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Answerman - Why Aren't Tezuka and Ishinomori Anime Popular In The West?

niji9t wrote:

Doesn't it all come down to personal taste eventually? I personally like older anime. Rose of Versailles, for example, is one of my favorite anime of all time. We simply weren't exposed to Tezuka and Ishinomori. People complain about the style being 'too old', yet have nothing against Disney movies from the 40's and 50's being outdated.

There is a world of difference between an old low budget Anime TV show, and an animated film from the golden age.Those films and theatrical shorts from he 40s and 50s are unmatched by anything that has come afterwords.

Americans at large didn't get introduced to harder-edged, mature anime for a long time after that. We had the very occasional TV series like Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman), Star Blazers (Yamato) and Robotech (Macross/Southern Cross/Mospeda), the current fan base is still an extension of the 90s boom in anime that happened after Akira was released. For years most fans came to anime looking for edgy, violent, possibly sexy entertainment. Then Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and finally Pokémon came and acted as a gateway drug for kids, while movie buffs and parents discovered Studio Ghibli movies, giving anime cultural cred.

0nsen wrote:

Because anime from before 1981 suck. I don't know why that is, but everything from before 1981 is just crap, and I've looked hard. The new Cyborg 009 movie from 2012 was awesome, imho. There's just something cool about outrunning the blast of an atomic bomb and the other action parts of that movie were equally just fun. I also like 009-1 from 2006. But stuff from before 1981? It's all kind of stupid and predictable.

You.....are kidding, right?

I think Yamato 2199's lack of success in the West at least has nothing to do with the content but rather that it isn't really available AFAIK (I think Mike Toole had to import it from Italy?).

Farewell Days of Youth wrote:

0nsen wrote: Because anime from before 1981 suck. I don't know why that is, but everything from before 1981 is just crap, and I've looked hard. The new Cyborg 009 movie from 2012 was awesome, imho. There's just something cool about outrunning the blast of an atomic bomb and the other action parts of that movie were equally just fun. I also like 009-1 from 2006. But stuff from before 1981? It's all kind of stupid and predictable. You.....are kidding, right?

He isn't kidding...

He's just myopic. He can't see anything that isn't directly in front of him.
He's like a lot of people who are in this hobby today... Mostly the news guys. If it's from three months before he got into it, it doesn't exist for him and therefore is irrelevant for everybody.

It's such a short-sighted attitude from a guy who's probably only seen locally available anime.

That's why you should READ the stuff in manga form instead of WATCHING the animated version of it: since anime shows only began to have decent animation in general in the 2000's (and it's also easy to spot the improvement in animation between 2017 anime and anime from 2005, for instance) it's usually much better than read the old stuff than to watch it. Manga is in a way more eternal medium than anime whose animation tends to become outdated very easily.

It's the same with Go Nagai anime too. For some reason, modern anime fans view them as boring and cliche while they don't mind stuff like Gurren Lagann and Tokyo Ghoul which are influenced by elements from Getter Robo and Devilman. Even a modern upgrade like Shin Mazinger Z is still view as somehow too over the top and silly, but Gurren Lagann is okay.

Jose Cruz wrote:

That's why you should READ the stuff in manga form instead of WATCHING the animated version of it: since anime shows only began to have decent animation in general in the 2000's (and it's also easy to spot the improvement in animation between 2017 anime and anime from 2005, for instance) it's usually much better than read the old stuff than to watch it. Manga is in a way more eternal medium than anime whose animation tends to become outdated very easily.

It depends on the animated adaptation, honestly. Like, I definitely wouldn't tell somebody they shouldn't watch the Cobra TV anime since it's, in my opinion, one of the best looking TV anime series ever made.

There's also stuff like Lupin III, where the manga and the anime are two different experiences entirely.

Not a good article.

"Which brings us back to Tezuka and Ishinomori stuff, with it's throwback characters and old fashioned, slightly more sanitized storylines." - sanitized storylines... oh my lord, have you actually read this stuff? Astro Boy has an entire story about a robot becoming president, which is obviously a mirror to the idea of real-world minorities becoming world leaders. The story shows the leader of what is a thinly-veiled anti-robot equivalent of the KKK rewiring said robot president & *forcing him to shine his shoes*. In a later arc Astro encounters a pile of corpses of Vietnamese women and children murdered by US soldiers.

Cyborg 009 takes these themes even further with innocents being murdered onscreen. The VERY FIRST VOLUME shows 001's crazed father killing his own wife with a blow to the head.

They "weren't trying to be cool"? Both took part in the push for edgy, rebellious works found in the 60s and 70s, in the climate of student protests and riots. In fact, Tezuka was ashamed of trying TOO HARD to be cool with Astro Boy during that period, making an "anti-hero Astro" arc that he had since regretted & retconned.

Ishinomori was far more honestly into that era of edginess. Cyborg 009 was dark enough but Sabu & Ichi at times bordered on ero-guro (don't let that keep you from reading it though, Sabu & Ichi is amazing).

