Does Your First Anime Still Hold Up?

Rahkshi500

New member
May 25, 2014
190
0
0
I say that my first anime was Zatch Bell, and after seeing it several times before, I say it does hold up. While it certainly didn't have best animation, and the voice cast tended to be either obnoxiously high-pitched or inappropriately uber-deep(I honestly prefer the English dub's voices), it did make up for it in other departments. It has a diverse cast of characters from across different parts of the world, and it does have a very interesting justification for the Mon concept as well as the competition-type of story. It also plays with common elements within shounen series, like how while the protagonists do get stronger and gain more abilities, so do their enemies and manages to keep the battles going in a case of strategies, tactics, and cleverness instead of only just brute force. And it is really funny and there is some good legitimate drama to be found in it.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

New member
Aug 22, 2010
2,577
0
0
Something Amyss said:
Depends on what counts as anime. My first exposure to Japanese animation was either Warriors of the Wind or Voltron, both heavy recuts of Japanese programming, and I still haven't seen the source material. As a cartoon, I think Voltron (mostly) holds up. Is it still anime, though?

ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.

My first anime would be Demon City Shinjuku if you discount Voltron, WotW, Saber Rider, and a handful of others. It's still decent, but I wasn't in love with it to begin with. Like, I mostly have a fondness for it because it was the first time I had watched a legit, uncut anime.

Gordon_4 said:
Well lucky me, my first anime was Teknoman, the dub of Tekkaman Blade.



There were a few edits, mainly some brief nudity when Shara transformed and they may have cut out some of the bloodier parts and the scene were Sabre and the other evil Teknomen torture Shara but it survived largely unscathed and was thankfully better for it.

And yes, it holds up extremely well thematically and it's dub was one of the good ones so if you can get past the slightly rough animation its as good now as it was in '95.
Err...no, the show was heavily edited, to the point a few episodes in the international version were like 15 minutes long. It ran for a significant number less episodes, changed the character of D-Boy heavily, altered the personalities of Aki and Noal quite a bit, and gender swapped one of the characters, because "think of the children."

Also, the first Japanese OP is one of the best intro songs ever.


Fortunately, it's on the DVD release of the Teknoman discs.
The question posed in the OP was not if the translation/adaption was accurate, it was does it still hold up. I understand there are differences (although I did wonder why the episodes were so short sometimes) and in so much as I don't care, there was no way on this fucking earth a character like Levin was gonna fly on what was ostensibly kids TV in 1995.

Teknoman is still totally watchable, even if a tad bare bones compared to Tekkaman Blade.
 

Super Cyborg

New member
Jul 25, 2014
474
0
0
StormShaun said:
Super Cyborg said:
How would it be considered a Harem? I can somewhat see it but...

I know it has the part where multiple girls are interested in the main character, so you have that there. The problem I have is almost all other harems I know of take things in a different direction. They are mostly over the top comedies where the main character is too oblivious to understand advances. In Clannad I don't remember the girls ever being super obvious, and if anything never did a whole lot to show any advances.

You then have the fact that the main character waits till the last second to choose someone, or flip flops at times, or you just don't know. In this case, it was obvious from the first minute who it was, and there was never any time where one thought "maybe he will go with one of the others". Especially then the second season has no part where other girls might want him and focuses on Tomoya's and Nagisa's relationship with a few other character stories, I don't see the Harem part.

Then again, it might be because of the source material, which then I can see the Harem tag somewhat.
I think people label a harem because it has more than two girls who like the main character.
With what you said though, I fucking agree with it. I've seen what other harems can do, and what Clannad does goes beyond any of it.
So to me, it isn't classified as a harem.

It's too good to be one.
At least in my eyes.
Thankfully the only Harems I've watched/read have been Tenchi Muyo, Negima, and Love Hina. Then again, the first two have a Harem element, but have other things going for it. Negima starts as just a Harem, then goes into action after a little bit. Don't remember a whole lot about Tenchi Muyo or Love Hina, but I did like both at least. Oh yeah, there was World God Only Knows, and that was one that was a Harem but many of the annoying elements were not there or more bearable. I'm just surprised that Clannad would be classed partly as a Harem because of that one element. I thought genres usually had more than one element needed to have a certain classification.

I just need to rewatch Clannad again. It's been years since I saw it and back then I was one who couldn't appreciate the smaller stuff. I feel that if I watched it now as an ever so slightly more mature person, I would love it even more. That and I would understand the ending of the second season when watching it this time since I know what the visual novel was supposed to be.
 

Cette

Member
Legacy
Dec 16, 2011
177
0
1
Country
US
My first was either Slayers or Vampire Hunter D. I'd say both have held up pretty well aside from D's dub which is pretty terrible by modern standards.
 

Naqel

New member
Nov 21, 2009
345
0
0
The first anime I've watched that I was actually aware of it being an anime, and cared about beyond it being part of the afternoon cartoon block was Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

I'd stay up late against the wish of my parents to watch it, and watched it start to finish three times before it got pulled of the air(replaced by Cowboy Bebop).

It holds up pretty well, Heavy Arms Kai(TV) is still my favorite Gundam of all time.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
24,759
0
0
Gordon_4 said:
The question posed in the OP was not if the translation/adaption was accurate
And that would be fine if you hadn't gone and said that it "survived largely unscathed." You brought up the accuracy of the adaptation. I simply responded to that.
 

Ravenbom

New member
Oct 24, 2008
355
0
0
Technically my first anime was Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeda packaged as Robotech.
Transformers was my second Anime, iirc.

