The Irreplicable Beauty of Vintage Anime

You know, it's nothing short of a beautiful wonder to believe that these few frames would give birth to all of this. Dude, what is it about older anime that looks so nice? I think to me it's the soft, fuzzy lines, the monochromatic color schemes, and the beautiful watercolor backgrounds. Tell me you don't want to live there. You're lying. The thing that makes my brain explode with serotonin is easily the bloom. Oh my god, that grainy, blown out haze. It's easily the warmest and most aesthetic part of VHS anime. There's something completely irreplaceable about the eons of blood, sweat, and tears of traditional style animation. I mean, I'm really trying to stay objective when I define my thesis here, but god damn, I mean, look at that. To me, this is the zenith of visual media. There's just something about it that makes me stare, slack-jawed at my screen, in complete awe. Hi, I'm Chimoku-chan, and I haven't watched an anime since Obama's second term. So what exactly makes an anime vintage? Well, my loose definition is that any anime that wasn't made completely digitally would be considered vintage. Lo-lo-lo-lo. Let me just show you an example. Yeah. Look, if it starts with this logo, you know you're about to watch a certified hood classic. Easily my favorite era that anime ever went through would probably be the tradigital era. This term was coined by Judith Moncrieff and later popularized by Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was the CEO of some company, I don't remember. The methodology applied in tradigital animation is that cells are individually inked, painted, and photographed atop a background, and its result is something almost magical. A lot of people bring up Akira in this regard, as the film's process is entirely watchable as a documentary. But an example I'd rather use is one of Lupin the Third. I love Lupin, all me and my homies ******* love Lupin. The movie that does best what I'm talking about is 1987's The Fuma Conspiracy. There's so many shots that I can name that I think are gorgeous, and they make my limbic system light up like a Christmas tree. The movie has the widest color palette, like, ever. Outdoor scenes are airy and warm, and tense indoor shots have the most bleak and oppressive color harmonies known to man. And funnily enough, I actually really enjoy the glow that a tape's natural aging gives to animation. I find that these flaws give a lot of character to a film or a show. Specifically in the line quality and colors. And chromatic aberration may be an aesthetic choice now, but back then it was just a limitation of the medium. And I'm biting my ******* knuckle trying to stop talking about the color bleed, and how good it looks under direct light. God! That being said, there are a lot of passion projects out there right now. Specifically restoring older media with 4K scans of his 35mm film. What immediately comes to mind for me is Patilro, Stardust Project, and Kaneko Video's achievement at preserving the film. They've done a fantastic job at not only scanning it at such a lossless quality, but even revising the English sub. Making this an extremely easy watch. Which, uh, can't be said for every anime at this age. I think it'd be a crime not to speak in brief about the vaporwave movement and its children. Like VHS pop and city pop. The medium saturated with graphics of girls and 80s anime. Like Sailor Moon and City Pop are just inseparable. That's law by this point. And I must admit, I'm a victim to the craze. I've got extremely fond memories of watching old Saib videos that would play clips of Cowboy Bebop. And now to me, the two are kinda married. It fits perfectly with the aesthetic, and it's hard to articulate, but it's kinda got Toonami vibes. I'm sure you get what I mean. Saib? Shit. And I really do owe it to those who made these music videos with classic anime. The marriage of audio and visual is really elemental, and it's one of the best synergies I've ever seen. It's actually watching these videos again that spurred on this video idea. I wouldn't have fallen in love the way I had had it not been for them. So if you're out there, guys. Thank you. So. Do I believe that this era of anime is the superior art form? Something indomitable and we've peaked as artists? No. Not necessarily. But anime created from the 1950s all the way up to the 1990s demands we take a look back at it, as we're probably never gonna see something like that again. And I have a confession to make. I don't think we should ever go back to tradigital animation. Even after I've spent so long praising it, I've gotta dash all my hopes of it ever returning for one simple statement. Animating is hard. And I mean, really hard. The reason the industry was able to make the jump was due to the improvement of technology. As computers got faster, they also got cheaper. But the labor never got any less intensive. And the workload wasn't the only thing to stay the same either. Animators overseas can expect about $2 per frame of animation. That's huge earnings if you were a computer. But as someone who's slaving away at 100 frames a day, it's not adding up to much. At least, not proportional to the work you're doing. I found a video a while ago that was tagged as unintentional ASMR. It's a mini-doc about Studio Trigger's development on Little Witch Academia. And for the first few minutes, I completely understand where the poster met. This is an incredibly quiet, studious, and cozy environment. And it feels good. But if you listen to what the people behind the desks are saying, your heart would immediately sink. It's just not fair. These guys are making some of the best in the field, and they're treated like dirt. And if this is happening with Studio Trigger, what's happening to the little guys? I don't know. It's food for thought. The documentary closes out with director Yoh Yoshinori being asked of what he thinks of the new animators, the people he's been working with for such a long time now. Does he like them? I think that clip speaks entirely for itself. I'm sure by now it's obvious that I detest the work culture of modern anime, solely for the stress upon the working class to create it. I think modern anime has a bright future in front of it, and I certainly don't think it's going anywhere. But I'm hoping that the work ethic, along with traditional anime, can live as a relic of the past. And one of these we can look upon more fondly than the other. So, to all the countless years of work, and those timeless classics, I love you. You're gorgeous. And I can think of no more a poetic and beautiful end for you. Thank you.