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[InsaneDavid]

Good afternoon old schoolers!

Well the calendar says October but the weather outside sure feels like May or June - it's giving me Fanime vibes.  This week's OP is one of the coolest ever created in my opinion, from a very overlooked OVA series.  The thing is Iria: Zeiram the Animation shouldn't be all that overlooked, especially with it aired on the SciFi Channel during their annual anime festival days.  A prequel of sorts to the live action Zieram films (of which the first is a lot of fun and the second is just kinda boring), the series boasts some of the most unique environmental and character designs to ever grace anime.  In fact the only thing I don't like about Iria is that is just sort of ends as if there's another episode to come.  Granted, the live action films are supposed to follow but they don't quite match up.

As for the opening, it is freaking beautiful - and not just from an animation and design standpoint.  The opening theme, the way the visuals are cut to the music - the backdrops, the patterns, the lighting, the effects - it's all amazing.  No other anime series looks like Iria - a mash-up of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, the future and the past, technology and tradition.  If you haven't seen this one, it's a very short watch that is still unequaled over 25 years later.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Iria: Zeiram the Animation (1994)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZuBUw_F68

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

How about another hauntingly beautiful opening for this week?  Armor Hunter Mellowlink is an Armored Troopers VOTOMS spinoff, that unlike most VOTOMS spinoffs and sequel series, is actually really good and stands on its own.  Unfortunately it was not included in the recent VOTOMS Blu-ray releases, although pretty much everything else was.  Kind of a shame, since I doubt it would do very well if released on its own, simply because of limited recognition outside of Japan.  The entire series has been fansubbed however.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Armor Hunter Mellowlink (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySnuPN_3Xts

[InsaneDavid]

Good morning old schoolers!

Held this week's old school post back a day to align with Halloween.  Today's title is a film rather than a series, so the opening of the film is what is being shared.  Demon City Shinjuku is one of my favorite anime films and has been one of my favorites since when I first really began to get into anime in the mid 1990's.  Unlike the other Yoshiaki Kawajiri films that tend to bookend it in most conversations (Wicked City and Ninja Scroll), Demon City Shinjuku is a much smaller and more contained story with a very slim cast.  That's actually one of the reasons I really like it - it has a strange isolated feel.  The story moves along very briskly, almost as a series of short interludes, which makes it unlike any other anime film I've since seen.  The great thing is it is available currently both on physical formats and streaming, the novel it was adapted from has been translate into English, as was the sequel novel.  A great film to watch this Halloween.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Demon City Shinjuku (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3CI_zgpyWk

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

Going with an OVA for this week, and a rather stylized OP that features an excellent piece of music.  Area 88 is unique property, mostly a gritty air combat war drama - with just a tiny bit of shojo squeezed in.  A huge manga series (that was never fully translated into English - yet another abandonment from Viz many years ago) that spawned this three episode OVA (usually released as 1+2 condensed into a single episode) in 1985, and a short television series in 2004.  Also an arcade game, which was re-titled U.N. Squadron outside of Japan - with a fairly popular Super Nintendo release.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Area 88 (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE-1lOHS6I

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

How about something Friday the 13th appropriate?  Ghost Sweeper Mikami is a cool series with unique character designs that not many people seem to know about.  Admittedly my first brush with the series was the Super Famicom game, which is also worth checking out.  This is also a series where the US licensing and release was totally fumbled by various distributors with Manga Entertainment first releasing the OVA film (which really makes no sense without any familiarity with the series) and nothing else.  Eventually Sentai Filmworks released the series, but it was sold as four individual volumes - and we all know how that goes with obscure anime.  Obviously it's long out of print.  However, Toei Animation still has the entire series with English subtitles on their YouTube channel (ToeiAnimationUS), so it can be enjoyed for free legally.  With a length of 45 episodes it will require a bit of an investment, but give it a try sometime, it's a lot of fun.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Ghost Sweeper Mikami (1993)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avngzfSBvZc

[InsaneDavid]

Good afternoon old schoolers!

I do hope you are all doing well - or at least okay.  Before we get started with today's OP, I want to acknowledge the passing of voice actor Kirby Morrow.  While he provided English voice talent for many anime series that were important to the international mainstream anime boom in the 1990's, the role I always associated him with most was that of Trowa Barton in Gundam Wing.  As I've said previously, Gundam Wing is a series I don't care much for but Trowa is my favorite character in the entire Gundam franchise - a lot of that has to do with how he was voiced in the English dub.  That English dub running on Cartoon Network is really where Gundam outside of Japan began.  Unless you were hardcore into Gundam before then, you really owe that dub not only the creation of modern Gundam fandom outside of Japan, but also where gunpla really began to gain traction in earnest in the West.  I get kind of emotional when I think of his passing, as Trowa is a character I've always really loved since watching the first episode he appeared in - and when I first heard him speak, he was voiced by Kirby Morrow.  In the same way Susan Roman will ALWAYS be the voice of Makoto Kino in Sailor Moon (as much as I love Emi Shinohara's voicework), Kirby Morrow will ALWAYS be Trowa Barton to me.

I thought I'd ride some of the 90's nostalgia wave with the OP for this week.  In my experience, Serial Experiments Lain was the show that was kind of the "high concept, adult, mature" series that a lot of friends got into as their first anime series that was more serious in tone of storytelling.  It also hit at the perfect time for the explosion of online communities made up of regular people, that fansite and chat room era I seem to talk so much about.  Crazy that it was actually broadcast on extended cable TV (along with another surprise, Boogiepop Phantom) on a non-science fiction, non-animation channel - TechTV.  While I enjoy the series and its style and concepts, it never made a huge impact on me for whatever reason.  What surprises me these days is how little people talk about it, when it's honestly relevant now more than ever.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Serial Experiments Lain (1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5kUmni5Dk

[InsaneDavid]

Good morning old schoolers!

Here we are in the middle of a holiday weekend, one that looks very different than I'm sure many of us have seen before.  Then again there was another holiday weekend of traditions that was very different this year to all of us - Fanime.  Yet we're here, and we're moving along, and it's okay.  Here's looking forward to when that holiday weekend at Fanime can resume once again.

Today's OP is from a favorite series of mine, top five easily, Armored Troopers VOTOMS.  I've talked about it at length many times, including one year in our Vintage Anime panel, but this is a slow burn sci-fi war epic.  What's different is that rather than being told from the perspective of a society, or an armed force, or a military detachment - it's told from the perspective of one person, Chirico Cuvie, as he unravels his past and comes to command his future.  It's definitely not for everyone, and it sure has its goofy moments, but if you haven't seen it and you're looking for a mechanized war epic without all the wax and polish of some Gundam series, give it a try.

Sentai Filmworks online store actually has the entire series on Blu-ray right now on sale for $30.  It is EVERYTHING VOTOMS with the exception of the rather excellent Armor Hunter Mellowlink OVA spinoff series.  Some of the VOTOMS OVAs are really good while others are not but it's cool to be able to grab them all in one set, it also fixes some of the encoding issues with the previous Blu-ray releases.  Looks like inventory is low though, so move quick.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Armored Trooper VOTOMS (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjJt58geu9U