Double Animation Wrap-up
Mar. 25th, 2019 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerIn the space of a day, I finished off two animated series on Netflix (even if this doesn’t stretch that far towards “subscribing to that streaming service so that I’m not only watching anime.”) To be fair, “finishing” one of them amounted to settling on “one last episode” in advance of a forewarned expiration date, but I’d settled in the first place on returning to “The Real Ghostbusters” as something to occupy my attention while exercising on the ski machine in my basement.
Back when I’d been able to watch that series on one of the few channels my family did get over the air, I might only have been familiar with the original movie through a photo-illustrated storybook (just as I first experienced several other big special-effects productions of that decade through that medium, comic-book adaptations, or novelizations). All the same, the series did show up at about the right time to “keep me interested in animation” as the effulgence of productions pointing more just to merchandising started fading back. Returning to it now, along with a feeling I’d managed to see most of its episodes back then, I was willing to think there was enough cleverness to the one-liners to give it some broadness of age appeal (which put it ahead of the original Transformers cartoon, which I returned to the “first series” of a few years ago but got to thinking its plots were a bit primitive) for all of the clean-scrubbed gross-outs and general kid-friendliness. (As I’ve managed to notice others dwell on, the strongest hint of “romance” involved the dedicated-professor type Egon and Janine the secretary.) I understood The Real Ghostbusters to have been animated in Japan, and there’s plenty of evidence of that in the credits (unlike a few “localized” series of the era). The character designs were thoroughly American, but there were some seemingly familiar animation effects along the way (although there wasn’t much transparency to the ghosts, which at first had me thinking of “monsters.”)
Even if “streaming licenses are for limited periods,” I’d watched The Real Ghostbusters for long enough (long enough, too, that some of the original voice actors were beginning to drop out and in, something that added to the feeling of reaching a stopping point) that when I went back in my journal to refresh my mind on a point, I was surprised to realise I hadn’t gone straight to it from “Star Trek: The Animated Series” but had dallied with some episodes of the original Voltron selected to counterpoint Voltron Legendary Defender. Now, though, I’d come to the final episode of that newer series as well, a bit aware of time having passed. While some positive early comments had helped me first try it out, I have to admit I’ve watched most it keeping altogether to my own counsel, perhaps dwelling a bit too much on impressions a large slice of its “fandom” was focused on promoting various slash combinations of the cast but also aware of the seemingly inevitable “it’s not going the way I saw it” complaints that build over the course of any long-running series. Now, slower than most to watch series on Netflix, I was picking up on what seemed a wider-yet dissatisfaction with the conclusion.
By the start of that concluding block of episodes, the series had run through several antagonists and was rebuilding a new one from someone who might have seemed a “supporting villain” to start with. I suppose that all these changes did threaten to lose a thread the simpler Golion anime had kept running via formula (although I have the impression the original Voltron tinkered with the last of its source material enough to keep from having to admit anyone had actually died, then produced new animation to keep the story running without ever quite finishing it). Still, the cast having built up from the first “seven against the universe” days could keep my interest, even if I kept wondering about how casually the term “universe” was being used. The very finale pushed beyond “a universe threatened,” but in such a way as to have fate hinge on personal pique, which could feel over the top for me. One thing I did think of after a little while, though, was that where I’d thought a bit of the attempted Robotech sequel watching some of the earliest Legendary Defender episodes, I was now thinking of the novel that had sought to tie up the last loose end of Robotech, and how “the fate of the cosmos” had also started to seem a matter of “the antagonist doesn’t care about anyone else” before a single sacrifice had made a difference. Whether this provided a bit of perspective in the end, I don’t know. Still, there was the space for a few hints about “the other Voltron” some accident of history has also stuck in my mind, if also something that had me wondering about a self-expressed conviction that “I don’t seem to need to ‘ship’ the available characters, or ‘slash’ them should the numbers not work out or the safe presentation once more be dismissed, but if pressed I can suppose there are possibilities outside the cast and story”... perhaps “space for imagination” had become a little too constrained.
