The Japanimation Era - Retro Rewind

Welcome back to Retro Rewind! I am so happy to be back talking about awesome stuff from the past. I have a lot of fun doing these, and I appreciate the fact that you guys are getting into them, too. This week is gonna be something completely whatever. I was just like, just, you know, screw it. I want to talk about this. I'm gonna talk to you about something that's a little bit personal to me, and something that I've watched evolve and grow over time. Now, I have done a Retro Rewind for Toonami. And that was sort of about anime from the mid 90s on, and how it really changed the anime scene. This video is going to be about before that time, how anime became known in the US, but not quite popular yet. In its early days, it was largely referred to as Japanimation, or animation from Japan, or Japanime. That's pretty much died out nowadays, and it's more commonly referred to as anime. But in its early days, Japanimation was what I would say to the comic store owner when I was curious if he had anything animated from Japan. So let's talk about some of the early movies that I saw on the comic store shelf as a kid. Some of these VHSs right here, in fact. Many of my memories with these movies revolve around moments in which I stared at the covers of the VHSs going, I'm never gonna be allowed to see that. But man, does that look cool. So let's start talking about some of these. They Were Eleven came out in 1986. I saw this for the first time because the Hollywood Video rental store nearby my house had it on VHS. And I picked it up, and it was one of the first animes that I wrote a review for. On my old website that I used to run, it's no longer on the internet, I wrote a review for this, and I remember being so enthralled by it because it had a very interesting plot. Ten people are involved in this intense training experiment in space. They're all trapped on a spaceship, and they basically have to figure out how to survive and become a team. But when they discover there is an 11th passenger that's not supposed to be there, that's when things get really strange. It's also a very early film, and an animated one no less, that tackled very mature themes. One of them being not being entirely comfortable with the gender you were born being. And I re-watched the film again a couple months ago, and I think it still holds up very well. I first heard of the film Lilycat because of the Sci-Fi Channel. This film was shown on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the day on their Saturday anime block, where they used to show hardcore, cutting-edge animation, as they called it. Saturday mornings on the Sci-Fi Channel. It's Japanese animation in the raw. And this ain't no swim in the kiddie pool. Cutting-edge anime that's pure power and sheer genius. Be ready to receive this sacrifice. Saturday anime on the Sci-Fi Channel, coming this fall. This film is a complete ripoff of the movie Alien. Aesthetically, the crew, the way the crew looks, there's a computer on board they refer to as Mother. There's just not like an alien per se. There's a virus that's jumping between people, and a cat that is in some way involved with it. But it most definitely fits into this vibe of movies, because a lot of people back in the day referred to Japanimation as just anything animated out of Japan. But for me, it was always like the more edgy, violent, maybe there was a lot of nudity or blood, like those anime films. To me, that was always Japanimation. Like the slightly more adult anime, not hentai, which, believe me, I saw a lot of that when I was a kid. At least not, let me rephrase that. I didn't see a lot of hentai when I was a kid. I saw a lot of hentai VHS tapes at a comic store, and I went, those covers look interesting. Can I have, never mind, I can't have that, can I? Now obviously one of the biggest ones was Ghost in the Shell. This movie came out in 1995, and it was sort of like, hey America, anime's awesome. And it helped popularize it more. Film critics like Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel even reviewed it on their show, and both recommended it. This film is marvelous. It is challenging, it's adult. The animation and action is brilliantly handled still to this day. It's visually stunning. And the first time I saw it was actually at home on DVD in like the early 2000s. Because when it first came out, I missed it, and then I would always see the VHS cover, and obviously there's a lot of boobs, like right on the cover. And my mom was always like, eh, I don't know about that one. But mom, it's a cartoon. I don't know if that's the type of cartoon you should be watching. But mom, it's animated. Like Lion King. I don't think that's like Lion King, Chris. My mom was clever back then. And the newest film I planned on talking about was Perfect Blue, directed by Satoshi Kon, or Satoshi Kon, or however you want to say it. This is a marvelous animation that highly influenced Darren Aronofsky, who actually bought the remake rights for Perfect Blue just so he could recreate a scene in Requiem for a Dream. And tons of people, myself included, noticed a lot of similarities between Black Swan and Perfect Blue, despite the fact that Aronofsky denies these connections. They're there, whether he likes it or not. And very obvious. Perfect Blue is very Hitchcockian, it's very suspenseful, and it is darkly violent. I remember seeing this cover all the time, thinking it was actually a woman who had her hands tied up, and I was like, oh my god, this is like some torture stuff. What's happening here? Can I watch this one, mom? No, probably not, son. I'm not thinking that's a... But it's like Toy Story, it's animated. No, that's not like Toy Story, Chris. That's a little bit different. Damn, mom, you're still clever. One of the lesser known films I wanted to talk about in this video was Venus Wars. I also rented this from Hollywood Video back in the day on VHS. And I was also inclined to write a review for this on my old website, which I did so at the library, because at the time I didn't have the internet. So I went to the library and I wrote reviews for things like Venus Wars. And that's how I spent a lot of my teenage years, doing stuff like that. And movies like this really inspired me back then. It inspired me to look at animation differently. And I watched this just the other day. It looks marvelous on Blu-ray. There's such a grit and realism to this old style of animation. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that at the end of this video. Ninja Scroll. Or as I like to call it, Blood and Boobs. And more boobs. Boobs, boobs, boobs. This movie came out in 93 and was big in the anime scene in the early 90s. Because it was like, oh my gosh, this ain't no speed racer. There's some shit going down in this movie. And I never got to see it until I was an adult. This one, I was like, I almost sort of got away with Ghost in the Shell. But as soon as my mom turned it around and was like, absolutely not for children, 18 plus. I was like, oh, okay. I guess I'm not going to win this battle. And of course, the film that some view as the one that really started it all for America, Akira. It came out in 1988 or Akira or whatever you want to say. It's really up to you, from what I understand. Just call it whatever you want. This movie is stunning. I also saw it for the first time as an adult because, again, it has a lot of mature themes. It's very, very violent. And I love it as an adult. But as a kid, my parents were like, just go watch your clamshell VHS of The Big Green or The Sandlot. Just stick with that. I mean, just the opening motorcycle chase scene alone in Akira makes it worth watching today. It's still stunning and I'm still waiting for somebody to come along and make a great adaptation of an anime film or an anime TV show. If you watch some of these older films and compare them to the way anime is produced today. Now, I'm not talking about movies like The Boy and the Beast or Spirited Away or Studio Ghibli's amazing animations. Those films have incredible animation. I'm talking about really the TV shows of today with anime. And even some of the lesser produced anime films that have a smaller budget. The animation today, it's very digital. It's very glossy. It's almost fake. The animation for some of these older films in Japan was wonderful. It felt real. It felt like you could reach into that world and actually touch it. And I think we have gone way too far away from hand-drawn cell animation. And we're now into this digital, glossy, computerized world. And I wish that more animation films looked and sounded more like these films. And yeah, some of them are a little low-budget and not the greatest, but they look amazing still to this day. And that's saying something. That's really crazy. I mean, some of these movies are getting close to 30 years old. And they still look phenomenal. That's gotta say something about that animation style. And I hope more people are drawn to it in the future. Drawn to it. I didn't mean for that to happen. Guys, thank you so much as always for watching this Retro Rewind on the early days of what some anime fans refer to as the Japanimation era. Look forward to next week's Hilariosity. I don't know what it's going to be yet, but it's going to be fun. You guys are the best. Thank you so much as always for watching and thank you to the wife for this amazing shirt that I love. If you like this, you can click right here and get Stuckmanized.