- Last Online3 hours ago
- GenderMale
- LocationWaterloo, Ontario
- JoinedSep 30, 2015
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Anime Stats
Days: 230.1
Mean Score: 10.00
- Total Entries804
- Rewatched0
- Episodes13,815
Manga Stats
Days: 196.2
Mean Score: 10.00
- Total Entries288
- Reread0
- Chapters29,104
- Volumes3,924
All Comments (44) Comments
The culture was definitely different back them. Most conventions were small--usually in a hotel ballroom or reception hall--and it was mostly a networking sort of event. We only got about 1/10 of any given year's anime legally, so loads of stuff never got subbed/dubbed and distributed via VHS or television. Tape-trading was usually done for fansubbed stuff or whatever was recorded off of television. Heck, man, fansubs often used to have the Japanese commercials from when they aired! It was considered a fun little curiosity to see Japanese commercials in the middle of an episode of Dirty Pair.
The necessity (and I mean NECESSITY) of networking made anime fandom a very social setting. Unless you were lucky and had bundles of cash to buy VHS cassettes and order fansubs, you traded tapes often. I often had a friend lend me his VCR for a few weeks every summer and I'd copy all of our anime for us. (You had to connect both VCRs together--one to play and the other to record.) We also had weekly get-togethers. Every time a new VHS of Evangelion was released, for example, one of us would buy it and we'd all get together and watch it. Sometimes, we'd all chip in for the VHS and then copy it for each other. Those VHS tapes weren't cheap--between $20 and $25 for dub and between $30 and $40 for subbed. When you factor inflation into the price, you realize it was pretty expensive.
Fansubbing also had a code of ethics back then. Fansubbers and distributors would cease subbing and distributing anime once it was licensed in their country. Companies would even communicate with fansubbers and fansub distributors to find out which shows were in high demand and worth investing. It was considered bad for the industry to continue fansubbing and distributing what amounts to bootleg copies once the show got licensed.
Because of that, shows would often take years to make their way over. Evangelion didn't finish coming out on VHS in the States until summer of '98 or '99 (I can't remember which), which was after End of Evangelion had come out in Japan. Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water didn't get licensed until over a decade after it first aired in Japan. Sometimes, a brand-new show to us was last-year's-news in Japan.
It was very close-knit, too. There was a lot of subcultural literacy back then--all new fans were usually "initiated" with a few "must-watch" movies and OVAs, like Akira and the Galaxy Express 999 movies. It helped to foster a sense of commonality and in-group belonging. There was this shared knowledge everybody had. Yeah, it was gatekeeping but it wasn't bad gatekeeping--everybody was enthusiastic and wanted to share. We might disagree on whether Ghost in the Shell was amazing or not but we all knew it. We'd all seen it. We all had it in common and having that stuff in common really brought people together.
We'd stumble across copies of Animage and NewType and try to teach ourselves enough Japanese to read at least SOME of them. An old Japanese issue of Shounen Jump discovered in a comic book store was wonderful because you may actually know what was inside (I found one with an issue of the original Dragon Ball in it back in high school) and that made you feel special--like you're part of something only a few people know about.
I should also note that there was a HUGE amount of mentoring going on. When I was a teenager and a college student, there were often older folks who started watching in the 1970s and 1980s (many of whom were stationed in Japan during their time in the Armed Forces). We were seen as the future of the hobby. This wasn't only anime but also other hobbies like tabletop roleplaying and miniature wargaming--there were always the "grognards" who would give advice and cultivate us young folks' understanding of the hobby and keep it going.
Yeah, it was tribal, in a sense, but it was one big tribe. It was one big subculture (or counter-culture, perhaps). Today, even though it isn't entirely normalized, it is certainly becoming more and more mainstream (both in the West and in Japan) and is simultaneously causing the fracturing of the subculture into cliques.
Anyway, I dunno if you were anticipating all of that. I kind of opened the floodgates of reminiscence.
Your video came at a very appropriate point, as well--I was discussing with a few friends and family that when we first started watching anime back in the 1980s and 1990s, limited television distribution and time-gaps between VHS releases (both licensed and fansubbed) meant that binge-watching was difficult and we more-often-than-not watched a number of anime simultaneously and took weeks if not months (or years, in some cases) to complete a show. This meant that we were approaching these anime in a much different manner than we do today. Those who stream seasonal anime currently are doing something much closer to what we did because they watch each show episode-by-episode and week-by-week.
I had purposely chosen to start watching a small number of anime shows a few episodes-at-a-time every few days (usually 1 to 3 episodes per viewing) to try to approach that sort of experience and I think it has a lot of positive impact. Especially since many older shows have a very episodic structure (from monster-of-the-week formulae like Sailor Moon or Go-Lion to more sitcom structures like Ranma 1/2).
At the same time, I feel as though many anime produced today are less episodic and more binge-worthy due to a keen awareness of streaming. Some shows easily lend themselves toward binge-watching than others. Even though most OVA series were released over periods of time and not all-at-once like on Netflix, I think certain OVA series are binge-able (Macross Plus comes to mind).
I believe it is important to consider that television syndication places limitations on the ability to structure narrative just as much as comic/manga serialization does as well. In the West we have developed sit-com structures, soap opera structures, and other formulae in order to present each episode as a discrete narrative that can be conveyed within a 20-to-25-minute timespan. The same is true for anime, and as you mentioned, Western TV is just as limited by the requirements of TV syndication.
The advent of streaming has made binge-watching of anime the norm since the early 2000s. This makes the episodic structure of many televised shows incredibly apparent and at times extremely frustrating depending on the show. This is also why we used to get many long-running shows that were extremely episodic and dragged out their stories over the course of several seasons. I would submit that the current season-to-season model of adaptation indicates a shift in how and why adaptations are made as well.
I would also like to note that there is no real solid reason I can think of (aside from production-end requirements) that anime aimed at the seinen and josei demographics cannot be extended to fill 1-hour timeslots, giving more breathing-room for the episode to develop. Almost every single Japanese and Korean live-action drama I've seen consists of 1-hour episodes and yet anime is always in the 30-minute slots (with the exception of movies and some OVAs--which aren't meant for television primarily). (As an aside, I also note how adult-aimed Western animated series, such as Rick & Morty, Bojack Horseman, and Archer, are also 30-minute episodes and am curious if it is entirely due to production or if it is something else.)
Bonus points for reference to Wittgenstein.
But IF...the day comes when I get the time and interest, may I contact you again, and join your club?