Classic Anime

Recently, I've been re-watching a lot of old Ranma 1/2 episodes. I've seen the whole series, all the movies, the OVAs, and just a few days ago I saw the new OVA they put out. This series has a special place in my heart, since it was one of the first anime I watched. I totally ate up all that romance stuff and still consider Ranma & Akane to be my favorite anime couple. Though it's frustrating as hell sitting through ten billion episodes of the same stuff. They argue, they make up, they *almost* admit they like each other, then they don't. Still, there's a handful of awesome, funny, and sweet episodes I've been going back and watching. I don't think I'd ever sit through the entire series again. I think that's both Rumiko Takahashi's fault and reason for her success: the tendency to DRAAG OUUUT the plot / romance. Ugh.

Then I just now finished the first episode of Urusei Yatsura. I liked it quite a bit, but I'm weary of dedicating my time to yet another one of Takahashi's long things. I used to blast through these long anime series when I was younger, but now... Eh, not so much. Though I do fucking LOVE this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oNvTWrwxYE

I've been getting into Dr. Slump bigtime. As a huge fan of early Dragonball, this stuff really does the trick for me. Unfortunately, my Japanese isn't as great as I'd like it to be and only a few episodes have been subtitled in English. I really think that Toriyama was at his best here. Just wacky funny nonsense. Luckily the manga is available, so I've been reading that.

Feel free to reminisce about some old school anime, folks!

Ah Dr. Slump just makes me think of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fILWZN1E_sI Suppaman!

I love Urusei Yatsura, used to watch the series every night at about 1am when it was on, many moons ago. One of its movies, Beautiful Dreamer, is still one of the best classic animes i've ever seen. I actually never saw the final movie, the one that ends the story, because i like to watch random episodes now and then and pretend the wacky antics never end and the romance never leads to a happy conclusion, which is the point of the show.
Tried Ranma 1/2, but its not nearly as funny or interesting to me.

Timely thread, I just started to get into Leiji Matsumoto anime. I finished the first season of Space Battleship Yamato and it was a blast. I also recently watched Here is Greenwood, an old high school comedy shoujo anime/manga series, it was pretty damn funny. I'm also slowly streaming Saint Seiya with some friends, it's not exactly the best out there but it's a lot of fun to go through the crazy battles with friends. I also plan to watch Maison Ikkoku and Urusei Yatsura soon.

NightCrawler said:

Ah Dr. Slump just makes me think of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fILWZN1E_sI Suppaman!

I love Urusei Yatsura, used to watch the series every night at about 1am when it was on, many moons ago. One of its movies, Beautiful Dreamer, is still one of the best classic animes i've ever seen.

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HAHAHA Suppaman is an incompetent buffoon. I love him.

You know, I recall the Beautiful Dreamer movie being very well reviewed. I remember it being on "AOD Recommends" back when animeondvd.com was a thing. I gotta check that out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GrumpyJiisan

You guys should check this reviewer out, he's an older guy who goes hiking and reviews anime. Some of it is modern but he mostly does classics. He has a pretty good knowledge of directors and studios from back in the day and usually gives a nice backstory on the production of some movies/series. What's sad is that he hasn't been online or updated in over a year and at that age... I learned about a good deal of anime from watching his reviews though. Take a click.

One of my favorite classic openings for an anime is Cutie Honey, any version of the song really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTNAhYP2A4
Oh, and Rose of Versailles aka Lady Oscar
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3wgic_yyyyyyyy-op-the-rose-of-versailles_music Shitty Daily Motion link since Youtube takes this down all the time.

Record of Lodoss War is a big favorite of mine. I remember scouring every Suncoast I could find looking for it and finally found it in St. Louis. Then when I got back to my dorm a buddy of mine and I sat down and marathoned it. Pretty awesome show.

Delta Phi Zeta said:

Record of Lodoss War is a big favorite of mine. I remember scouring every Suncoast I could find looking for it and finally found it in St. Louis. Then when I got back to my dorm a buddy of mine and I sat down and marathoned it. Pretty awesome show.

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Do you mean the OVA or TV series? I really loved the OVA, haven't watched the TV series yet, but I love the OP, same for the OVA series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCLy1laHE88 OVA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blICu7KsmyA TV

I was living in mexico in the early 90's many anime titles came out, so some you may have not seen. Dragonball , mazinger z , remi, candy candy, dragon quest anime, speed racer, slam dunk, macross , galaxy express 999, slayers, Recently been watching captain Harlock .

Th3Branded0ne said:

I was living in mexico in the early 90's many anime titles came out, so some you may have not seen. Dragonball , mazinger z , remi, candy candy, dragon quest anime, speed racer, slam dunk, macross , galaxy express 999, slayers, Recently been watching captain Harlock .

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You forgot this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FjMJGP3NJ0

Nomad said:

You forgot this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FjMJGP3NJ0

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Must have been out when I moved here. And yes I also forgot saint seiya and another one about mice fighting weasels , I just can't remember the name right now .

Delta Phi Zeta said:

Record of Lodoss War is a big favorite of mine. I remember scouring every Suncoast I could find looking for it and finally found it in St. Louis. Then when I got back to my dorm a buddy of mine and I sat down and marathoned it. Pretty awesome show.

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Man, I remember Suncoast. That place was pricey, but they had tons and tons of anime. I really miss that store. But, on the other hand, we got it good today. Back then it was $20 or more for a Dragonball Z DVD with 3 or 4 episodes per disc.

