We kicked off the Ten Years Later project back in 2014 as a way to talk about anime series from that time period as a lot of them are finding a second life through either new Blu-ray releases or as license rescues. Taking the opportunity to look at it from a bit of distance to see whether a show holds up ahead of getting our hands on the home video release is welcome and sometimes it makes you want those older shows to find their way back into the market as well. Especially a number of those that never saw a license. As we get ready for our third year of the Ten Years Later project with 2006 titles, we’re changing things up a little bit.
While shooting the breeze with the staff about it as we were picking titles and assigning writers for them, I took a gander back at 1985 as a lark. Upon doing so, I realized that there were so many titles here that were instrumental to my becoming an anime fan at a young age. These were films, OVAs and TV shows that I had initially mostly caught glimpses of at comic book conventions and occasionally a fanzine that I might have managed to spend a few bucks on. Which wasn’t easy to find living in suburbia and having only the early days of the internet available via FIDO.
So in 2016 we’ll be doing a Thirty Years Later segment as well, a little less regularly than the Ten Years Later segment, but one that lets the “old timers” bring out a look at some of the foundations of the American anime market and its influence on them. To get in the right mindset for it, I’ve put together a brief look at the top ten properties from 1985 to close out 2015 with as a way to remind me that I’m damn old! Our regular pieces next year will be more fleshed and out detail; I simply didn’t want to let the chance to talk about 1985 slip away!
Angel’s Egg
One of the more controversial works that took some time to really get a release in North America and is still woefully underserved in the marketplace, the film from Mamoru Oshii is an important one. While Oshii dabbled in a lot of things, he had been spending most of his time on lighter fare like Urusei Yatsura and the like. Angel’s Egg provided that chance to really do something darker and more interesting and it was done alongside Yoshitaka Amano, who worked on the concept with him and served as the character designs. The film is one that is quite haunting and really should be seen – if you can find it. It’s a work that we continue to hope finds its way back in the marketplace.
The only show on the list I haven’t seen is one that I desperately want to see. Touch arrived in 1985 and ran for two years with just over a hundred episodes produced. Based on the original manga from Mitsuru Adachi, the baseball themed series is one that has had a huge impact in Japan through that work, the anime, and the movies that followed. It was a cultural touchstone at the time and has had a lasting impact in how a lot of sports anime ended up being produced in the years to come. It’s seen release in more “sports friendly” territories around the world with French, Spanish, and Italian localizations, but both the original manga and the anime series has been untouched in English language form. It’s one that won’t ever be huge yet we’re hopeful that it can find a home through a distributor willing to give it a shot.
This three episode OVA series is one that was a real delight to see when Central Park Media first brought it over in the 90’s because it was a reminder that anime wasn’t all science fiction or horror titles, which is a lot of what we used to get. Here, we got a solid character driven story based on the manga from Kaoru Shintani that dealt with a harsh and oppressive situation as one young man essentially found himself sold into being a mercenary and having to kill to survive and try and get back home. I ended up purchasing this series across three different forms of media and am just holding out for a high definition release someday to make it four. A new adaptation of it was done as a TV series as well, but the original OVA series was a strong and tight work and one of those wonderful pieces that arrived in North America early on.
My early experience with anime introduced me to a number of creators that influenced my view of the medium. One of those was the director Rintaro, who brought out some really neat works that even when they fail hard (I’m looking at you, Harmageddon) can be endlessly interesting to dissect. Dagger of Kamui is one of my favorite works of his as the film, based on the original novel by Tetsu Yano, gave us a nearly perfect ninja story both in the way it unfolds and the visuals for it. So much of what was done there still stands strong today against the best of modern animation and storytelling techniques. The film was once licensed by AnimEigo but has been lost since and is begging for a proper release.
Dirty Pair TV
While Haruka Takachiho was known more initially for his work on Crusher Joe (a favorite as well), it’s Dirty Pair that had the biggest impact. The summer/fall 1985 series was a holy grail for anime fans for far too many years as all the other works were licensed before this one finally made its way out. The show is pure and simple standalone space action/comedy that’s like the gold standard of the day on how to have fun with such a premise. It’s a show that has been attempted in different forms since but hasn’t been able to be repeated in the same way – though we’d love to see a remake or proper sequel series. The show is one that just hits up all the kinds of things that science fiction/space opera fans of the time period lapped up with glee all while having a real blast during it all. It’s currently licensed by Nozomi Entertainment.
