Pre Toonami Anime.

[Agent Cross]

If your going for saturation, I can see that. But Toonami was just a step on the ladder. I'll still say the internet has had a far greater impact on anime... Popularity wise. That's my experience and opinion though. Let's not make this one of those, your opinion is different than mine, therefore inherently wrong arguments though.

Never said it was about popularity. The purpose of my column is to correct a false perception that MOST anime lovers have. And I do mean most Anime lovers. To a lot of them, at least the ones I bothered to ask, the Anime movement began in North America in 1998. It is not my fault that people have this perception, but they do. The first took offense to my statement and wanted to correct me for simply saying it. You took offense to that and argued something that I was not even think of when I first posted. I'm sorry that I got carried away.

Regardless of how you feel and regardless of any corrections you might want to heap upon me, my column is talking directly to people that feel the following about Anime:

1. It began in 1998 with Toonami and Pokemon.
2. Nothing before that time is worth remembering.
3. That pre Toonami stuff was better than what came after.

I get the giant sticking point is me using Toonami and 1998 as the cutoff, but that is for my benefit. It allows me a chance to specialize and focus on the pre 1998 Anime. It will make my writing better and it will give me more time to research what I'm writing about. Also, more people know Toonami and have a perception of it. This whole debate we had proves how divisive a force it is. (and that's the angle I'm taking regardless of Internet. Sorry, but the Internet is beyond the scope of my column)

That is my intent with the column: To highlight pre 1998 anime. If you don't like that, feel free to write your own. I will gladly read it.

I see. I did have this feeling that we were debating from the same side of the fence. When you reiterated the same thing I thought you were... Nevermind -_-

Completely agree on your premise then. And I had a classmate years ago *cough* 2001 *cough*, that did a write-up on the (soon to be) explosion of online media and its possible effects on the movie industry. It was just really interesting. Wasn't trying to derail your expose though. Part of the confusion.

Good luck with the article though. Oh... and Gigantor. I read all of the other posts and I didn't see him. So Gigantor. Very relevant. *looks up*

If I could squeeze another sentence into that first paragraph, and fix those fragments. We could call this a story. Oh well.

 

[Samadi]

I remember in the UK channel 4 used to broadcast Anime very late at night (1 or 2am). I remember seeing Fist of the North Star, 3x3 eyes (thank you Kachal for reminding me of it) plus another involving the main characters turning into dragons (don't remember that one too well). They also put on Doomed Megalopolis, Devilman, Magistrate of Darkness and Battle Angel Alita amongst others. Fairly certain that this was all before 1998 as I was still in school

There was a channel on UK cable called TCC that showed The Vision of Escaflowne (which took me years to track down again). Another cable channel called Bravo also showed anime, but I think that was after 1998.

 

[malestrithe]

Snip

Sorry about the confusion I might have caused.

Thanks you.

 

[BodomBeachChild]

for me it was

Voltron
DBZ
Sailor Moon
Tekkaman Blade (Technoman)
Vampire Hunter D
Akira (i hated it though)
Speed Racer (also not one i liked, but i've seen it)
and
of course
The Samurai Pizza Cats
edit: forgot about Digimon for some stupid reason

Samurai Pizza Cats!

 

[CODE-D]

Wait a second.....toonami
its a combination of the word cartoon and tsunami....
th-
(head explodes)

 

[Baralak]

for me it was

Voltron
DBZ
Sailor Moon
Tekkaman Blade (Technoman)
Vampire Hunter D
Akira (i hated it though)
Speed Racer (also not one i liked, but i've seen it)
and
of course
The Samurai Pizza Cats
edit: forgot about Digimon for some stupid reason

Samurai Pizza Cats!

