartoons, we are less united as a culture than ever before. In an age of remote work, never ending job hopping, and low societal trust, there is little true escape to be had. Suffice to say, we've completely lost any sort of connection between us on any level and it harms the sort of escapism we can indulge in.
But that doesn't mean we can't learn from this example of a dead practice and apply it to the future. Even something as simple as a television block has something to teach us about the importance of leisure. Perhaps something will come about in the future to eclipse those experiences we had long ago. Who knows? The future is wide open.
Until then, we can work for something better. There are no limits, after all. We should start acting like there aren't!
It's rare that one wakes up in the morning and the world is suddenly different. Most of the time it's a slow but steady change that leads everything around you to eventually becoming uncanny, a crude mockery of what you once thought of as normal. Sometimes, they just replace the lamppost lights with better bulbs, but that isn't as common these days as it once was.
Regardless, things don't stay the same forever.
As you are no doubt well aware, there is a sea change going on in the world of art and entertainment. NewPub being one of the examples of such a shift, but there are many others as well. We've gone over a few recently, but a lot of those are much more obvious. Today we're going to talk about anime, a subject we haven't really gone over much recently. Mostly because, well, there isn't much to say. I know I can repeat myself, but I don't go out of my way to.
What I've been watching in regards to anime isn't exactly what the majority is watching, outside of adaptions of manga I already read like My Hero Academia and whatnot. There is not much to repeat there. You already know what that is and if you enjoy it.
The industry has mostly been going the course, though with diminishing returns for anyone who has been watching for any length of time. It can get quite stale at times, and for good reason. For awhile the industry has needed a hot dose of adrenaline, and there is some to be seen, though not in the places you might expect. One of the weird shifts has been the turn the anime industry has made towards streaming services due to the overcrowded nature of their industry. But what they are doing with streaming is more interesting than what they are doing with TV, or what the west is doing with either of them. It is getting to the point where the more original and ambitious projects are being moved off of TV and into the online world instead. This is beginning to change the game, at least a little.
While manga is currently a booming industry with a lot of original projects being put out there, anime is a bit more stagnant. You can pretty much predict how everything that comes out each season will look and even preform and, outside of the obvious studios (BONES, David Productions, MAPPA, Trigger, etc.) it's more or less a glut of the same stuff recycled over and over again. You know what you're going to get every single time. That isn't the problem, though: it isn't about a lack of new ideas, but about execution.
It's fairly predictable how most things will play out. They just add colored hair, sometimes overdesign the clothes (usually to mask the fact that all the faces are interchangeable), and use the same angles and poses as everyone else. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of ambition.
Well, at least not in the big leagues. A few years ago, an independent student group created their own 18 minute animated project completely on their own (with some crowdfunding help!) and put it up for free on YouTube. this was a completely original project done with a small team. This would have been unheard of even a decade ago.
So what did they make? They created Kūchū Gunkan Atlantis a fresh spin on classic Gainax, Ghibi, and 1960s era anime ideas, but with that spirit of adventure you don't really see anymore in the mainstream. Especially not in film form.
You can see the full short anime here:
This is the sort of project that bodes well for any independent scene that might pop up over there, but even in the mainstream, companies appear to be using the untested grounds of streaming to try things a bit outside the box. Nothing quite at this level in terms of overall ambition, but plenty of things that could not be made otherwise.
You might have heard a lot about the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime last year. But if you didn't see it then you might not know that it didn't actually air on TV. It was an ONA (Original Net Animation) not unlike the classic era OVAs (Original Video Animation) from back in the day. That is why it had more freedom in its pacing and content than you would see from a TV series, and was allowed to be what it was. In a sense, it is a return to a style lost when the industry bubble popped at the end of the 1980s and the steam ran out by the '00s.
Other similar projects include the Bastard! manga getting a new adaption (which, again, received an OVA back in the day) as its content would otherwise be impossible to air on TV. It almost makes one wonder why Berserk has not received the same treatment. This "Heavy Metal Fantasy" was more or less designed to embody all those edgy 1980s tropes you know but with a heavy dose of comedy (and not exactly the sort of comedy anime usually goes for) to the proceedings. You'd never know this originally ran in Weekly Shonen Jump back in the day since it is so juvenile, but only in a way adults can understand. The magazine has changed much over the decades, just like the industry has since its glory days.
One project that highlights this perfectly, is the ONA adaption of the Spriggan manga (which itself is finally getting a proper release overseas) done by David Productions, the folks behind the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and JoJo's Bizarre Adventures anime series, themselves. Though it had a movie made back in the 1990s (helmed by no less than Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame himself), it was an adaption of one arc in the manga and also cut things out to fit the mood the director wanted. The anime aims to be more faithful to the manga while retaining the flair it is known for, the reason it was so popular back in the day.
For those unaware, Spriggan is a globetrotting adventure starring our main protagonist super agent Yu Ominae who wears an enhanced suit of body armor as he searches for ancient alien artifacts that blur the line between science and supernatural. These artifacts are a problem because can be used to destroy the world, because humanity is just not ready for them. It is his job as a super agent to keep them out of villains' hands, whether they be monsters, spirits, science experiments, super soldiers, or artifact wielders themselves. It's more or less an episodic adventure series.
Each ONA episode is structed like an OVA episode of old--a 45 minute adaption of one arc from the manga done at a surprisingly brisk pace with all the flair David Productions is known for. And because it is episodic (something that has been turned into a huge no-no these days), it remains an engaging watch one can handle at their own pace, one episode at a time. I am still hoping for a second season. Here's hoping it did well enough.
