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Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1981
A bit more than six months ago, I left off watching my way through the original Urusei Yatsura with the thought opening some space between that and the premiere of a promised remake just might help me hold back from incessant comparison that presumably wouldn’t help the new version. Then, though, the new series was licensed by Sentai and put on their private-label streaming service. I contemplated subscribing to Hidive only to run into a variety of complaints about its aesthetics, and just like when people were complaining about Funimation’s private-label streaming service I pushed it all off to “maybe when there’s a home video release” (although these days some are starting to worry about home video becoming more “if” in general). There was indeed some disdain and dismissal of the new version straight off, although at least a few people kept watching it. In any case, I could go ahead and include the first episode of the original in my sampling-through-the-years project, and only have to compare it to the later if not final days of itself.
Always beginning to put these thoughts together in my head before actually taking in the animation, I had wondered a little about Urusei Yatsura representing something new in anime up to that point and something that would carry forward from there. That something including “sexy space girls and plenty of them,” though, might only point to that certain element of moral panic in anime discussions in the language I can follow them in. Not that long ago, anyway, I’d noticed a “summary of 1981’s anime,” and in acknowledging I’ve only seen a bit of it (for all of the length of the series I’ve watched) I also thought it still seemed pretty much aimed at an audience of children and genuine adolescents.
Actually taking in the first episode and its two stories again did bring to mind a few thoughts I hadn’t had before. I knew the look of the series had changed over what I’ve watched my way through, but its opening did look a bit better than I’d thought it might. There was also the impression, though, that something was lacking to the way Lum herself looked. If this counteracts to some tiny extent all the impressions of her being “the original ‘drawn’ girlfriend candidate,” maybe it’s for the best after all. I had wondered if “having only recently seen Urusei Yatsura for the first time” was better or worse than “having seen it back when your opinions were just being formed” when it came to confronting a remake of it; I’d also been aware of old warnings that “all the Japanese cultural references make this an advanced-level series” and of comments about just what point in the lengthy series should be considered the evanescent high-water mark; enjoying this first episode in general again was therefore kind of pleasant. I’d also had to confront a few worries about “a remake” being all too similar to “decades-old intellectual property dominating entertainment” made closer to home (even with all of the fulminations about “anime characters falling into a few very well-worn types” and “the slightest success is imitated over and over until every commentator is sick of it”), but had then recalled there’d been a remake of Mighty Atom/Astro Boy two decades ago and Space Battleship Yamato 2199 had shown up about a decade ago, so this remake might only be right on schedule.
Always beginning to put these thoughts together in my head before actually taking in the animation, I had wondered a little about Urusei Yatsura representing something new in anime up to that point and something that would carry forward from there. That something including “sexy space girls and plenty of them,” though, might only point to that certain element of moral panic in anime discussions in the language I can follow them in. Not that long ago, anyway, I’d noticed a “summary of 1981’s anime,” and in acknowledging I’ve only seen a bit of it (for all of the length of the series I’ve watched) I also thought it still seemed pretty much aimed at an audience of children and genuine adolescents.
Actually taking in the first episode and its two stories again did bring to mind a few thoughts I hadn’t had before. I knew the look of the series had changed over what I’ve watched my way through, but its opening did look a bit better than I’d thought it might. There was also the impression, though, that something was lacking to the way Lum herself looked. If this counteracts to some tiny extent all the impressions of her being “the original ‘drawn’ girlfriend candidate,” maybe it’s for the best after all. I had wondered if “having only recently seen Urusei Yatsura for the first time” was better or worse than “having seen it back when your opinions were just being formed” when it came to confronting a remake of it; I’d also been aware of old warnings that “all the Japanese cultural references make this an advanced-level series” and of comments about just what point in the lengthy series should be considered the evanescent high-water mark; enjoying this first episode in general again was therefore kind of pleasant. I’d also had to confront a few worries about “a remake” being all too similar to “decades-old intellectual property dominating entertainment” made closer to home (even with all of the fulminations about “anime characters falling into a few very well-worn types” and “the slightest success is imitated over and over until every commentator is sick of it”), but had then recalled there’d been a remake of Mighty Atom/Astro Boy two decades ago and Space Battleship Yamato 2199 had shown up about a decade ago, so this remake might only be right on schedule.