Monday, 09-Nov-2009 18:55:43 CST
Global
History of Anime
The 80's: The "Golden Years" Of Anime
The 1980's are generally considered to be
the golden years of Japanese Animation ... this may come as a surprise
to the people who refuse to look at anything made before 1989 or
so. The greatest diversity of product was being made during this
period, having ramped up from the chaotic 70's. Now, a great deal
of money was flowing into the industry, and the world began taking
serious looks at the things that were being created on a regular
basis here. The last of the Matsumoto influence was being felt with
films like the Queen Millennia movie and the TV series by the same
name. It was also the last we got to see of Captain Harlock (for
now, anyway) ... the second television series "Endless Road SSX"
was created to re-establish the Matsumoto industry dominance. That
it didn't was less a failure by Matsumoto than a wild success by
a female manga artist named Rumiko Takahashi. Her Urusei Yatsura
(which premiered in 1981) smashed the competition, and made her
a millionaire many times over (as she largely owned the rights to
her creation).
When the Urusei television series came to an end (sort of an ambiguous
end, but somehow perfect just the same), her Maison Ikkoku (now
being released in the US by VIZ) appeared in the same time slot
the following week (in fact, the last episode of Urusei Yatsura
had the hook for the first Maison Ikkoku where next week's Urusei
hook would normally have been ... the transition was perfect). Maison
Ikkoku, a show about as different as you can get from Urusei Yatsura,
did surprisingly well on its own. Less of a schizophrenic comedy,
Maison Ikkoku comes off almost as a soap opera, although a pretty
strange one. Borrowing a page from the Matsumoto stories of the
1970's, Maison Ikkoku has to be watched in sequence. The main story
follows two people as their entire outlook shifts around, and culminates
in a remarkably poignant event. When it went off the air after 90-some
episodes, it had run a story from the beginning to a logical ending.
Some time elapsed before Ranma f which, true to form, was totally
different from both Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku. Many people
were quite annoyed at an event in Japanese politics that happened
at about the same time as Ranma: fans who had contacts taping the
show in Japan now have a great deal of coverage of Emperor Hirohito's
funeral proceedings. Ranma has been off the air for some time now,
and many of us here find themselves wondering what's going to be
next. Whatever it winds up being, we're sure that it'll be a surprise.
Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of Takahashi imitators; it seems
likely that no one else can get the mix just right. The next big
thing, in fact, wasn't even a comedy.
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