Here is one random, out of context scene to highlight what makes Spriggan so good. (Warning! Heavy violence and blood incoming)
This is the sort of hot blooded adventure and strange action you won't see from anime much these days, especially on TV or the cinema. Military action, supernatural, high tech, and enough bizarre characters and turns to shake a stick at. You have to find it here in steaming: online in a brand new and experimental format hinged to the cloud of streaming services. So it's not that much different than how Japan already handles its TV productions.
Is this setup ideal? Probably not, especially when physical releases are very slow coming (I don't think ANY Netflix exclusive produced series have had physical releases yet), but it does give a new way of producing them in the first place. That is definitely more appreciated in an age where everything blurs together in the tired TV landscape that has long since dried out.
The uncomfortable truth remains that the OVA era did allow more creative opportunities and venues for creators to approach their projects in an age when the industry, and the country's economy, were booming. But that was over three decades ago. Since then it has been about streamlining everything for television guidelines. The ONA venue might give some of that freedom back, especially as anime only increases in popularity overseas as the western industry flails.
Whatever the case, it is more freeing than where we are even a couple of years ago. Having everything locked to the same bland family friendly/pseudo edgy content allowed on television tended to make things awkward. More venues can only help, at this point.
I can't know exactly where the future for the industry lies, but when highly anticipated projects like Naoki Urasawa's Pluto (based on Osamu Tezuka's classic Astro Boy story) end up becoming Netflix exclusives with seemingly hour long episodes, you have to wonder how long things will stay as they currently are. The old ways are fading fast. We're going to have to get used to it.
Is this a good or bad thing? That will depend on what we choose to preserve, and what we choose to discard. Eventually we're going to have to choose the right path to travel. It would be better if the choice were not made for us.
At the very least, it gives a good excuse for classic manga to FINALLY get the western releases they always deserved, such as the above-mentioned Spriggan. I know I've been waiting for this one for a long time now.
Results like this can only be described as a good thing for everyone involved. The wider availability of medium classics are always a net-gain, even if too many have been trained to only buy the newest release.
The change in distribution has also helped manga, as well. One can read every chapter of the earlier mentioned My Hero Academia on the official Viz site as it comes out, and yet each physical volume is still a #1 bestseller regardless of the content in it being easily accessible.. That is the sign of an industry currently booming.
As for the West, well, still nothing on that front. We have not learned any lessons from our neighbor's successes or our own failures. Nothing much has changed at all. Even in the indie space, it's all the same. Comics aside, animation is stale.
There have been no attempts to revisit something actually missing from the landscape like Don Bluth's style or unique adaptions like The Last Unicorn, it's all still post '90s subversive corporate deconstructionist edgelord stuff, exactly like that same mainstream stuff you see everywhere that no one is buying anymore. If anyone knows anything being offered outside of this, I'd like to see it. I'm not convinced we're anywhere near catching up with the East in this sort of thing, though. We're too deep in divisive styles that chased audiences away in the first place.
We are in an age where everything is more available than it ever has been, so being in a situation where we are still losing things can be disheartening. The above independent anime, for instance, is the only recent production that doesn't contain CG mecha. Why? Because apparently no one in the industry thought to pass down the techniques to do it. This means, outside of going independent, you literally cannot find something that was readily available as little as fifteen years ago--something of objectively superior quality than what is being made now.
Theirs is not the only industry with that problem.
Ask yourself what happened to third person omniscient narrators in books, for instance. No one teaches it today because "audiences do not want it" and yet due to that attitude, audiences are then never exposed to it. So if no one teaches this form, how does it get passed down? How does anything change? It doesn't. It just dies out. Everyone misses out.
This is less common than the much more hated second person present tense form, of all things, is pushed by OldPub regardless of its lack of success. Should this lost art of third person omniscient be revived it will, once again, be up to independents to spearhead it. OldPub is too close to death to bother, busy censoring Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl while their lackey authors completely avoid discussing the topic. Perhaps they'll write more forewords to Fahrenheit 451 about their expertise in censorship. We could all use a good laugh in these trying times.
The point is that we are still losing things in an age where preservation is easier than ever before. We still have a ways to go before this ship gets steered away from the iceberg.
And we will also have to use another industry as an example to do it.
Teaser for the Pluto anime adaption.
But things change all the time, as we've seen above. As long as we're still kicking and biting, we'll always be creating. Art always remains, regardless of the times and regardless of the people in charge of them. You can't ever stop it.
Though we focused mainly on an example from one industry in another part of the world, it will soon become a reality in all of them everywhere. We have been stuck for the past 25+ years circling the drain in a dying landscape that is no longer relevant to anyone in it. A new one will arise in its place. What that will be remains to be seen, and it will have to be made by us. We certainly can't trust relics like OldPub to fix what they broke.
There is no reason to not anticipate the coming shift, however. There will always been eternal truths and cravings we as human beings will want more than the minimum expectations. Adventure, wonder, hope, and love, will never cease to be goals for us. It will never truly depart from our art, either. We will never change to the point that we never need it.
Tomorrow is coming regardless, however. Here's hoping we are paying attention to the changes ahead of us.
It is only by taking advantage of what is coming that we can keep this party going. And make no mistake: it's a party. Escapism is invaluable, a peak into the joy we will all hopefully come into someday. As Chesterton said, the only people who hate escapism are jailers. So let's open that cage wide.
