Forum - View topicBuried Treasure - Project A-ko
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
StudioToledo
Posts: 847 Location: Toledo, U.S.A. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
The English VA for her in the first movie sounds like somebody who could play Sally in a community theater's production of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GATSU
Posts: 15470 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mine was probably either Urusei Yatsura or Lupin or both.
I probably was more interested in the unique title and/or the "genki" chick on the cover who seemed to convince me that I'd get a lot of action and adventure from this movie.
I'm surprised anyone would consider A-ko bootleg-worthy, as it's mostly geeky superheroine stuff, and not really the kind of "cool" stuff you share with friends and acquaintances.
Yeah, I wondered about that myself.
Nah, I was actually fine with that stuff.
Fortunately, you were finally able to stop with the sequels. [Well, that second series, anyway.]
To my knowledge, this would be the first "mainstream" anime with yuri undertones. But I could be wrong. I always found it weird that the writers would brush it off as a "just friends" kind of thing at times, though. It always seemed like they couldn't decide the relationship of the characters.
I never really embraced the parody aspect of the anime most of the time, even when I "got" the references. It always seemed like it was playing the material too straight for the humour to catch on with the viewer. It's not necessarily a bad approach, but it was trying to have it both ways. Anyway, you might want to mention the anime's legacy. For example, Nabeshin would still be working the hentai circuit, if it weren't for A-Ko, since this sucker's style is pretty much the template for how most contemporary parody anime is done. Plus, I'd say just about every anime heroine who kicks ass[particularly Nuku Nuku] has the same mannerisms as A-Ko. Oh, and A-Ko set the stage for the smoother animation we have nowadays, since before that, anime tended to still be stuck in "1 frame/per second" hell, even in the 80s, when they had the money to make it look more expressive. Even Miyazaki didn't start showing this kind of energy in his work until about Porco Rosso. Of course, some might cite Daicon as the pioneer of this style of anime. But to me, it's just fan-fiction, while A-ko encompasses the definitive aspects of the genre which existed then, while paving the way for those which would exist in the future. I doubt you'd be seeing Gunbuster and Nadia if not for A-ko. rti:
Yeah, CPM really knew how to deliver on extras. AWO:
Nah, that wouldn't be fair, since A-Ko had some originality. zrdb:
Yeah, I still regret holding off on the Baoh dvd. abruli:
I actually think A-Ko has the better space battles, since it doesn't just come out as a shinier version of Macross like DYRL. bj: True, C-ko sucks; but she's still refreshing, next to the moe-generation of anime girls who act spaced out all the time. Everyname:
Well, the thing is, nowadays, you can watch a lot of titles like A-ko, because it's so influential. But back then, it really stood out from other animation. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
michellebaby
Posts: 5 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Omg was my reaction to first watching this back in the day. I would have to say this was the one series that hyped my ani obsession and appreciation for crazy ass anime on the same level as this. Top moments that i absolutely loved in this move was 1) crazy bondage wiping b-ko vs a-ko near the end and 2) ako hoping off missiles to get to the ship...that part had me like serious wtf?
bad moments: c-ko, dub version and all the tranny looking characters lol |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Relairknight
Posts: 128 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wow this is kind of creepy...some taped-from-HBO copy of Nausicaa..err...Warriors of the Wind, as it were, that a friend of my fathers loaned me, was the first anime I ever saw as well.
Project A-ko was one of the next, I remember seeing it ages ago when Sci-Fi used to show anime movies on Saturday afternoons and thinking 'okay I'll give this a shot'. I watched it and the whole time I'm like... what in god's name is this...but it was so crazily awesome that I eventually stopped worrying about trying to make sense of it and just enjoyed it =P After seeing that, then Sailor Moon and a few other shows, I couldn't get enough and was an anime fan for life! Last edited by Relairknight on Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
gridsleep
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ah, A-ko. Not the first anime I'd seen. I've been watching anime since the first time Astroboy was broadcast in the US. I've been watching anime for longer than most anime fans have been alive. A-ko will always be my favorite, even after Lain and Haibane Renmei and Akira and all the other wonderful productions. It was the first anime I rented. It was the first Japanese entertainment I had encountered that wasn't Americanized. The tape I rented was subbed. To this day, I hesitate to watch any dub. Dubs are never as good, and I don't want to hear your arguments. You can take that to the bank. Besides being its own kind of wonderful, it had one thing that the early Sixties broadcasts lacked: Japanese. There is something about the sound of that language that just entrances me. I can listen to Japanese people speaking, and it thrills me like the complicated melodies of Beethoven or the rousing choruses of Gilbert & Sullivan. Watching A-ko in the original vernacular, and reading the subtitles, forced my brain into a kind of concentration that I usually reserved for reading a great novel or my own writing or drawing. I had to glue my mind to the screen. I absorbed that movie and took it into my being. And, like others writing here, it made me hungry for more anime. I quickly rented out everything that the store had, and went looking for more. I was just getting into the internet then, in the days when my 14.4kb [that's baud, not byte, kids] was the fastest connection in town, downloading A-ko images and even the first of the AMVs from Delphi (anybody here remember Delphi, with that UNIX file server interface? No? Am I due for the home?) I still have all that stuff on my Amiga floppy disks. A-ko has become such a archetype that it's been lampooned by American shows (one that I'm struggling to remember is a couple of friends entering a video store on a quest and the girl snidely remarking that the best they have is a couple of dusty copies of Project A-ko--was that in Free Enterprise? If you remember what that was, please note it here or I'll spend all night searching the net for it.) I don't know if there would be an American anime market without A-ko. The reminiscence of the article pretty much sums up all the reasons, except that, in comparison to any American cartoon fare, A-ko was what we would have seen had Tex Avery been reborn in Japan, and had been channeling Ralph Bakshi during production. No anime collection should be without Project A-ko.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bill Ames