Th3Branded0ne said:

Must have been out when I moved here. And yes I also forgot saint seiya and another one about mice fighting weasels , I just can't remember the name right now .

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It was amazing how back in those days, you would watch Candy Candy, Remi... Hell even Mazinger Z and just how tragic these stories were. I seriously believed that some of these characters were going to put a bullet in their heads sometimes. I think the closest thing that American TV got was with the originals Voltron's last episode. And it doesn't even come close.

Dar Klink said:

Do you mean the OVA or TV series? I really loved the OVA, haven't watched the TV series yet, but I love the OP, same for the OVA series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCLy1laHE88 OVA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blICu7KsmyA TV

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Oh I definitely mean the OVA. I got the TV series shortly after and I wasn't quite as excited (awkward love story involved) about it, but I liked the beginning a lot since it retconned (read: made more accurate) and added to the ending of the OVA. The ending was pretty cool from what I remember. It's been like 5 or 6 years since I've seen it though. I remember being satisfied at least.

Nomad said:

It was amazing how back in those days, you would watch Candy Candy, Remi... Hell even Mazinger Z and just how tragic these stories were. I seriously believed that some of these characters were going to put a bullet in their heads sometimes. I think the closest thing that American TV got was with the originals Voltron's last episode. And it doesn't even come close.

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And they were not censored, blood and nudity was shown

Back home, I watched my first set of anime series through a channel called AXN - Grander Musashi, Ninku, Flame Of Recca, Ayashi no Ceres. Then Animax started and aired Samurai X, Inu Yasha and a few more. What's interesting was that Animax's own dub for both those series are far superior than what I hear on their DVDs.

I began to get more interested in anime and got around checking out - Gundam (from the beginning in right order), Robotech, Ninja Robots, Yu Yu Hakusho, Sailor Moon, Slayers, Berserk, Trigun, Beebop, Lain, Boogiepop Phantom, Neon Genesis Evangelion and a lot lot more. It was only in the last 5/6 years that I could get access to/ watch older series like Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, Future Boy Conan, Nadia, Space Battleship Yamato, Super Dimension Fortress Macross and such.

What's considered as 'Classic'? Pre-90's?

I really liked The Guyver when i first saw it years and years ago. And the only anime movie i liked was spriggan.! "Commander fat man!"

Suncoast was where I bought my first DVD, which was the complete Record of Lodoss War 2 DVD set, which I bought before my family even owned a DVD player. =)

I still remember how as a kid, the original 1980 version of "Toward the Terra" was the very first anime film that I'd seen, and which sparked my initial interest in Japanese animation and manga. It was way back in 1999, when I was 11 years old, I went into a local video store to return a VHS tape of some Disney movie (I think it was Oliver & Company) that my family had rented a few days earlier and I stumbled upon a copy of this VHS tape on a shelf next to me



I was immediately taken in by its title and cover art and managed to convince my parents to buy that movie. Later, upon popping the tape into the VCR and watching the movie I was struck not only by the look and quality of the animation, which looked unlike anything that I've seen on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network, but also by the fact that the spoken dialog wasn't even in English - it was in Japanese original with the English subs. Anyone remember those long bygone days when anime licensing companies such as VIZ, ADV and the Right Stuff International used to release VHS English subtitled versions?
And the funny thing was how every time I felt like becoming bored of having to read the words on the screen to understand what the characters were saying, the on-screen action, the soundtrack and even the very sound of the Japanese language itself compelled me to keep watching till the very end. Looking back at "Toward the Terra" now, in retrospect, it really is a sentimental shojo/sci-fi schlock. But it will always have a special in my heart as the "ice-breaker" of sorts to my lifelong interest in anime and manga that continues to this day.

My intro to anime was on Saturday Anime early AM's on Sci Fi channel.... Casshern, Lodoss War, Vampire Hunter D, Iria, some others. I bought a couple of them years ago on VHS from Media Play, which I always thought was more awesome than Best Buy. It was owned by the same guys who owned Suncoast and Sam Goody.

I watched Belle and Sebastian and a few other dubbed anime shows on cable TV when I was a kid. I remember digging Lensman a little but I don't really remember it.

Dragon Half was the first anime I watched knowing what it was, with a bunch of friends when I started college. As a followup we watched a lot of Slayers. I picked up the second VHS of Evangelion, which meant I skipped straight to a sweet fight with Shamshel the giant hoohoowiener and got a really good first impression of the series. I checked out a bunch of random anime after that, Zenki, Ushio & Tora, Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, the English dub of Samurai Pizza Cats, and one I can't remember the name of for the life of me that was about a girl who could summon/get stuck to the top of the head of a dinosaur (found it: LUNA VARGA)... I'm pretty sure they're all early 90's anime.

Someone showed me Battle Angel and Berserk about then and those were the first that got me into manga. (I'd tried to get into the Evangelion manga before but it was so very mehhh)

(Anime movies started to show up here, so I found out about/watched a ton of Studio Ghibli films. A lot of anime started showing up on TV too and I really REALLY liked the second season of Digimon. Back then people still traded VHS raws to see the Japanese version of the show. Now there's actual fansubs online. Amazing!)

After that I marathoned fansubs of I think the whole series of Space Battleship Yamato, which was pretty awesome, and probably the only proper classic anime I've watched. Well, besides Unico.

Oh yeah cant forget Five Star Stories I only saw the movie I am not sure if a series is out i would watch it if i could find it. I used to get the really big but thin graphic novles loved the information in the back of the books.