Giant Robot Cemetery
i stumbled by anime through giant robots. voltron was my lug of choice, but robotech wasn’t without it’s charm. this was a bit before evangelion was a thing or i might have been a far bigger geek than i am today. so freaking cool. but i don’t remember anyone thinking anime was a whole separate entity at the time. sure it was produced in a different country, but if we watched russian animation, we wouldn’t have referred to it as….. whatever that word might be.
then north american animation kept going it’s way, and anime kept going another, and they each have there own flavours, and styles, and tropes unique to themselves. things that are culturally significant that you’d understand best if you’re part of that culture. point is, if you’re name is becky, and you are trying to learn how to draw, don’t draw all eyes massive and put the little sweat bead thing on a character’s head cause you think that’s an emotion, cause you probably don’t know what it means. smarten up, becky.
i think the word anime, and the far more insulting ‘japanimation’, aren’t very inclusive. it divides one art into foreign things, and separates us from something accessible. and there’s some really great japanese animation out there. don’t’ get me wrong, there’s always gonna be a place for tentacle monsters raping schoolgirls and pandas that turn back into your dad when doused with hot water (sup my ranmas?), but it’s nice when you see something that can speak to everyone.
check out ‘Grave of the Fireflies (1988)’, if you haven’t seen it before.
this movie is a huge kick to the testicles of the soul. (for the ladies, that’s not a good place to take a hoofin’). and it could have been filmed live action, and have been just as powerful.
it’s a perspective you might not have been exposed to, where a boy is trying to take care of his little sister, in japan, during the worst of world war 2. heavy stuff.
you kinda have to give it up to the creators for not having put a talking snake, or a wise-talking penguin in it. cause, they woulda done it here. and it woulda sold millions, cause by the time it ended, with a raucous musical number, everyone would have been in a parade, the war would have ended, and everyone would have hugged, cause the emperor learned that the power of love. ugh. all to sell merchandise. oh, by the way, new more affordable tshirts for sale in the black and blue store soon. maybe a thermos?
Yup, seen it. Was not prepared. Ow.
Certainly a well done movie that I don’t regret seeing though!
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/studio-ghibli/25740/my-neighbor-totoro-grave-of-the-fireflies-an-appreciation
i was never much into totoro. i mean, i liked the style, but the overall vibe was too happy for me. i’m naturally suspicious of happiness. haha
Animussky, I think, would be the term, if we had one.
thanks! i was sure there must have been a term.
I am still purposefully putting off watching Grave of the Fireflies. If a friend from ages ago hadn’t told me how sad it was I would probably have seen it by now. I love heart wrenching movies now, but I was a different person then so that one kind of shell-shocked me with its very existence…or something? Not feeling super coherent today. Speaking of shirts for sale, I ordered my Kris Station tank top. That site is super tricky to navigate on a phone, but I got there. And for anyone wondering about quality, the shirts are RIDICULOUSLY well made! Stitching, design, all of that. Top notch!
(P.S. If you ever wondered what I’m like in real life: Girl-Type Ranma = me)
so, you’re a cartoon that turns into a boy in warm water? you should get that looked at!
and thanks! i hope the print comes out well. i’m still aiming to do a small independent run of a few things, but to keep the costs down, i may not do tanks, or different sizes…. we’ll see. but you’re right about that site, and most like it. kind of a pain in the ass. but thanks again for supporting the comic!