Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1965
Jan. 3rd, 2023 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen I started going through lists of anime series debuts by year, it had seemed simple enough to cover 1965; I supposed I’d just watch the first episode of Hustle Punch again. Then, though, I happened to realize sample fansubs of a different series that had begun that year were also to be found, and contemplated taking in a different series, Wonder Three. The thought did cross my mind as to whether I’d decided to see something other than Hustle Punch because that anime had featured “funny animals,” but there was the wrinkle that I understood Wonder Three to be just about the same there, with three alien visitors to Earth having transformed themselves into a girl rabbit, a duck with a Moe Howard hairdo, and a horse.
On starting the first Wonder Three episode, I noted the “Earth’s fate depends on the report of these agents as to whether humanity’s good or bad” plot, familiar enough in a certain way, and the “pre-transformation” character designs. That “Wonder Three” was used in the dialogue itself as the name of the team managed to have me thinking of the “Dirty Pair” for a moment (regardless of all the “Lovely Angels!” insistences inside and outside that relatively newer anime...) As the aliens were transforming themselves, though, a boy showed up on a motorcycle (bringing the beginnings of “motorcycle chic” into anime that much earlier than I’d imagined before), and then the boy happened to have an older brother said to be a manga artist in a suit and fedora. Then, after a moment where the resemblance of the duck’s hairdo to a “Beatle wig” was that much harder to brush off, things took another swing to “secret agent action,” and the peculiarity of the whole experience got that much more compelling even as I recalled a much more recent anime flashing back to “the 1960s spy boom” and invoking a “spy cartoon” within it as well. I did wonder if the episode would end on a cliffhanger; it didn’t.
Now in the midst of weekdays I can’t take in all of my sample episodes of this series before having to move on to the next year, but something about Wonder Three was more entertaining than I’d thought it might have been back when I was just grappling with thoughts of the “funny animal” cartoons made closer to home I’d once watched, how they hadn’t predominated in every era of domestic animation, and how pointing a finger all the way to “the furries” might only invite “oh, and like ‘anime characters’ are any closer to ‘reality.’” For the moment, anyway, I’m pushing back against different earlier thoughts that maybe these early anime series might wear out their welcome before I get past them.
On starting the first Wonder Three episode, I noted the “Earth’s fate depends on the report of these agents as to whether humanity’s good or bad” plot, familiar enough in a certain way, and the “pre-transformation” character designs. That “Wonder Three” was used in the dialogue itself as the name of the team managed to have me thinking of the “Dirty Pair” for a moment (regardless of all the “Lovely Angels!” insistences inside and outside that relatively newer anime...) As the aliens were transforming themselves, though, a boy showed up on a motorcycle (bringing the beginnings of “motorcycle chic” into anime that much earlier than I’d imagined before), and then the boy happened to have an older brother said to be a manga artist in a suit and fedora. Then, after a moment where the resemblance of the duck’s hairdo to a “Beatle wig” was that much harder to brush off, things took another swing to “secret agent action,” and the peculiarity of the whole experience got that much more compelling even as I recalled a much more recent anime flashing back to “the 1960s spy boom” and invoking a “spy cartoon” within it as well. I did wonder if the episode would end on a cliffhanger; it didn’t.
Now in the midst of weekdays I can’t take in all of my sample episodes of this series before having to move on to the next year, but something about Wonder Three was more entertaining than I’d thought it might have been back when I was just grappling with thoughts of the “funny animal” cartoons made closer to home I’d once watched, how they hadn’t predominated in every era of domestic animation, and how pointing a finger all the way to “the furries” might only invite “oh, and like ‘anime characters’ are any closer to ‘reality.’” For the moment, anyway, I’m pushing back against different earlier thoughts that maybe these early anime series might wear out their welcome before I get past them.