Tuesday, April 12, 2005

My Own Hand-Drawn Asylum - Part 2

I may have discarded my comic book collection after high school but the stories always stayed with me. I found myself waiting for animated series for Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, Batman, Superman, Justice League and Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law (had to put that one in here because it came out on DVD today.) Yes, the child inside the man...thankfully it's not to the Neverland Ranch extreme. But somewhere along the line, I noticed that it was Robotech (a Japanese anime sci-fi space adventure series) that really made an impression on me. I found myself collecting all 15 or so DVDs. That's when things too a turn. I noticed that the Japanese actually write endings to their shows. People die. These aren't just cartoons... where the Smurfs are always happy, Daphne never gets intimate with Fred and no one ever punishes the cheaters in the Laff-O-Lympics. I noticed that several other series I liked were originally from Japan: Voltron, Transformers and G-Force (a.k.a. - Gatchaman or Battle Of The Planets.) So my investigation into anime began and remains to this day. I actually have well over a couple hundred of the DVDs now and acquire more each week. There are always a few that aren't great but there are some gems out there like Ai Yori Aoshi, Inuyasha, Gundam Seed, Ranma 1/2, Neon Genesis Evangelion and many others. Of course, the market for these series is growing immensely as manga (Japanese comics) are getting snatched up by people interested in a decent story. So yes, I am not only obsessed with knowing all I can about 80's music.

3 comments:

Martin said...

I actually did buy that one before. It wasn't too bad but did seem a little rushed with the dubbing. Possibly the best one out there right now is Gantz. They knew they had a hit on their hands when they decided to put only 2 episodes on each DVD (usually it ranges from 3 to 5.)

Jenn Doll said...

I was never really into comics other than the "bigger" Superman and Spiderman and so forth. One day I'm at my friend's house and he busts out his comic book collection and I start reading the one where Superman dies! I'm like, "WHAT?! He can't die! Superman DOESN'T DIE!" My friend's calms me and wipes my tears and say's, "He comes back and there's like three of him." Well, I didn't like it, damnit. How can I find out after ALL these years that Superman dies? Why didn't anyone ever damn tell me before. BOO! I'm cool now.

P.S. My favorite part in Kill Bill was when they made that one whole scene Japanimated. (Is that right? Japanimated? Eh, oh well. You know what I mean.)

Martin said...

I did actually keep one comic series that is stashed away in my closet. For some reason, I always felt some kinship to the underdog title The DNAgents. If anything, it had the feel of the X-Men but with the added stigma of cloning. Too bad it didn't continue but then again, you never know what will happen in the future. No new comic buying though.

I was also tripped out by the Death Of Superman series (the book version is really well written.) If you thought that bringing down heroes starting with Superman was a one-time thing, look into Batman: Knightfall. Also well written and another form of rebirth. I still expect both to be made into movies at some point.