 |
History of Anime in the US
› Into the Pop Culture Mainstream
› Astroboy in 1964
› Gigantor, Speed, Kimba & Simba
› The Star Blazing 70's
› Battle of the Planets
Into the Pop Culture Mainstream
Many people who are discovering anime now
think that there has never been as much mainstream exposure as there
is now ... and would be mistaken. Sure, you can go into almost any
video store and get the OVA-of-the-week and you couldn't before.
You can pick up mainstream gaming and comic magazines and read about
the new anime releases and you couldn't do that before, either.
There's even the odd release popping up on the Science Fiction channel,
too. Otherwise normal people are starting to talk about things like
Tenchi Muyo and Akira ... there's even an Anime tape club advertised
on television! Still, the influence over pop culture pales when
you look back about a little more than 30 years. Surprised? Can
you get 10% of the average people you meet (over 40) to hum a current
anime theme song?
[ Back to Top ]
Astroboy in 1964
When Astro Boy showed up on US television
in 1964, nothing like it had ever been seen in the US. This is only
fair ... nothing like it had ever been seen in Japan, either. What
Osamu Tezuka created was something unique ... and people all over
the world knew it immediately.
Of course, we need to thank more than Dr. Tezuka for Astro Boy ...
we need to thank an American named Fred Ladd as well. Someone who
knew the US syndication market very well in the 1960's, Fred saw
Tetsuwan Atomu for what it was and with a little help from NBC turned
it into something huge. Before almost all current fans were born,
the US was being turned upside down by this little robot boy. His
computer mind was powerful and his atomic heart showed none of the
horror which had been visited on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few decades
earlier. He was an unstoppable force for good, though he was sorely
tested many times through his adventures.
What might also be surprising to many US fans is that even in the
1960's there was a sizable outcry over television shows that made
people think and treated cartoon characters like they might be human.
Vocal displeasure from some pressure groups increased slowly, and
it became apparent that when the (rather dramatic) end of Astroboy
appeared in Japan it would never be shown in the US. That's a story
in itself though, and one that will have to wait for another time.
[ Back to Top ]
Gigantor, Speed, Kimba & Simba
So here we are, the mid Sixties, and we've
got this Astro Boy thing. Very shortly afterward, a giant robot
show called Gigantor (Tetsujin 28) shows up. Then, a robotic crimefighter
called Tobor (The Eighth Man) appears. Then, a show about a boy
who is as at home underwater as above (Marine Boy). We're not talking
about something that showed in maybe two markets way outside the
mainstream here ... we're talking nationwide syndication and people
were eating it up. As we came to the end of the sixties, Speed Racer
popped up, and little boys went nuts. Here's a show with fast cars
and a daring driver, who happens to have a little brother and his
pet monkey who frequently stows away in the trunk. While it was
tamed for the US market, we've got certainly fatal car crashes and
some painful looking stunts going on.
While there was a capable female in the series who isn't spending
all of her time in the kitchen cooking for the boys, it didn't have
all that much going for the girls. There was, however, a show that
did ... it was called Kimba. No, it didn't have sailor suited highschool
students battling crime or things like that. It starred a little
boy lion, destined to become the leader of the jungle, his female
counterpart, and a series of bizarre supporting animal characters.
His distinctive black tipped ears and white coat became almost as
recognizable as Astro Boy's asymmetrical head, and influenced the
way that stories would be told in the future.
Why did girls like this? Simple, here was a powerful character driven
storyline that sometimes went over the top but even slow episodes
had enough emotional impact to affect almost anyone. For most of
these girls who are women now, only isolated images of the show
remain ... half forgotten fragments and scenes. The reason? The
show is not available on videotape in the original form. This is
due primarily to a series of legal problems both in Japan and the
US. One day, we desperately hope that these will be resolved to
everyone's satisfaction and the show will surface to inspire a whole
new generation of people.
 There
is, of course, a new Jungle Emperor feature film that Tezuka Pro
just finished for the Japanese market (which is rumored to tell
the last part of the story ... which didn't make it into any of
the previous versions), and that'll probably show people a thing
or two. If you can't wait, of course, I'd say that you should track
down a copy of the manga and find what what REALLY happens (it's
surprising ... and perfect). Of course, one can't mention Kimba
the White Lion anymore without also touching on a certain Disney
film from a little while back which "officially" has no similarity
to the Osamu Tezuka tale of Africa.