While I struggle with this film myself, it is one that is of critical importance from this period. Based on the original novel by the legendary Kenji Miyazawa, this was one of the big forays into making serious and thoughtful anime feature work that wasn’t all about the sex and violence that made up far too many films outside of the first Ghibli works of the decade. The film draws you in beautifully as it tells its tale and really wants you to think and feel about the things it wants to express. Luckily, the film is very accessible after Central Park Media initially licensed and dubbed it as Discotek Media currently has the rights to it for both a DVD and Blu-ray release that has followed the recent Japanese restoration and Blu-ray release.
Almost nothing says 80’s anime like MegaZone 23. The first feature film from the trilogy that was made was directed by Noburo Ishiguro and featured a wide range of talents that went on to many things, from Shinji Aramaki to Yasumi Umetsu. Wrapped up in character designs by Haruhki Mikomoto, who served as an animation director alongside Ichiro Itano, the film was a cyberpunk/space opera piece that drew from so many places with its music, locales and action that it was one of those rare hodge-podge pieces that was just utterly thrilling to watch. Particularly if you were like me and saw it raw on a crappy VHS copy a few years after its release and all you could see was a weird kind of Robotech sequel. The film has seen a couple of releases over the years, the last one being from ADV Films, whose remains I believe still has the rights to the trilogy.
After the problems of the first series that resulted in the far tighter movie trilogy, the Gundam universe was treated to several OVA projects before it came back with a new fifty-episode TV series that began in early 1985. Plenty of familiar elements came with it in both staff and story under Tomino’s guidance and craziness, but what resonated the most is that the series took advantage of what happened between the original and this one to kind of mature. There’s a lot more depth of character, complexity of situations and story, and a lot more morally complex characters facing far more difficult situations. There is still that kind of basic black and white situation to the war, but everyone involved in it has so much going on that you can really get behind most (but not all) of the characters on both sides and understand them if not sympathize. The show saw released from Bandai Entertainment a few times (and with a few problems) and is getting ready for a new Blu-ray release in a few months from Nozomi Entertainment and Sunrise.
This OVA from that hit in the final week of 1985 is one that is possibly one of the more frustrating properties I’ve had to deal with. I absolutely love the look of it as it’s very much “of the time” it was made and gives me something that’s hard to find these days. There’s this larger world at play that comes from the original work by Hideyuki Kikuchi and Yoshitaka Amano yet this and one other feature nearly fifteen years later is all we’ve had for the most part. There’s so much material and such a rich world here to explore that it’s a travesty that we’ve had so little. Thankfully, the manga and novels have seen slow but steady release over the years, but on the anime side it’s been difficult. We got to revisit this film recently and while it may not have aged well in some ways, especially for younger/newer audiences, there’s something so utterly charming and interesting about it that it still stands strong.
If not for Robotech I likely wouldn’t have been into anime anywhere near as much as I was. I’m fully of the Robotech generation, not being able to get into either Battle of the Planets or Harlock or Starblazers back in the day. This was the show that I saw after getting home from school as a young teenager and just soaking it up as they dealt with the consequences of war from different fronts, including character deaths. To this day I still enjoy this bastardized version of the three separate series more than those series in their original films. I’m generally the type that wants the original work and I definitely enjoy them, but Robotech was like Star Wars was for me a few years prior in being that game changing series. I see this every few years through the various re-releases that have hit and I’ve watched it with my kids, who enjoy it as well – including my daughter who I named after Miriya (as Miria). A lot of people are in a similar situation in that this was their gateway series and that tint of nostalgia and rose-colored glasses will be there. At the same time, it has all the core elements of those original creative teams in its DNA and that helps to elevate it all the more. As much as I enjoyed a whole lot of anime from the release year of 1985, this is the defining one for me.