The Transformers Movie holds up incredibly well. It's the only good Transformers movie for that matter and Orsen Wells final movie performance. The show is garbage though.
Macross is still great though if you watch Robotech now the narrator gets a little annoying, it wasn't there in the original Macross.

But the first anime I knew was anime or "Japanese Animation" before it became "Jap Anime" and later "anime" was probably Project A-ko or Vampire Hunter D or Casshan: Robot Hunter before he became know as Casshern.
None of that shit holds up. I later saw Akira and back then I thought it was overrated and now I hold it in higher regard but it's still overrated.
 

Fox12

AccursedT- see you space cowboy
Jun 6, 2013
4,828
0
0
Zontar said:
Fox12 said:
Really? That's very interesting, I just assumed it was a massive classic there. Out of curiosity, what's the status on the live action film? The last I heard some French guy who hates anime was set to direct it.
Last I herd the director was maybe that same guy or maybe someone else since they replaced a lot of people working of the project, but the writer is Marco Ramirez so no matter who directs you know someone competent who also loves the medium is going to be right behind him every step of the way.

But yeah Akira is all but forgotten in Japan, as are a lot of other anime from before the 90s we consider iconic (and even some from after) like Speed Racer, which is so forgotten that the live action movie didn't have the characters get their names changed to their original ones in the Japanese dub but instead remain the American ones. And hell Cowboy Bebop, which was on the air for 15 years here, is a show most in Japan would not know what you where talking about if you brought it up, and this applies even more so to Big-O, which only got a second season because of the American audience.
Honestly, I would be fine with an 80s style action film being produced, especially if it builds on some of the stuff that wasn't explained in the film. I would just hate to see it turned into a Michael Bayesque film franchise. If they have a strong writer, though, then that can make all the difference. I just want someone who embraces and celebrates the anime medium, and not people who are ashamed of it. When I heard the old director say that the Japanese were bad storytellers, I about had an anurism. Hopefully things work out. Damn, I really need to start watching Daredevil.

As for classic anime, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I know Satoshi Kon was pretty obscure in Japan, if not actively disliked. In the west he's so respected that major film makers regularly pay him tribute. It's interesting how these things work out. At least Eva got the respect it so richly deserved.
 

thejboy88

New member
Aug 29, 2010
1,515
0
0
Depending on your definition of anime, mine was either Ulysses 31 or Gundam Wing. The former is a show I still like, but in that cheesy old cartoon way that I like shows like the 80's Transformers. As for the latter anime, I still hold it as being one of the better anime of it's era.
 

Crimson Cade

New member
Feb 27, 2009
67
0
0
Macross, and yes, I'd say so.

Remember setting the VCR to 2am to catch the sci-fi channel anime block. Later got Tank Police and Tenshi Muyo. Good times.
 

Jux

Hmm
Sep 2, 2012
868
4
23
Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Dragonball Z, Akira, GitS, Gundam Wing. I honestly can't remember which one I watched first, but I was watching them all pretty concurrently at the time. I'd say most of them still hold up as enjoyable, and some of them I have a deeper appreciation for now.
 

Patathatapon

New member
Jul 30, 2011
225
0
0
Battle of the planets. My dad showed that one to me before I could be tainted by the likes of Pokemon.


While not strictly a "pure blooded anime" I had also watched some of the original Japanese episodes that came with my dad's box set of it. People died. It was great!
 

Smooth Operator

New member
Oct 5, 2010
8,162
0
0
Oh that was probably Pokemon, loved the show as a kid. Then a friend gave me a DVD box set as a gift couple of years ago... god that show is actually awful, it just goes to show what horrid crap a kid will put up with to find some crumb of entertainment.
I will never watch Pokemon again that much is clear, it is right up there with the mind numbing horrors of Barney.
 

viscomica

New member
Aug 6, 2013
285
0
0
Errr... one of my first (memorable) animes was Yu Yu Hakusho, which I enjoyed a lot but I'm not sure if it still holds up. Probably not.
Then there was Rurouni Kenshin, which I think still holds up but haven't re-watched so I wouldn't really know for certain.
Appart from that I can say with certainty that Death Note holds up really well.
 

FireAza

New member
Aug 16, 2011
584
0
0
My first anime was Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040:

It still holds up pretty well, the story is interesting and the characters have personality. And the music still kicks ass! I actually bought the soundtrack CD shortly after coming to Japan, along with a few production cels from the show.

Smooth Operator said:
Oh that was probably Pokemon, loved the show as a kid. Then a friend gave me a DVD box set as a gift couple of years ago... god that show is actually awful, it just goes to show what horrid crap a kid will put up with to find some crumb of entertainment.
I will never watch Pokemon again that much is clear, it is right up there with the mind numbing horrors of Barney.
I actually started watching the original Japanese version of the show recently. It's actually a lot funnier than I remember it being. Granted, a lot of the jokes are lame puns, but I still found it entertaining. Maybe that's why the English version seemed less funny? The puns were impossible to translate?
 

kris40k

New member
Feb 12, 2015
350
0
0
Robotech/Macross. I'd say the animation is not quite up to par with more recent mecha series, but Minmay is just as annoying as ever so sure. More seriously, I think the themes covered by the series are still good. Haven't really watched it thoroughly recently, however.
 

Joshroom

New member
Oct 27, 2009
403
0
0
First anime was pokemon, so probably no; recently went back and tried watching the original series on Netflix and only pure nostalgia kept me going until episode 10 - had to stop then.

However, my first serious anime was Outlaw Star, which I remember watching on Toonami when Cartoon Network had their late evening slots. And Outlaw Star, while a little cheesy, is still frikkin' awesome. Its not quite in the same league as Trigun or FullMetal; but it comes close sometimes.