Last night, John and I finished rewatching the Gundam Zeta compilation movies. While the 50-episode show originally aired in 1985, at least half of that original footage was digitally reanimated in 2005 for the movies.
The result is unintentionally hilarious. Each scene’s animation style slides forward or backward 20 years, seemingly at random. One moment, faces and machines look smooth and polished, the next they’re scribbley and hand drawn.
For example, here’s protagonist Kamille originally drawn in 1985:
And here he is digitally reanimated in the same scene.
While we can credit some of this animation improvement to modern technology, a lot of it has to do with the fact that, in 2005, the Gundam franchise saw more value in spending time and money on animation than it did 20 years before. I think we can agree that the above capture was never on the cutting edge of animation, even at its time.
After all, it didn’t make economic sense to put big productions on Gundam Zeta. The creators were already taking a big risk with the show. Nobody expected Gundam Zeta — or any show like it — to be as big a hit as it was.
Since its inception, anime has changed a lot. It’s certainly gotten easier on the eyes. As it’s gotten picked up in America, it’s also gotten easier on my wallet. And even when I don’t purchase anime, I can watch it on Netflix or cable. Because whether we admit it or not, anime is mainstream now.
Let’s take a look at another show I’ve been watching lately, Tiger and Bunny.
In terms of animation style, this show is as advanced as you can get. No more of the low level production values of Zeta in the 80’s — today’s anime is no gamble; it’s good business. That goes especially for Tiger and Bunny, where you’ll be viewing advertisements whether you’re watching the show on Hulu or not.
In Tiger and Bunny, corporations sponsor heroes, like namesakes Tiger and Bunny, to fight crime. Heroes are highly evolved humans with special powers (more like X-Men than Newtype) who beat up bad guys while brandishing advertisements all over their suits. But while heroes are made up, these ads are for real companies. Bunny, for one, shills for both Amazon.co.jp and Bandai whenever he dons armor.
It doesn’t matter whether you think this is a clever product placement or a total sell-out. It’s still a complete game changer in the anime world, where companies once preferred to invent fake brands like Somy than step on any corporate toes. Until recently, anime wouldn’t have been able to give the big guns anything on their return investment. But clearly, that’s all changed.
At Otakon, I attended Anime News Network’s panel on anime journalism. One of the panelists said, “Anime has always been cheap and weird. But that’s part of why we like it.” But now that anime is lucrative and conventional, will the longtime fans stick with it?
I think we will. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been spoiled by today’s convenience. I certainly don’t miss swapping VHS tapes with my friends. And while it was fun in middle school to create my own Gundam Wing school supplies with a color printer and lots of glue, today I prefer having the option to buy official merchandise.
If you’re nostalgic for the anime of the past, try watching Gundam Zeta without the digitally remastered scenes. When you get over its vintage novelty, you too will develop an appreciation for how far anime has come.
P.S. You can still vote for my SXSW panel submission: Trekkies, geeks and furries oh my! Covering fandom. I’d really appreciate it!
19 Comments.
I’m with in that I’m glad that being an anime fan and enjoying anime is no longer a struggle. With a few exceptions (Metal Armor Dragonar) I have been able to find anything I’ve ever wanted to watch. And generally, if there’s awesome merchandise for your show available you can get it for a reasonable price and shipping, you just better preorder fast. So for me, available isn’t a problem, nor is animation quality.
I suppose the one worry I have is that when some things go mainstream they tend gain and lose things like variety and creativity. With the popularity of slice-of-life, moe and tsundere material I worry sometimes that I’ll get too saturated by what’s popular and not enough of what’s experimental or different. I think the upcoming Fall anime season in Japan may be a good barometer of how patient I am with the more popular, mainstream aspects of my favorite medium right now.
That’s an interesting way to think about the fall anime season. I didn’t put a lot of thought about if what I’m going to watch is unusual or already set — just what sounds interesting. I already know I’ll be watching Bakuman and Gundam AGE, which probably are already going to be popular without my support. You have a good point — if Bakuman becomes really popular, will other producers try to make anime about manga artists with no regard for what actually made Bakuman great? And Gundam AGE doesn’t even have to try, they’re still coasting off of the Gundam franchise.
Regarding anime being “no longer a struggle,” do you have any interesting stories about that? Sometimes I feel super old when I talk about VHS swapping, for example.
I was a pretty basic anime fan when I first got started. It wasn’t as bad as swapping tapes, though I did get started by watching a tape a friend who used to live in Japan let me borrow (do not introduce someone to anime with a RAW DBZ movie). I more so had trouble finding things that caught my interest.
In the early 00’s DBZ DVD’s were distributed in the most haphazard way. I couldn’t go to a store and find stuff that matched up. When I got interested in Evangelion it wasn’t available anywhere nearby and I couldn’t afford the $250+ DVD box set when I found it. The early days of anime DVD distribution weren’t kind to me. It was a combination of ignorance and not living in a major metropolitan area.
