2022 Old School (Pre-2001) Cosplay Gathering

[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

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

December is upon us and while we're still deep within the rough patches of the pandemic, the light is finally starting to shine at the end of the tunnel.  How long it takes to come out the other side remains to be seen but it is there - and it really does look like we're closer to the end than we are to the beginning.

For this week's OP, how about a badass series that no one talks about anymore?  Zenki is freaking awesome, it has one of the greatest anime themes ever, and it was always the anti-Inuyasha to me. (much to the irritation of some friends)  Check it out!

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Kishin Douji Zenki (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G55UQClMw9I

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

I actually picked today's OP at random, basically scrolled around in my OP list with my eyes closed and stopped on it.  It's a really good one though.  Kare Kano (better known as His and Her Circumstances in the west) is often considered one of the best high school shojo anime series although it is noted as being quite a departure from the manga, which is rumored to have created disagreements which lead to only the first third of the long-running series being adapted.  While in my opinion it's no Marmalade Boy (ha ha), it's an entertaining series with some really cool visual quirks that border on being experimental.  I've head the manga turns into a mess near the end however, so the story may not be worth pursuing beyond the anime.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  His and Her Circumstances (1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hym2-PDJ9A

[InsaneDavid]

Good afternoon old schoolers!

A little later in the weekend for the weekly post but I didn't forget!  Let's go high energy for today with a much loved series, better known as Fist of the North Star in the west.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Hokuto no Ken (1984)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s15JKP_TpIY

[InsaneDavid]

Good afternoon old schoolers!

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, and if you don't celebrate then I hope you had a nice day just the same.  This week's classic anime OP is one from a series I was just watching last night.  Zillion is a very interesting series, if not for the series itself then for the incredible amount of reach the series had - whether people knew it or not.  Although produced at Tatsunoko, Zillion series producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa took the team he was heading and spun them off into IG Tatsunoko, which would later become Production I.G during the production of Patlabor 2 The Movie.  Due to that, Zillion is often regarded as Production I.G's first work.

Zillion is also known to most people in the west for a pair of video games on the Sega Master System (which were also released on the Sega Mark III in Japan).  Opa-Opa from the Fantasy Zone games, is actually a robot character in the series.  Additionally the three Zillion guns the main characters are armed with were used as the design of the Sega Light Phaser, the Sega Master System's light gun.  Additionally there were Zillion branded laser tag sets sold in Japan and Brazil - in fact the weapon loadout in the anime really does give off some serious 80's laser tag vibes.  Lastly, Zillion is the anime series briefly seen in the Michael Jackson Scream video - meaning Zillion is possibly a favorite series of Space Michael from Space Channel 5.  Wow, that's a lot of tie-ins.

On top of all that, the series is a lot of fun and has an outstanding opening theme.  It has also been recently re-released on Blu-ray (after being a DVD / Blu-ray combo pack a couple yeas ago), is very affordable, and the case and disc artwork is an homage to classic anime VHS rentals, with the US Master System cartridge label used as the disc art, complete with the episode numbers written as if done with a Sharpie.  It's pretty much the most intentional old school love I've ever seen on a modern anime release.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Akai Kodan Zillion (1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-lgb-BPhI

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you are all doing well.  For this week's classic anime OP or ED I was trying to think of something New Year's themed and came up with the most "new year's resolution" one I could think of off the top of my head.  Cat's Eye is a spectacular manga series, every bit as entertaining as Tsukasa Hojo's more popular City Hunter.  The first season of the anime is wonderful as well but it kind of falls apart in the second season (and the anime doesn't really have an ending), so I generally recommend that most people stop watching after the first season and go read fan translations of the manga afterward.  This is the first ending, a super catchy exercise theme that is undeniably of it's 1983 vintage.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Cat's Eye (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWgCK8fnjbU (ENDING)

[InsaneDavid]

Good ...well I guess it would be night... old schoolers!

A little late today but I haven't forgotten.  How about a mecha series that is part of an anime institution, has what many consider one of the best hero mecha designs of the franchise, an incredibly well designed and animated opening, a spectacular theme song, buuut... a hero character most don't like and a story that people seem to love or hate?  Yeah, it's Stardust Memory.  Can't say I disagree about a lot of the flack this series gets - I really need to watch it again soon and see if my opinion has changed.  Amazing OP though - and it is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year!

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (1991)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoM3nJVDaCk
*** 30th Anime Anniversary ***

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

Today's OP was chosen as I was working on a Mazinger Z model kit today.  Go Nagai created so many influential works but in my opinion none had as big an impact as Mazinger Z - more or less creating the super robot genre as it has been known since.  Even if you're not familiar with the series, all it takes is one viewing of the opening sequence and you're sure to be reminded of something you've seen another later series.  Heck, my all time favorite tokusatsu hero - Jet Jaguar - is essentially a combination of Mazinger Z and Ultraman.  Apologies in advance if you're walking around later with "supa roboto - Mazinger Zetto!" stuck in your head.