Posts: 2 Location: Connecticut |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Back when this series was first released in Japan it was on CAV Laser disks. Because of this you could access any content on the disk as a single image. This allowed special content to be put on the LD that could only be seen by going to that particular frame. The LD player had the ability to address these frames by number so it was rather easy to see these single frames if you knew where to look. Why back then a friend and I published a fan newsletter “Japanese Animation news and Review” and had an anime fan club “Hokubei Anime-kai” to which we provided copies of our newsletter. One of the contributors to the newsletter provided a comprehensive list of this hidden content. I have a feeling that this material is not accessible on DVDs as a DVD is not accessible frame by frame. Perhaps if I have some time I could do a frame grab (assuming my LD player still works) of these scenes, however I would not really know where to post them.
Billa |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DavidShallcross
Posts: 1008 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
On the DVD players I have owned, I could not address frames by number, but could move to a particular time in HH:MM:SS format, and then step through frames forward or backward, one by one. Usually. So I can look through those sequences of "different image each frame" that occasionally appear. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
belvadeer
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
As pretty a speech as that was, that sounds like borderline you-know-what to me. I won't complain about anything, I loved this absurdly destructive gal-fight so much back on Sci-Fi. The English dub was great for its time (come on, Denica Fairman as B-ko people!) and I taped it to keep my memory of it perserved. Quite possibly one of my first anime too! =D |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wrial Huden
Posts: 149 Location: McKinney, TX |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
There is a thinly-veiled reference to this at the end of the first A-ko movie as you catch a brief glimpse of her parents. It couldn't be too obvious, however, as there could have been the risk of DC Comics filing a copyright infringement lawsuit. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
zrdb
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ya wanna bet you're the only one here that's been watching anime longer than most of the readers have been alive? I also remember those 2 shows you mention-although I kinda hated them-I much prefered Loony Toons with Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, etc. to stuff like Astroturd and Gicraptor. I like old style anime but I still watch a lot of new stuff-probally about 75% new and 25% old stuff-nothing can beat Kimagure Orange Road or Maison Ikkoku in my book, but still things like Ef-a tale of melodies or Rosario no Vampire are good too-bring on Project A-ko and the Dirty Pair!! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bill Ames
Posts: 2 Location: Connecticut |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Anyone here a fan of Doctor Slump? Now that's real anime!
However I think the Ako series was done almost for fun. I enjoyed it Billa |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jmtech
Posts: 6 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
This has too be one of the first import videos that really hooked me on Anime. Back in the day we watched our Anime raw, not many commercial subs or dubs. I remember renting a 2nd gen copy of the import Project A-ko on VHS. If you wanted to rent the original tape, you had to put down a sizable deposit. Import Anime on VHS sold for over $100 back in 1987. Take a trip down memory lane, note the original prices on the last column:
http://ohkami.sakura.ne.jp/meta-ovalist.htm I still have one of the first fansubs on VHS, it was Bubble Gum Crisis subbed by Group Santa Cruz. Before the subs we would download a rough translation or a synopsis on the usenet. You guys are so lucky to have your Anime any way you want it these days. I still have boxes of video tapes I recorded by tapping off the video feed of the monthly Anime club meetings. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Aizen-chan
Posts: 79 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
I used to have Project-Ako. I bought it cheap, as a blind buy, because I had heard that all the old school fans seemed to like it. I didn't get it, didn't like it, and I sold it.
I still have a couple of sets of cards that CPM put out, that have a few A-ko cards in it though... |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
StudioToledo
Posts: 847 Location: Toledo, U.S.A. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
I often felt there's a lesson in Ako that the American animation industry has yet to grasp at all yet, namely that we need to make stuff that we may enjoy to make rather than what 'others' insist would sell.
I almost want to live in that era myself when things were new and only a few guys ever knew about this stuff! That was the highlight of exploring a new thing.
Sad but true. This is why tape-trading became SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT! sorry, I felt I had to scream that out to those of the younger persuasion who may not yet appreciate the efforts of those that came before.
That's a cool list!
"...that outta hold them li'l SOB's!"
Glad you kept them!
Shame if you didn't enjoy it. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group