'I am the whisper that says ... "Hey! Nice hat!"' by Kara
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 6:40 AM

This actually happened. It did. Seriously. Minus the sequel comment and the bat. I understand that a lot of younger fans are getting into it what with the new DVDs out, and that's awesome, but a lot of them do indeed see it as an amazing find in an otherwise dry and unredeemable period in anime.

I got a few letters after this comic talking about how younger fans immediately write off anything that isn't as shiny as new stuff. Urusei Yatsura was one of the ones in question, and that one actually got some jeers from my alma mater's anime club. They couldn't watch it because they were too distracted by the bad animation.

I also read a review of Gunbuster last night in a friend's Sci-Fi magazine (they generally have me review their anime reviews). Now, the reviewer did give it an A, but they said that it was good in spite of a 'hokey' concept.

Now, okay. It did take me a long time to see this, and it eventually took sitting me down with a chocolate milkshake to marathon it (all six episodes ... good God, how on earth did I do it??). And I loved it. Seriously. A lot. It was kind of predictable to me in the beginning, but that's because the first episode or so was a love letter to Ace o Nerae!, my favourite sport anime. But it's gorgeous. It's got character designs by Mikimoto (the guy who did the designs for that May-cross show I mentioned earlier), it's early GAINAX, and sweet Jesus it has a well-written plot. In a short space. And possibly the most heart-wrenching ending to anything ever.

Honestly, I don't believe that people are dumb if they don't like what I like (usually). But I really am shocked (well, not shocked, but rather annoyed) at the sweeping generalisations re: genre. It's old and it's got a robot in it, thus it's set up to suck. Maybe stuff like Code Geass will get the little girls understanding that riding in big mechanical things isn't all that bad ... but it'll probably be under the condition that the pilots are bishie.

Or not. My anime club wouldn't watch GaoGaiGar, either.

If you have been, let's do it already.