The similarities are striking to say the least, both on the surface
and deep in the stories. The Disney lawyers have repeatedly and
with emphasis stated that neither their film nor their animators
were influenced by Kimba ... a position that is interesting when
the Kimba series is viewed and entire scenes are present. Sure,
it's possible that it's all one huge coincidence ... it's just about
as likely as the Van Allen belt catching fire, buxom furry female
aliens landing in Central Park (not that anyone would notice), and
Jesse Helms discovering that God really DID speak through Donna
Summer records played backwards all in the next five minutes. Maybe
slightly less so. In case you're counting, it's 5:04:25 AM EDT.
[ Back to Top ]
The Star Blazing 70's
In the 1970's, another wave of anime swept
through the US. While it didn't have the same sort of cultural impact
that the first one did, it's far closer to most fans. It began with
the (primarily East Coast) phenomena of Star Blazers (Yamato), although
in some markets the influence of Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman)
was even more pronounced. These two series, arriving fairly close
together in the US, took two different routes in their Americanization:
Star Blazers was frequently dead on accurate when it came to plotlines
and dialogue.
For those of you who are wondering, the Japanese equivalent of the
Earth saving "Cosmo DNA" was even MORE inane in the Japanese version
so we can't blame Westchester Films for that one. There were cuts
in the second episode (where the US Navy sinks the Yamato and we
see its gallant crew fighting off those evil Grummans and such)
and some others, but for the most part the show arrived here intact.
Dialogue, of course, was altered to reflect the West's perceived
backlash against the entire crew of the Yamato drinking Sake during
critical events, and the entire suicide-mission aspect of the story
was significantly toned down. Still, the strength of the original
shines through in those first two series: they're still a treat
to watch today.
[ Back to Top ]
Battle of the Planets
Battle of the Planets, on the other hand,
was made to conform to the perceived US market much more closely
with judicious editing. To be fair, the original probably wouldn't
have been able to run on regular US television at the time without
those cuts as the show itself is quite violent. There is a lot of
punching, kicking and bleeding to death present here, so a few minutes
are added to each one to offset the cuts with the addition of 7-Zark-7
(who many take as a personal insult): he's not in the original Japanese
program at all! The cities are not evacuated before this-weeks-bug-monster
attacks, or are those cities anywhere other than on Earth itself.
 Probably
the biggest change for the US conversion is the fact that the show
DOES have a very definite ending ... one member of the team (who
is dying anyway of an incurable illness) stops the doomsday clock
seconds before the Earth would have been destroyed. The number of
seconds remaining on the face of that doomsday clock is his number
in the Gatchaman team. He then dies happy to have saved everything
and the rest of the team comes apart. Not only that, but Berg Katse
(Zoltar) meets his/her end only minutes before.
The Battle of the Planets adaptation was not as successful as it
should have been (only some of that first season was adapted for
the US market), and there was another attempt some time later when
the show resurfaced as G-Force. While much of the violence was back
in it, the dub itself was generally less satisfactory and the show
again sank to be seen today on cable only. As with Star Blazers,
enough of the original brilliance shows through to give the average
US fan a taste of what this was like, and it influenced many people
on this side of the ocean ... people who were beginning to discover
that they weren't alone when they ran into each other at SF conventions.
From the US fan's perspective, the biggest problem the show really
had at the time was the lack of printed books covering it. Unlike
Yamato, there are only a few difficult to get (even then!) works.
As the years went by, these books became more and more difficult
to obtain until today when they're almost impossible to find for
less than $75 (and they're not all that nice). The reason for these
books not surfacing the way that the Yamato books did was, of course,
that Yamato followed Gatchaman and Yamato revolutionized the way
that anime was perceived in Japan. Don't believe me? Try to find
coverage for Speed Racer (Mach Go-Go-Go!), which also preceded Yamato.
Today, even though the golden age of artbooks has past, some of
the neatest things that one can find on a series, creator, or movie/OVA
is probably a $35 book. Some of these are quite elaborate, and in
one extreme example, is more expensive than a laserdisc of the program
itself (Macross Movie Laserdisc = 7800 Yen, Macross Movie "Gold"
Movie Book = 8800 Yen)! But, I digress.
[ Back to Top ]
|
Enhanced Feed