Celebrating An Era - 1970's!  Mazinger Z (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08rKB66E03I

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

This week's OP is one chosen at random.  While reasonably obscure, Esteban Child of the Sun may be better known to some as The Mysterious Cities of Gold.  This is French-Japanese co-production, with the English version airing during Nickelodeon's early days.  Yeah, this is one of those strange cartoons that would run early on weekdays (the French series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea being another one) that I would often catch just a glimpse of if I was up early enough.

Celebrating An Era - 1980's!  Esteban Child of the Sun (1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0AJ796pb6k

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

While the immediate future of FanimeCon remains to be uncertain, I will continue to post a classic anime OP or ED every week until the convention - and this gathering - resumes.

To close out January, here's an opening from the first series in a franchise I truly love.  The first Cyber Formula series is a lot like Mach GoGoGo / Speed Racer except in the near-future where a combination of super powerful cars equipped with AI navigators have advanced motorsport to its highest echelon - Cyber Formula.  While the first series takes an "anything goes" format, the sequels fall more in line with what would be expected of a motorsports formulae that would surpass F-1.  Teams come and go, new characters are introduced, old characters leave, business relationships are formed and broken, romantic relationships grow and fall apart - it really is a spectacular franchise across five very distinct series.  The original Cyber Formula actually had an English subtitled box set release on DVD but has long since went out of print.  Double-One (series 2) and Zero (series 3 - also my favorite) have pretty excellent fan translations, while Saga (series 4) and Sin (series 5) have passable "HK subs" that can be slogged through.  The whole thing really needs a proper subtitled re-release / release.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Future GPX Cyber Formula (1991)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3WAWOGESu8

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

For this week I have picked Macross II, simply because it doesn't get nearly enough love for what it is.  Sure, Macross II: Lovers Again has become the black sheep of the Macross franchise but if it wasn't for this series keeping some level of the fire burning, Macross probably wouldn't be as long-lasting as it is today.  Macross II is what stirred the pot that eventually gave us awesome things like Macross Plus and Macross 7.  For that it deserves some respect, also "Riding in Your Valkyrie" is my favorite Macross song, and Wendy Ryder is the best Macross pop idol - you know it's true.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  The Super Dimension Fortress Macross II: Lovers Again (1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ppTY6EmTeE

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers!

With Valentine's Day this weekend, I thought the OP from my favorite shojo series was in order.  I simply love Marmalade Boy.  The premise sounds really out there - two couples run into one another on holiday and fall in love with the other's spouses, so they divorce and swap partners.  Rather than break apart their families they decide to buy a big house and all live in it together - including their teenage daughter Miki and teenage son Yuu.  Miki and Yuu don't get along much at first but over the massive run time of the series (76 episodes) their relationship grows as they fall for one another.  That's just one part of a very complex drama with a very diverse and developed cast.  As odd as that all may seem, it really is just the sweetest shojo anime and my love for it has never diminished since first watching it.  It has also been re-released by Discotek Media after being out of print and very expensive for many years!

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Marmalade Boy (1994)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5VzUAMWL5o

[InsaneDavid]

Hello old schoolers!

A bit late with the post for this week but here it is - we're still going with these!  This week is a modern take on a classic tokusatsu show, Android Kikaider: The Animation.  Of all the anime that ran on Cartoon Network at one time or another, to me this was the one that was the most subtly adult.  Also a series that one doesn't see talked about much but if you bring it up, so many people seem to have really enjoyed it or at least watched an episode at one point.

Celebrating An Era - 2000!  Android Kikaider: The Animation (2000)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6oSVBKLaoo

[InsaneDavid]

Good evening old schoolers,

As I am sure you are aware, FanimeCon 2021 cannot be held in-person and will instead be a virtual event.  As the notion of a gathering is to bring people together in person, we will be rolling the gathering ahead to 2022, when hopefully FanimeCon will be able to be held physically once again.  We are fully committed to hosting this gathering (as well as our Vintage Anime panel) in 2022.

Until then, not much changes here.  I'm still going to continue to share an old school anime opening or ending right up until Fanime, as usual.  Yeah, I'm going to keep it rolling until 2022.  The Facebook event page has been updated to reflect this, and the forum thread will be updated as well shortly.

With the expected delay and postponement to 2022, I decided to go with my favorite of all the Sailor Moon endings this week, that of Sailor Moon R.  Otome no Policy "A Maiden's Policy" is also my favorite song in the entire franchise.  The ending itself is perfectly matched to the music and showcases Usagi's double life in a very subtle way - along with some interesting animation motion.  I've also always felt it to be the most "Usagi" of all the Sailor Moon music, not entirely confident but tenacious in positivity.  Perfect song for the announcement of further Fanime deferment and presentation of virtual events for this year.

Celebrating An Era - 1990's!  Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R (1993)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7habakK5OYY (ENDING)