Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1985
Jan. 23rd, 2023 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerHaving managed to tell myself there was a little variety of genre in the anime episodes I picked out of the 1970s, I’ve been a bit more comfortable with stretches of science fiction for 1980s anime (where, back in 2010, this was where I’d started sampling “variety.”) To tick 1985 off the calendar, I decided to take in an episode of Dirty Pair. While I’m still waiting for the Kickstarter-funded Blu-Ray set from Nozomi to arrive, this gave me the excuse to decide, almost at the last second, to watch a “fansub” that just happened to include commercials recorded off Japanese TV, commercials that seemed at first glance aimed at a relatively broad audience even with a certain number of fast food restaurant, instant noodle, and snack food spots included. (There was also a commercial with the name “Barbie” on it featuring a doll with less elongated proportions and a larger face than the Barbie over here; I seem to recall having seen a comment to that effect not that long ago.)
As for the first TV misadventure of the “Lovely Angels,” I’ve got to admit to some small measure of relief that it, at least, ended only with massive collateral damage but without some explicit statement that “more people died in the final resolution than in the leadup to it; ‘the computer’ cleared the Dirty Pair once more, and almost before they’d finished wincing.” It wasn’t long ago that I saw someone suggesting “just think of that impression you picked up before actually seeing the anime as a criticism of police brutality and inhumane systems,” which I know confronts a serious issue but still might not have quite got me to the point of no longer wondering about being ordered to “surrender your fan card; you just don’t get it.” In any case, I remain ready to suppose Dirty Pair showed up at the very moment when “the Robotech generation” (or those of it who knew where to look or who to talk to to understand just where that show had come from) were primed for something more. It might not have giant robots in its own mechanical toybox, but it does have character designs I’m quite ready to suppose would appeal to those who might have happened to think “Robotech’s characters (‘or some subset of them?’) look more interesting than, say, GI Joe’s,” and revealing costumes (although I do find it a bit interesting that, opening credits aside, the first episode works its way up to the full reveal of those outfits).
As for the first TV misadventure of the “Lovely Angels,” I’ve got to admit to some small measure of relief that it, at least, ended only with massive collateral damage but without some explicit statement that “more people died in the final resolution than in the leadup to it; ‘the computer’ cleared the Dirty Pair once more, and almost before they’d finished wincing.” It wasn’t long ago that I saw someone suggesting “just think of that impression you picked up before actually seeing the anime as a criticism of police brutality and inhumane systems,” which I know confronts a serious issue but still might not have quite got me to the point of no longer wondering about being ordered to “surrender your fan card; you just don’t get it.” In any case, I remain ready to suppose Dirty Pair showed up at the very moment when “the Robotech generation” (or those of it who knew where to look or who to talk to to understand just where that show had come from) were primed for something more. It might not have giant robots in its own mechanical toybox, but it does have character designs I’m quite ready to suppose would appeal to those who might have happened to think “Robotech’s characters (‘or some subset of them?’) look more interesting than, say, GI Joe’s,” and revealing costumes (although I do find it a bit interesting that, opening credits aside, the first episode works its way up to the full reveal of those outfits).