If you're of a certain age, do you remember the first time you saw AKIRA, or any of the Dirty Pair or original Macross cartoons? Coming from a steady diet of Hannah Barbera cartoons, it was like trading a transistor radio for a high-end stereo or seeing the grand canyon with my own eyes. The cinematic scope of the entire thing just blew me away, and my world was fundamentally changed.
The first time I saw AKIRA, I was 13 or 14, and it was on a fifth generation VHS bootleg, purchased for some ungodly sum at a con. My friends and I watched it over and over again, without the benefit of subtitles or dubbing, developing our own storyline that we would eventually learn had nothing at all in common with what was really going on.
It was a very different world back then if you were into anime or just about anything outside of mainstream culture. The Internet didn't exist at all like it does today (the closest we had were large closed networks like GEnie and Compuserve – this even pre-dates AOL) so we just didn't have tons of cartoons and communities at our fingertips like we do now. We relied on whatever we could find at cons – often at great expense – or what we heard though a grapevine that was nearly as reliable as the one in Johnny Dangerously.
So when I saw a post on Reddit titled "I saw AKIRA for the first time last night. Would someone explain WTF happened at the ending?" this morning, it was with great amusement that I left the following comment:
You damn kids today. When I saw AKIRIA for the first time, it was a fifth generation VHS bootleg, without dubbing or subtitles. We had to make up our own story to go along with the animation, and when we finally saw the movie with dialog we could understand, we discovered that everything we thought was wrong. And we liked it!
I'll tell you what happens at the end of the movie: Tetsuo gets off my goddamned lawn, and then I call Kaneda's parents.
For those of you looking for a serious and more insightful answer, Redditor themanwhowas has got you covered. I highly recommend checking it out.
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Rumiko Takahashi’s “Rumik World” anime/horror series were my first introduction to the wonderful world of alternative animation. The Laughing Target and Fire Tripper flipped a switch inside my adolescent soul, and I’ve never been the same since.
Macross Plus OAV and the original Super Dimension Century Orguss series were my first foray into the “Mecha” sub-genre of anime, and I’ve got to say–“western” animation has paled in comparison from that day forward.
Also… you’re an author! Proofread your shit, Wil! 🙂 (Re: “AKIRIA”)
You know I just recently heard about GITS. I play Eve Online and a corp used the music from Gits for there capitol ship fight video.
Soon after I saw that someone in the comments said it was from GITS. I have netflix so Ive seen most of the movies and series. The blu-ray of the second movie is about the best thing ive ever seen. Hopefully Spielberg wont sanitize it to much. What id really like is a GITS mmo. For now though im just tying to get my VampireGM to incorporate the tech from GITS into his game.
I watched Vampire Hunter D first then Akira, both in the early 90’s. From that point on, I was an Anime fan. And yes, Ghost in the Shell was better than Akira.
I think the first anime that I saw on video was The Last Unicorn, and I loved it, of course. And there was all the after school stuff on UHF. But the first time I heard the word ‘Japanime’ (the nomenclature wasn’t set in concrete, probably because we didn’t have much of an internet) was at the school sci-fi club’s showing of Akira. Somebody had gotten a tape with the voice dub. I don’t think it was the scratchiest tape we’d ever attempted to watch.
First, my mind was blown by the cinematic quality. Then I was all, “WTH?” as the story proceeded. And I think I skipped out on most anime viewing for the next four years. I think the original story writer said to himself, “You know, 2001 is just not byzantine enough. Maybe it could use a few buckets of blood, too.” Sorry. Akira is almost certainly an extreme sort of film that is either loved or reviled by the viewer. There’s not really any middle ground.
DAMN! Just when my coil’s reaching the green line. http://gurge.com/amd/old/akira/sounds/coil.wav
Where I grew up there were no techs of any kind. My dad was, I became a tech and things started up from there. Even radio music was already several years old by the time it made it to our town. My first actual anime that I actually recognized as anime was on VCD’s sold at an early computer show. Some post apocalyptic movie where people used martial art moves that don’t exist in the real world (Not Dragonball). I remember thinking that this beats anything on tv in America in intensity. I remember having trouble playing it on my old 386SX system I built from hardware bought at that show. Since then I have seen many many more that were far better than that old story was. When I started watching Ghost in the Shell on SciFi that was the pinnacle for me at the time, I had no clue what was actually available. Akira was so intense for me even subtitled that I ignored all around me to watch it. I found there are so many more out there that I may never have enough time to watch them all.But I’ll try!