A basically optimistic space-travel adventure is something that’s nice to see again all the same, even if I’m wondering if I’ll ever make the time to watch the series again without the pauses between blocks of episodes. For one thing, there does seem a possibility or two for further animated series to watch already.
Back when I’d been able to watch that series on one of the few channels my family did get over the air, I might only have been familiar with the original movie through a photo-illustrated storybook (just as I first experienced several other big special-effects productions of that decade through that medium, comic-book adaptations, or novelizations). All the same, the series did show up at about the right time to “keep me interested in animation” as the effulgence of productions pointing more just to merchandising started fading back. Returning to it now, along with a feeling I’d managed to see most of its episodes back then, I was willing to think there was enough cleverness to the one-liners to give it some broadness of age appeal (which put it ahead of the original Transformers cartoon, which I returned to the “first series” of a few years ago but got to thinking its plots were a bit primitive) for all of the clean-scrubbed gross-outs and general kid-friendliness. (As I’ve managed to notice others dwell on, the strongest hint of “romance” involved the dedicated-professor type Egon and Janine the secretary.) I understood The Real Ghostbusters to have been animated in Japan, and there’s plenty of evidence of that in the credits (unlike a few “localized” series of the era). The character designs were thoroughly American, but there were some seemingly familiar animation effects along the way (although there wasn’t much transparency to the ghosts, which at first had me thinking of “monsters.”)
Even if “streaming licenses are for limited periods,” I’d watched The Real Ghostbusters for long enough (long enough, too, that some of the original voice actors were beginning to drop out and in, something that added to the feeling of reaching a stopping point) that when I went back in my journal to refresh my mind on a point, I was surprised to realise I hadn’t gone straight to it from “Star Trek: The Animated Series” but had dallied with some episodes of the original Voltron selected to counterpoint Voltron Legendary Defender. Now, though, I’d come to the final episode of that newer series as well, a bit aware of time having passed. While some positive early comments had helped me first try it out, I have to admit I’ve watched most it keeping altogether to my own counsel, perhaps dwelling a bit too much on impressions a large slice of its “fandom” was focused on promoting various slash combinations of the cast but also aware of the seemingly inevitable “it’s not going the way I saw it” complaints that build over the course of any long-running series. Now, slower than most to watch series on Netflix, I was picking up on what seemed a wider-yet dissatisfaction with the conclusion.
By the start of that concluding block of episodes, the series had run through several antagonists and was rebuilding a new one from someone who might have seemed a “supporting villain” to start with. I suppose that all these changes did threaten to lose a thread the simpler Golion anime had kept running via formula (although I have the impression the original Voltron tinkered with the last of its source material enough to keep from having to admit anyone had actually died, then produced new animation to keep the story running without ever quite finishing it). Still, the cast having built up from the first “seven against the universe” days could keep my interest, even if I kept wondering about how casually the term “universe” was being used. The very finale pushed beyond “a universe threatened,” but in such a way as to have fate hinge on personal pique, which could feel over the top for me. One thing I did think of after a little while, though, was that where I’d thought a bit of the attempted Robotech sequel watching some of the earliest Legendary Defender episodes, I was now thinking of the novel that had sought to tie up the last loose end of Robotech, and how “the fate of the cosmos” had also started to seem a matter of “the antagonist doesn’t care about anyone else” before a single sacrifice had made a difference. Whether this provided a bit of perspective in the end, I don’t know. Still, there was the space for a few hints about “the other Voltron” some accident of history has also stuck in my mind, if also something that had me wondering about a self-expressed conviction that “I don’t seem to need to ‘ship’ the available characters, or ‘slash’ them should the numbers not work out or the safe presentation once more be dismissed, but if pressed I can suppose there are possibilities outside the cast and story”... perhaps “space for imagination” had become a little too constrained.
A basically optimistic space-travel adventure is something that’s nice to see again all the same, even if I’m wondering if I’ll ever make the time to watch the series again without the pauses between blocks of episodes. For one thing, there does seem a possibility or two for further animated series to watch already.