Forum - View topic

The Mike Toole Show - The Spirit of '81

Fractale, remembered fondly? Considering that the general consensus was that it was mediocre at best (I have seen several people say they enjoyed the show but I haven't seen anyone call it one of their all time favorites yet) I doubt that will happen, but I do hope that at least some of the other noitaminA anime are remembered in 30 years.

As a fan of all things Holmes I simply MUST somehow get my hands on a copy of LUPIN VERSUS HOLMES.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, having read some Hiroki Azuma, and say that next to nothing made today will be a "classic" because anime today isn't made to be classic, or to generate a long-lasting franchise. They're created to make money as quickly as possible by appealing to what they already know fans like. Not that, mind you, shows made 30 years ago weren't trying to make a ton of money; they just didn't have the art of the Disposable Series down as well as the modern field does. You don't want your show to have abiding rewatch value, because then the fans might not buy the next show you make (which will basically be a repackaged version of the last thing you sold them).

The few series that are really great and original tend to fall through the cracks of fandom interest and disappear into the ether. They're there, but they don't get the fanfare that they might have in another decade.

Or to put it another way... the audiences in 1981 had a better eye for quality than the typical otaku in 2011. You can accuse contemporary creators of hackery all you like, but in the end they're making what sells, and what sells isn't "classic" anymore.

So they solved this problem in the usual way, and just made up their own character, a little girl named Flone. I love this solution, because it's weirdly and hilariously disrespectful of the source material-- we're all moaning because a messy New York-based adaptation of Akira seems to be looming on the Hollywood horizon, but this approach certainly isn't limited to Hollywood.

And "quality anime" is a quality so nebulous, so uncertain, that it is impossible to make a show that everyone will like. You will always have your anti-whatever factions out there nitpicking everything to death because it doesn't hold up to their personal appeal checklist. You just have to roll the dice and see what comes up, and ignore those that bash for the sake of bashing.

Just a year or two later, American children would delight to the adventures of Belle and Sebastian, as the show was retitled for broadcast on Nickelodeon, and just another fifteen years later, a goofy indie rock band would totally steal the name of that show for their act, thus confounding my Google searches for the series forever!