Now that I have a real job, a credit card and know about and trust Amazon and a bunch of other retail and streaming sites I don’t have anything to frustrate me. It shows how far anime as a viable business has come here in the States. I will admit that you guys that had to do the imported tapes thing had it much rougher. I was just a few years behind you.
Here in Brazil things are similar.
When I “started on otakuness” (so to speak) we had to make copies of copies of VHS tapes that someone taken from fansub groups (paying the copy costs) and exchanging copies, even with the called “demo tapes” (tapes with just OP and ED of various series). I still remember how difficult was to take a copy of Bastard!!! and of the first episodes of Slayers, and of the Ah! Megami-Sama OVA (Oh! My Goddess) Nowadays it’s very easy to buy anime in Brazil (either on official and parallel markets) and anyone with a Internet connection can download the lastest episodes of almost every anime running on Japan, like Iroha, Tiger & Bunny, and so on…
But, at the same type, I feel that sometimes the artist pushes the series BEYOND the normal just for profit. I noted it (in my case) specially in Bleach… I don’t know about Naruto (that I didn’t liked) and One Piece or so on… Tiger & Bunny is a very good anime ’cause it plays with elements. It’s not “just another heroes anime”. The “X-Man meets Big Brother meets NBA” feeling is something refreshing.
Anyway, I think it’s difficult to see really great works today. Anime are pending to the “mass” way. Sadly I see even less anime with the quality of Ah! Megami-Sama, You’re Under Arrest, Slayers, Those Who Hunts Elves, Lodoss, Bastard!!!, Macross or Zillon, just to stay with some… Each day will see less animes like Azumanga Daioh, Haruhi Suzumiya, Ouran, CowBe, Eva, Lain etc… Even the “generic” anime could be good if well planned and worked, but it day by day less important to work with quality than just “push it around”.
Just my 2 cents.
You might want to retract that last statement. The working conditions of animators are pretty harsh and has been compared to a sweatshop. In fact, it is more amazing to actually see the show at all, given the working conditions. ANd that’s not even looking at the “production comittee”, which is composed of 15-20 corporate entities who pretty much call the shots.
I think series that are “moe and tsundere” are generally niche shows that cater towards otaku, I don’t think those would count as “mainstream”. Probably things that air on Noitaimina would be closer, since those aim to a more mainstream audience, and I end up liking those shows much more than other shows in the season.
Anime in Japan is still viewed as niche, unless you’re Kimi ni Todoke or something. I don’t think adding in advertisements counts as becoming more mainstream, but rather targeting otakus (like Code Geass and Pizza Hut). I haven’t watched T&B myself, but it’s probably one of the few remotely “mainstream” anime shows, out of a season of niche moe shows.
Also, the reason why anime is cheaper in America is because the anime industry pretty much collapsed in America, so companies are pretty much forced to sell at such cheap prices. Well, maybe I’m not old enough of a fan to know how much it costs decades ago, but I remember at the peak of anime’s popularity in America (around the 00’s), DVDs cost $20+ for 4 episodes. It’s because demand allow it be that high…
I think the fact that Pizza Hut thinks it’s worth it to advertise to otaku shows just how much purchasing power otaku now hold. I don’t think that would happen without them being a pretty sizable group. So that’s why I say mainstream.
I don’t know how much anime cost decades ago, but I used to spend a LOT. I tried scanning the barcode on one of my earliest purchases – Neon Genesis Evangelion – but it seems like the barcode is too old to hold data. It was over $30 a tape — for just three episodes! If that’s how much the industry has to charge per episode to stay afloat, it’ll never happen.
What else would you consider a mainstream anime show?
I think you touch on an interesting point. Anime suffers from competing audiences. As shows like Teen Titans and Ben 10 (and its sequels) bring the sensibilities of anime into American cartoons (my, how things have changed!), the market will bifurcate between things with legs to enter the mainstream and the world at large and things that remain mainly catering to the current “otaku” crowd.
It’s hard to discount the popularity of something like K-On!(!) which has a huge following in Japan and a growing one in the US (@GNitro noted that there was a “Fuwa Fuwa Time” singalong at Bandai’s Otakon Panel), but works like that clearly follow the wants of the “core” otaku fanbase (comprised mainly of moe enthusiast like myself). If the medium jettisons those concerns, it will lose not only an audience, but also a fair amount of power as a fandom. The ardor of those moe fans drives a lot of the discussion/meme creation/doujins that give anime its unique ambiance.
@Patches, it’s interesting, your comment reminds me of my own concerns as a reporter. I constantly have to make sure my pieces don’t alienate the core fanbase OR the casual observer. From your comment, it sounds like the industry is teetering on same fulcrum.
