Forum - View topicThe line that makes something "old school."
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Viga_of_stars
 Posts: 1240 Location: Washington D.C. in the Anime Atelier |
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A question to everyone:
What amount of time do you think it takes to make an anime "old school?" In other words, personally, where you you draw the line at old school and new school? When I think old school I instantly think 60's - late 80's. But a lot of people consider things from the 90's old school in 2009. Heck, people think a show from 2 years ago is old nowadays. It's hard for me to think that way because that would mean everything I loved, still love and once obsessed over is 15-20 years old soon. 23 is too young to be an anime geezer! |
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LuckySeven
 Posts: 587 Location: Georgia, USA |
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That is a difficult line to draw for certain. Personally I'd go with anything I saw as a child before I knew what anime was or why it was different from the rest of the cartoons I watched. For me that would be shows like Belle and Sebastian, Battle of the Planets, Mysterious Cities of Gold, Star Blazers, Tranzor Z, Voltron, and a few others I can't remember the names of. Most definitely anything that came before those like Astro Boy and Speed Racer. But I suppose now I'd also have to throw in some of the anime series I saw when I first re-discovered anime. Shows like Dragon Ball Z, Project A-Ko, Ranma ½, and Tenchi Muyo. All in all I'd say I certainly define old school in anime by when it was still hand painted cels and backgrounds. All of the digital ink & paint, backgrounds, and CGI make it a tad bit harder to tell how old stuff is now.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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These days I'd say the general dividing line tends to be 1994-1995, or when Eva came out because it's one of those older shows that people don't tend to think is that old. People can think stuff from 1999 is old as hell too, so it's always really hard to judge. Certainly anything from the OVA (mid 80's to mid about 1994) era can be considered in the old school from today's fan viewpoint, since the kids today will probably never be aware of those shows, or never care to see them.
Although if we want to push the date back further for us more seasoned fans, we can probably go to 84/85 for DYRL, Nausicaa, and Zeta Gundam or to 78-79 for GE999, Harlock, and 0079. Shows before these just start to get really old and dated looking, no offense, but the animation quality even until 82 was pretty bad. |
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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Here's my rule. If a show was made before a joke about it involving "It's over 9000" could be made then it's old school. Another is if the show is too old to have had fan art with the main female character dressing up as Rei Ayanami.
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abynormal
 Posts: 427 Location: Louisiana |
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Old school for me is anything before they started using computers to animate everything instead of hand-drawn cells. So basically pre-1998 or '96. It seems recent, but I didn't really get into anime until about 2001 or so.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18589 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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When I talk about "old school" in reference to anime (and especially when I use that term in reviews), I'm usually referring to it more in a style sense than an actual dating sense, since artistic designs, story themes, and even general structures have markedly changed over time across most genres despite occasional throwbacks. (Gurren Lagann and Gunbuster 2 are classic examples of recent mecha series made in "old school" style, for instance.) Thus when I say something is "old school" its age can vary from genre to genre.
For mecha, I'd say "old school" is pre-SDF Macross, since that's the series that popularized the style revolution in mecha initiated by Mobile Suit Gundam. For sci fi series it's probably pre-Bubblegum Crisis, for magical girl it's pre-Sailor Moon, for fantasy it's pre-Record of Lodoss War, and for most other genres it'd be at some point in the late '80s or early '90s. A few are hard to classify, such as romantic comedies, which I think have evolved less over the years than most other genres. (The appearance of harem series more started a new subtrend than redefined anything.) |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Old School to me, I'd define as series or films that were made before or around the time I began my fandom. That translates to anything made before about 1995. When I think Old School I'm usually thinking of things like Mobile Suit Gundam, Maison Ikkoku, Kimagure Orange Road, SDF Macross and the like.
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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I don't pay much mind to it, but I'd say it would be like 92 and back is "old school". 93-99 is just 90's stuff. And 2000+ is "modern". That's how I see it. I try not to care all that much about if it's "old school" or not though. It sometimes leads to the type of think that's like "Old school stuff is way better than all the crap that's coming out now." Or "I don't like old school stuff" It just gets kind of annoying. I try to look at anime as good and bad (it simplifies things).
I hate how there has been a growing idea that anything that's just a few years old is old news and it's all about watching the stuff that's just coming out. It's slowly starting to become a problem. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8511 Location: Penguinopolis |
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To me, old school is Bubblegum Crisis and any show before it. Why? Because Bubblegum Crisis is one of those essential anime that was passed around in little college clubs in the eighties and early nineties on crappy third generation tapes so they can watch and discuss on Usenet. It was one of those things that happened in the infancy of anime fandom in America.
Woe to anyone who dares refer to Cowboy Bebop as "old school" around me. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4876 |
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I think I'd draw the line somewhere around the early 90s myself, when the OVA boom was winding down. I only became an anime fan about four years ago, but considering how many of my favorite shows were made in the late 90s, there's no way I could consider anything at that point "old." The hand-colored vs. digitally-painted look does have a lot to do with the distinction, but even more than that, I think it's the generally higher-quality overall visual aesthetic that shows after that time started to take on. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to call most of the abysmal late 80s OVAs that Sci-Fi has aired recently "butt-ugly."
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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This I can agree with. Series that you may not have known about, but check out later where it is an older style compared to the one you're used to. I also determine what is old school based on my age. Something that I may have followed for the longest of times while growing up and ended before I got to where I am right now in anime fandom I would consider to be old school as well. |
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BES Null Core
 Posts: 604 Location: 六十周年的东方裁判 |
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There is a very noticeable difference in the color saturation of anime made using CG techniques and without using them, even to the untrained and unfamiliar eye. The time period for heavy CG adoption in anime is around year 2000. Marking the old school and new school dividing line around that time seems like a reasonable separation.
Likewise, there was some technical development in the early 80s that made anime made before and afterwards noticeably different without being familiar with period styles. That is also a reasonable line of division. If I had to pick one, I'll go with 2000, since I'm not familiar with the earlier change. |
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eyeresist
 Posts: 995 Location: a 320x240 resolution igloo (Sydney) |
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I agree with this, and I'd add that for me "old school" also implies a certain old-fashioned passion for animation that doesn't necessarily equal technical polish. For this reason I'd draw the cut-off line someplace near the mid-1980s, when puffy-haired characters and awful synth music were combined in commercially driven dreck-fests. The 1990s Giant Robo OVA series is in an old school style, being a tribute to the design style of the 1960s, and for me one of the appeals of Planetes was that the characters had (to me at least) a deliberate hand-drawn look which has been out of fashion for a while. |
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Overlord Z-ko
Posts: 34 |
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This is how I distinguish whether or not an anime is old school or not. I have noticed that newer anime have much brighter colors than the older series. I generally distinguish anime by this trait. |
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EricDent
 Posts: 997 Location: Georgetown, TX |
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Pretty much anything from the '80s and older is considered "Old School" in my book.
Some of it is over 30 years old, and still looks awesome to this day. Don't put off any anime show just because you think it is "old". Go and rewatch some of those shows, you might be surprised. Also to the TC, there are people I have met that are into anime, and they are in their 50s! So never say you are too "old" for anime. BTW I am 37. |
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