Tekkaman Blade came over here as "Teknoman", not "Technoman"


But yeah, I'd also throw in Astro Boy (which is also the first anime ever, period), Gigantor, and if you want to throw in some live action, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (An adaptation of '92 Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, part of Japan's Super Sentai series, running since '1975), Masked Rider, and adaptation of 1989's Kamen Rider Black RX (Part of the series that created the Japanese transforming super hero, Kamen Rider, which started in 1970) as well as Big Bad Beetleborgs, an adaptation of B-Fighter Kabuto. Seriously, just look into just about anything from the early to mid-90's with the "Saban" logo attached to it.

 

[Techsmart07]

does Released on cartoon network before toonami began to exist count? Ronin warriors aired in the US on the summer of 1995, 2 years before toonami's existence.

 

[Furioso]

Wait a second.....toonami
its a combination of the word cartoon and tsunami....
th-
(head explodes)

It's.... a combo... of...

OT: Was Yu Yu Hakusho pre Toonami? Cause that show is awesome. If not, well, that's all I got (Besides Dragonball Z)

 

[Baralak]

Nah, Yu Yu Hakusho started on Adult Swim, then was moved to Toonami.

 

[Savryc]

I remember in the UK in the late 90's and into the 00's that the Sci-Fi channel usually had an anime movie playing at midnight during the weekend. My first experience of anime was through this, watching Ninja Scroll. Awesome, but a tad age inappropriate looking back

 

[gim73]

Alright, I guess I should probably pull out a few of my older VHS collection items. First we got the solid GOLD items, with Streamline/Orion on the case. Old school 3x3 eyes (which didn't get the final episodes until MUCH later after the company went under), Fist of the North Star and Crying Freeman.

Let's pull out some of these Pioneer anime. WTF? A single half hour subtitled episode of Tenchi Muyo for 30 bucks? NOT COOL! Might as well watch some El Hazard while we are at it.

Record of Lodoss war: a pure classic.
The Irresponsible Captain Tyler: great!
Giant Robo: pushing the 1998 mark, especially getting the final tape out.
La Blue girl: hmmm... what's this doing in here?
Visions of Escaflowne: the box set is rather huge.
The Slayers: it's her time of the month, when she can't cast any spells, even though it never comes up again...
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Yeah, ADV milked the release of this classic. We were hooked on every tape back in 98, and it felt like FOREVER for the next one.

Personally, I started watching anime in the early to mid-nineties. Back then we would do things like buy fan-subs on tape. I remember renting Green Legend Ran from my local video store. They had like fifteen anime tapes. Of course it was harder to get videos back then. You could find some at hobby stores or movie stores, but this was just around when they started to hit their stride. I do recall seeing some of these early anime titles being attempted on laser disc... oh man, that was a mistake!

I really don't see toonami as driving the anime craze of the late nineties, since that had been slowly boiling since the eighties and was limited by communication and the price of technology. Video games, internet culture and other factors had a much more dramatic effect on ensuring that the nerd audience was ready for a new type of storytelling.

 

[Baralak]

I remembered a VHS tape I found at Goodwill, though I can't recall the date off the top of my head. It's a comedic anime called "Those Who Hunt Elves". Also, when did Street Fighter II V come out?

EDIT: I also have a Fire Emblem anime VHS tape dated 1998. Scratch Those Who hunt Elves, it was dated 1999

 

[malestrithe]

Great list guys. I'll have enough material for a few months of articles.

Question: Would any of you consider G.I. Joe the Movie as Anime? I ask because all of the animation was handled by Toei.

 

[malestrithe]

Never watched Toonami. It started up as I as I ended high school, and I had already been an avid fan of Anime. Toonami was all voice over edited crap from what I remember hearing. Never watched Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh either.


Looking at the lists of anime shown on Toonami, from the wiki... it's not really all that impressive.

Nice list of the good stuff. Do you remember the bad stuff like Garzey's Wing, Diatron 5, Ultimate Teacher, Peacock King, or Mad Bull 34? I ask because I want a smattering of stuff good, bad and meh for this expose.

 

[JJMUG]

Late night Toonami or maybe it was just a bit before ran The Candidate for Goddess.