Random Anime Talk

[Sylux]

Eh I have every Dragon Ball VHS tape somewhere in the US I used to watch them with my dad all the time when I was in preschool and kindergarten

[Gaff]

Fwiw, I miss the ultraviolence and I think Ninja Scroll is a good film, but I wouldn't want to go back to that time. To my knowledge (I'm not that old!), we never had a VHS fansubbing/swapping community in the UK on the same scale as in the US, so we were stuck with whatever the big distributors put out.

Much as I might complain about the trend for endless moe dreck, I'd much rather be in the now where we can cherrypick fansubs and glorious re-releases of older titles, pay reasonable money for an entire series, and still get maybe half a dozen new things worth watching every year.

[Kodos]

Eh I have every Dragon Ball VHS tape somewhere in the US I used to watch them with my dad all the time when I was in preschool and kindergarten

Oh man, that's awesome. Shame, though, that the VHS format is so shitty and degrades on each viewing. I mean, I've been so afraid to re-watch my Star Wars stuff 'cause of that.

[Sylux]

Oh man, that's awesome. Shame, though, that the VHS format is so shitty and degrades on each viewing. I mean, I've been so afraid to re-watch my Star Wars stuff 'cause of that.

I had them looked at and they're completely worthless because hey I was a kid I watched every tape at least 100 times

[Kodos]

That's the 'fun' of VHS. Repeated viewings turn any film into a horror film full of poorly lit blobs warbling at each other.

[Black_Shaggie]

Again. Ha!. Dude, I would go to Suncoast & just stand in front of the Record of Lodoss War VHS set. Had my buddy who worked at Tower get that for me. I can't tell hopw many times I bought NInja Scrool because people kept stealing it (Yo Meth? Where my killa tape at man?...) Cartoon Network didn't have much to offer until like...'05. Alls was on was friggin' Tri-Gun, DB & Inyuasha. I was so glad when the web made it easier to get shit for the low low.

But you know...I kinda think that the anime producers, be them from Japan or the US release the more violent stuff over here because the average American does like uber violence whether the wanna admit it or not.

Oh yeah Kodos...I wanted to ask you how'd you got that Animated Gif for your avatar to jiggle like that. All my gifs are real still no matter what I do.

[Kodos]

Japan loves the ultraviolence at least as much as we do.

I think we got the ultraviolent stuff for a number of reasons. Most of it was shit and cheaper to license, for starters. A lot of it, also, was either less pretentious and had simple plots, and thus marketing would like it, or was like Eva and so far up its own ass that people would confuse bullshit for depth.
Also, remember, a big selling point of anime was how it was MATURE and EXTREME and FOR ADULTS. Just like how Bioware and a lot of shitty 'dark' fantasy writers confuse ultraviolence and profanity for maturity, it's the same sort of thing. 90s anime that got localized was often hyper-violent and extremely profanit-laden, so it was easier to convince idiots that it was mature and not that kiddy shit we made here stateside.

EDIT: I just realized, if we are talking about 90s anime, we really ought to be using the term 'japanimation' :smug:

[Black_Shaggie]

Those warnings did make me wanna go get some crap like Legend of the Overfiend. WTF?! How in the hell can you even make shit like that have depth? I wish I could take back the 90 minutes of my life I wasted watching that crap.

[Gaff]

Surprisingly, one the most respected anime critics in the UK is a big defender of Overfiend. She's got an entire chapter about it in one of her books. Having read that though, I don't feel much inclined to and watch any of the films...

Profanity in anime is a strange beast though. I don't think Japanese as a language actually has profanity in the same way we do in English - swearing at people seems to be more about context and how you address them. Hence, most of that harsh language you might be hearing in an older show is probably just added in to play to that whole 'Not kids stuff!' marketing image.

Cyber City Oedo is great for that. It has one of the most famously foul-mouthed dub tracks, yet the sub has no swearing at all.

[Regantor]

I just love how every ADV commercial from the time managed to make everything sound like a monster truck promo. SEXY BUT RUTHLESS ACTION!

The aforementioned Dominion series even had western artists hired just so they could put the neko twins on more of the covers. They weren't even main characters.