I guess Sevakis never read the manga versions and was judging them by the 60s adaptations but the asker clearly said "anime AND MANGA", not just anime. And even then, the fairly mainstream 2000s Cyborg 009 show (it aired on Toonami) kept the dark edge & "coolness" so to speak, and the US version didn't edit much of it out. I guess he didn't watch that one either.

"Which brings us back to Tezuka and Ishinomori stuff, with it's throwback characters and old fashioned, slightly more sanitized storylines." - sanitized storylines... oh my lord, have you actually read this stuff? Astro Boy has an entire story about a robot becoming president, which is obviously a mirror to the idea of real-world minorities becoming world leaders. The story shows the leader of what is a thinly-veiled anti-robot equivalent of the KKK rewiring said robot president & *forcing him to shine his shoes*. In a later arc Astro encounters a pile of corpses of Vietnamese women and children murdered by US soldiers.

Cyborg 009 takes these themes even further with innocents being murdered onscreen. The VERY FIRST VOLUME shows 001's crazed father killing his own wife with a blow to the head.

But the Toei Dynamic Pro shows are garbage. It's not that they're over-the-top, it's that they're babified and bland. The manga versions are the good ones.

Getter Robo manga was Ken Ishikawa, not much Nagai input aside from the basic concept & some character designs like Emperor Gore.

niji9t wrote:

Doesn't it all come down to personal taste eventually? I personally like older anime. Rose of Versailles, for example, is one of my favorite anime of all time. We simply weren't exposed to Tezuka and Ishinomori. People complain about the style being 'too old', yet have nothing against Disney movies from the 40's and 50's being outdated.

Maybe some people, but I detest the old Disney style animation. I respect the fact that it helped start the industry as a whole, but it does nothing (good) for me.

uguu wrote:

Not a good article. "Which brings us back to Tezuka and Ishinomori stuff, with it's throwback characters and old fashioned, slightly more sanitized storylines." - sanitized storylines... oh my lord, have you actually read this stuff? Astro Boy has an entire story about a robot becoming president, which is obviously a mirror to the idea of real-world minorities becoming world leaders. The story shows the leader of what is a thinly-veiled anti-robot equivalent of the KKK rewiring said robot president & *forcing him to shine his shoes*. In a later arc Astro encounters a pile of corpses of Vietnamese women and children murdered by US soldiers. Cyborg 009 takes these themes even further with innocents being murdered onscreen. The VERY FIRST VOLUME shows 001's crazed father killing his own wife with a blow to the head. They "weren't trying to be cool"? Both took part in the push for edgy, rebellious works found in the 60s and 70s, in the climate of student protests and riots. In fact, Tezuka was ashamed of trying TOO HARD to be cool with Astro Boy during that period, making an "anti-hero Astro" arc that he had since regretted & retconned. Ishinomori was far more honestly into that era of edginess. Cyborg 009 was dark enough but Sabu & Ichi at times bordered on ero-guro (don't let that keep you from reading it though, Sabu & Ichi is amazing). I guess Sevakis never read the manga versions and was judging them by the 60s adaptations but the asker clearly said "anime AND MANGA", not just anime. And even then, the fairly mainstream 2000s Cyborg 009 show (it aired on Toonami) kept the dark edge & "coolness" so to speak, and the US version didn't edit much of it out. I guess he didn't watch that one either.

If that's the case, then why aren't Tezuka and Ishinomori popular in North America?

uguu wrote:

"Which brings us back to Tezuka and Ishinomori stuff, with it's throwback characters and old fashioned, slightly more sanitized storylines." - sanitized storylines... oh my lord, have you actually read this stuff? Astro Boy has an entire story about a robot becoming president, which is obviously a mirror to the idea of real-world minorities becoming world leaders. The story shows the leader of what is a thinly-veiled anti-robot equivalent of the KKK rewiring said robot president & *forcing him to shine his shoes*. In a later arc Astro encounters a pile of corpses of Vietnamese women and children murdered by US soldiers. Cyborg 009 takes these themes even further with innocents being murdered onscreen. The VERY FIRST VOLUME shows 001's crazed father killing his own wife with a blow to the head.

Right, sanitized. Let's just agree that you and I have very, very different views of that concept. Try pointing at a show from that time where the protagonist is evil and his deeds are glorified. Think Higurashi, where somwhere in there one of the protagonists kills two people that were extorting her father. With an axe and then tries to chop the corpses up, because the bodies are too heavy for her 15year old body to carry. That's when her friends come and see what she's done. What they gonna do? Well, obviously they help her hiding the bodies, duh. That's what friends are there for, right?

Old anime all have that moral club they relentlessly swing. Just take Ashita no Joe from 1970. Joe starts out as a small time criminal and probably had the stuff to make his career in the Yakuza. But what happens? He gets convicted and thrown into a juvenile correction facility or something like that and then discovers his passion for boxing and becomes a changed men that plays by the rules and bullshit like that. Sure, he may accidentally kill someone in the ring, but instead of shrugging it off and going to kill the next guy he ends up in a depression and then joins a circus. I'm not even making that up. Sure, it's more believable. Just in the sense Shinji is more believable in Evangelion than all the other kids enjoying being put in mechas and fighting for their lives. But Shinji started out as a angsty kid and Joe started out as a ruthless criminal.