I grew up with anime and have always watched them, ever since the late 1970s. I grew up in Quebec where, just like in France, anime series became extremely popular, especially Goldorak (Go Nagai’s UFO Robo Grendizer) and Albator (Leiji Matsumoto’s Captain Harlock).
And then there were tearjerkers Hutchi and Demetan both by Tatsunoko (yes, the same production company behind Gatchaman). They were two series that were surprisingly violent despite their cutesy image, but also had the great quality of being shown in Quebec French with the Japanese theme song intact.
We even have one series that’s a classic here called Le petit Castor (Don Chuck Monogatari). Quebec (and apparently Italy) were the only markets that showed that series outside of Japan.
Wil — have you seen the Art of Akira exhibit that’s going to be at the ToonSeum in Pittsburgh?
http://www.artofakira.com/
I have to admit i fall into this category. The first anime i remember seeing was Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind but it wasn’t called that back in the day. I remember having no idea what i had just saw, but my mom made me go outside and cut the grass before i could finish watching it and it wasn’t until many many many years later was i able to see the ending.
But the mark was made i would sneak down EARLY in the morning at my grandparents house to watch Bravestar, Robotech, etc because they had the good cable. I have been hooked ever since i probably have thousands of dollars tied up in DVD’s, VHS, and internet downloads of various anime’s i even went so far as to have a friend i played Everquest with back in the day that lived in California send me tons of series on discs to be played with Windows media player, “borrowed VHS copies of Robotech tapes from Blockbusters from every store i could find until i finally completed that set and i cant wait to start showing them to my 4 year old son.
Could not agree more. I also watched the Cartoons you could find on Saturday Morning. From Robotech, to Dragon Warrior, to Captain N and the GameMaster! I felt Akira was my first real dive into the Anime pool. I actually watched that along with Gunbuster and Dangaio. I was amazed in the quality of difference then from a Bugs Bunny Cartoon or even Disney Movie here.
For Akira, I got hooked on the original English Voice Actors. I knew the movie by heart, then got a hold of a Subtitle one and thought it was different. Mind you other than Akira I very much disliked Dubbed. Nothing beats the original Japanese tracks, but Akira was so well done it was one of the only Anime’s I like in English. But then they change it?!? The DVD Version came out and I was stoked to have a clear version of the move. Mind you I also bought it on LD which did have the Original English Voices. But the DVD was Different and I did not like it. Why didn’t they at least give you an option to use that track?
So I waited, and stuck with my LD version and then heard Blu-Ray was coming! They HAD to have the original track on there with all the space they can hold on a disc. Bought it, popped it in and started, and it looks AWESOME!! Waiting for the Bar scene and WTF!! They Change it yet Again, and not only the voice but the script as well! My mind could not stop trying to read along and be all screwed up.
So alas, in this age, leave it up to the Anime Nerd to Rip the Blu-Ray Version, Rip the LD Track and put it all back the way it should have been. Subtitled or Dubbed with the Original Actors which I believe made Akira a cult classic!
Ah, so may memories. My first real anime was the uncut Macross episodes on the local independent broadcast channel. Then they aired Robotech, and the difference was visible, even to my Transformers/He-Man mind. But I still enjoyed it. I honestly didn’t see Akira until I was about 14 (That would be 1991 or so) and it was a fan-subbed VHS tape that a friend had gotten from a local seller. I then rented it from the local video store, and was surprised at how the translation was different.
So, does this mean I get to wave *my* walker at the anime kids and tell them to get off my lawn?
I saw AKIRA in the early ’90s, the original English dub I believe, and like many, I was pretty confused by a lot of it, even though it was in English… then a few years later I read the manga and realized they’d basically left out the last third of the story. No wonder we were puzzled.
OT, where’s my burrito?
A slab a slice a chunk-a…
My brother was way into all things Anime (at the time, I just lumped it all into “Robotech” even though that wasn’t accurate). What was the show called that centered around a submarine? I remember one short scene where the captain says “I’m gonna GET those missiles” before launching some countermeasure… it sticks in my head because of the crazy dialogue (English dub) delivered with strange inflection.
My intro to anime was a Showtime special during summer break in 1984 called “Warriors of the Wind”. It was a hacked up version of Nausicaa and is still one of my favorite anime of all time. Akira and Ghost in the Shell round out the top three. The original Bubblegum Crisis is a close fourth. Man I miss the older anime.
Minus geek points for not knowing about BBSs and FidoNet (http://www.z1.fidonet.org/history.html) in the 90s. Man I thought you had it going on, I thought you KNEW about these things. I guess I’m just a bigger hacker than you.
Although we might be even since I’ve never seen Akira… I saw Bubblegum Crisis around that time frame, does that count?
