Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1970

As history’s calendrical odometer turned over by two digits, but with TV anime that can be watched and understood without fluency in Japanese (with a different deficiency, namely of the uprightness to eschew “fansubs” in total, getting mixed up in there) still scarce, I did find myself a bit uneasy about the only title I had to hand for the year. I knew Tomorrow’s Joe is a significant title starting with its manga, but I didn’t especially like the idea of a series about boxing and its relentless battering away of health for the entertainment of others. I have to admit happening on Porco Rosso ending with an extended impromptu punchup did sort of shake my impressions of the movie. The time of Tomorrow’s Joe making, of course, could prompts shrugs about things being “different”; for that matter, there were Peanuts Sunday pages at the beginning of the 1960s with the kids (and Snoopy) wearing boxing gloves and walloping each other with the losers (or just sucker-punched) left dazed and dizzy.
( It starts outside the squared circle, anyway )