If they need help they can learn from Nintendo, which somehow managed to make the Wii good for both Grandma and her hardcore gamer granddaughter. But even they’ve received criticism from the core. Whenever you’re searching for a new audience, it’s to be expected that your current audience might feel a little neglected.
I, for one, pretty much live for Tiger & Bunny right now – and the blatant advertisements are part of what sells the show for me. This is absolutely brilliant, both in terms of moving anime forward and in re-targeting advertising. Both American and Japanese economies are slumping (to put it mildly on our end) and what’s going to matter for companies now and in the future is not immediate sales but long-term brand recognition and loyalty. Not only will the fans of the show today know and recognize the labels (I can’t see a Pepsi logo anymore without thinking of Blue Rose), but fans in the future who pick up this series will see the advertisements still in place on the heroes and in the episodes.
As far as anime in general is concerned, I can see a lot of series trying to mimic Tiger & Bunny‘s success (similar to the way Naruto and the like mimic Dragon Ball with the hopes of being a successful, long-running series), but the issue of being “mainstream” isn’t the biggie – it’s whether or not series to come can build the same level of artistry, entertainment and exciting characters to identify with and place the advertising within that.
@Betty, I like your point. If Tiger and Bunny were exclusively about advertisements, as I (unintentionally!) simplified it, it wouldn’t be successful at all. That said, I am absolutely fascinated with the use of ads in that show. They’re perfectly targeted toward the show’s audience. I don’t read Japanese or I’d do more research on how these advertising deals came about. How did anime go from “SOMY” TVs to an honest-to-goodness advertising contract with Ustream? I wonder if each brand handpicked the hero they wanted to have their advertisements show up on.
I’d be interested to learn the same, myself! Especially with advertisers like UStream – I was really surprised to see an English-language company advertised. To a certain extent, I think it may have been a collaboration between advertisers who are/were interested and the creators; for example, Blue Rose is largely sponsored by Pepsi, and soda companies tend to sell their name on being “cold” and “refreshing.” Rock Bison not only has the image of a sturdy cattle animal in his name and hero power, his outfit also looks like a bull and his main sponsor is the Japanese BBQ restaurant Gyu-Kaku. These (and most of the other sponsors) are way too matched to be a coincidence – they feel like they were hand-picked for each character, which suggests collaboration between the advertisers and creators.
Oh, yeah, otaku will stick with anime forever. We like THAT it’s weird, but we don’t like it only BECAUSE it’s weird. To “get” the style of anime and Japanese humour, one has to be open-minded (assuming they weren’t raised with Japanese media anyway). Therefore, we are open to anything, and we like what we like. Popular? Unpopular? An otaku cares not about these matters.
Well its like how the movie industry changed from the late 80’s till now. We went from campy experimental shows to generic mainstreams. Part of is what looks like the anime industry going into the studio system movies have here. You see that major contraction after the 04-05 boom. The interesting stuff was already being steered away for that last hit. At a point it was harem, now its moe/slice of life. Its a natural business decision, just a really bad creative one.
I’m sure you’ll find some anime hipsters around still.
I’m certain there are anime hipsters around! You know, the fans who refuse to watch anything made after 1998. People who say old anime is automatically good and new anime is automatically bad. My theory? When it was more expensive to bring anime to the US, the industry had to select only what they considered the cream of the crop. Now, they can haul over every single new series. Not each of those is going to be a hit. So we can perceive there to be more bad shows now than before, but that’s because we have more anime options in general.
Well its still pretty expensive bringing over anime. That big demand surge a few years ago just invigorated folks to push harder to get things here a bit faster, but the same licensing model exists. Now they just have a better idea of who’s their customer base here. They also finally saw the benefit of doing sub only releases for low popularity series as well.
Iront: Even these so-called anime hipsters readily admit that even back in the bad old days of anime, 90% of the stuff shown were trash as well.
For every Gundam you had to deal with 5-10 Honmeaises. For every Slayers you probably had 15 MD Geists made. For every Macross you had 5 Macross 7s to deal with (and even then, Macross 7 is rather divisive when it comes to quality).
It’s just that these anime hipsters assume anyone who thinks otherwise are heretics and should be shunned as such. Case in point: How these people trumpet Redline as “the last great anime ever”.
I know its a late comment, but after reading, I HAD to respond.
I’m actually doing a complete overview for the entire Universal Century; I’m finished 0079, Zeta, ZZ, 0080, 0083, F91, CC. I’m currently working on Victory (and despite the higher production values, I’m hating it. Every single slow as molasses moment.)
In any case, moving from 0079 to Zeta, I DO feel that they improved immensely in most aspects of the animation. No, it wasn’t the best of its time, but they could have done alot worse. As an aside, I won’t be spoiling myself with the compilation movie; I’ll enjoy each series as it was meant to be; one episode at a time, as hideous as ever.
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