Wil – your comment back to that user was HILARIOUS! AKIRA scarred me for life… I saw it when I was 18 or 19 with my boyfriend (at the time) and his friends and was horrified. I am a wuss by nature, so by the time the movie ended, I was scared to death that I’d never stop having nightmares about it. (It took a few days, but they did end eventually…) Anyway, I appreciate your first experience seeing it because I can’t remember if the version I saw had subtitles or not, but I distinctly remember having NO CLUE what the hell was happening the entire time. Thanks also for introducing us to Charo’s lovely rendition of “Love will keep us together.” 🙂
Speaking of AKIRA — if you get a chance, I highly, highly recommend checking out the recent Blu-Ray rerelease, especially if you can do so while listening to a good sound system — the video has been much cleaned up and the audio is stunning.
By the 90s, I'd moved beyond BBSs and FidoNet, and was dialing into university networks and shell accounts.
Nyahh. Nyaahhh.
I was a big fan of Battle of the Planets, my first regular dose of anime (or Japanimation, as we used to call it) that I remember. I enjoyed other examples that came across television over the years, but it wasn’t until Robotech came around that I went from fan to fanatic. I was so hooked on that show – still one of my all time favorites. Akira (also multi-generation VHS, but subtitled) blew my mind in all the right ways, but after that I slowly started losing interest in anime because none of it was as good as Akira. Don’t get me wrong, there has been excellent anime, but Akira was tops for me.
Now for a slight side story. My niece has always been into anime and manga. I don’t get to see her often, so I was thrilled when she called last year and asked if I had heard of Gencon and could she and her 3 friends crash with us for the con? It was so cool seeing kids so into gaming and anime and me being able to vicariously re-live my con days. They were watching episodes of Avatar (The Last Airbender, not the Thundersmurfs) on a laptop and we got to talking about anime. I had to admit that I didn’t really know the current stuff and that Akira was probably my favorite. Then IT happened… my first “Those Damn Kids Today” moment I’ve ever had where I really felt the indignation. None of them had even heard of Akira, let alone seen it. I was shocked! I remained pleasant, but I was thinking IT IS THE FUCKING CITIZEN KANE OF ANIME! HOW CAN YOU BE ANIME FANS AND NEVER HAVE HEARD OF AKIRA? Of course I couldn’t explain what Akira is because, well, how do you give an appropriate one line summary of it? After they left I decided I would buy her a DVD of Akira, but found that it had apparently been discontinued on DVD. A quick search just now shows it came out on Blue Ray last year. Hmm… it may be time to finally get that Blue Ray player.
WTF, Wil? I was all happy, chillin’ in the future and you just dragged my ass back to 2010! Or rather a flashback from the 1980’s DURING 2010. Not cool dude. Sooooo not cool!
Holy crap, am I seeing things? Darvelous is replying again? Either H1N1 completely ravaged what was left of my brain cells, or this sleep deprivation thing really has me fucked up six ways to Sunday.
Yes, I’m totally aware that my reply has nothing to do with your reply, or Wil’s post, for that matter, but you of all people should know that’s just my pattern. And yes, I concur with your self-proclaimed statement that you’re a dork. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing now, is it?
As a 41 year old Geek, Dork and Anime freak, my first encounters with Anime were the Venerable Starblazers and Battle of the Planets. When Macross came out I was completely blown away that a main character can be killed. I would recommend that everyone try and see the Original Starblazer movies, they are available on NetFlix.
Yeah, one of our Canadian computer-geek prophets, Steve Dotto wrote recently that the #1 daily-life technical advance that he couldn’t live without is the search engine.
He said everything else (email, texting, etc.) has technological downgrades – but searching “how did we find out stuff before the internet search engine?” It was a hell of a lot harder and much slower. And most of the time you didn’t even bother because it was such a pain in the ass.
Nowadays, in the future, we have the whole freakin world in our pocket.
Go figure.
Yup didn’t get Akira when I first saw it – subtitles on VHS – but I think it was a real copy. I eventually saw it again (about three years ago) and got it (it helps to be old sometimes).
I remember while I didn’t get it the first time – it made me sit up and take notice. I was a huge Transformers fan at the time, so I was mildly upset that none of the vehicles transformed or anything, but the bigness of the animation and the themes really got to me.
Kinda reminds me of when I first saw my other animated mindblower: Heavy Metal.
I mean, animated boobs! But I couldn’t sleep after the WWII bomber scene. That shit was serious.
And that opened the way for other serious graphic stuff like Maus, Watchmen, and The Sandman.
Funny how one gets from one place to the next sometimes.