The golden age of anime. Not only when anime started becoming a household term worldwide,
but when gem after gem started to be produced. From shounen like Fist of the North Star, to
psychological and mature shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion, to stylish cult classics like Cowboy
Bebop. No one can forget Omae wa mo shindeiru, see you space cowboy, and shinji doing dastardly
deeds around his comatose friend (though I’m sure we would all actually love to forget the last one).
When was the golden age? How did it come to fruition? Why was it golden?
Well, many of the achievements of the so called golden age involve
significant breakthroughs of anime into the western market, more specifically america;
but this isn’t because of some american-superiority-complex of mine.
It is simply that at the time, america was the gateway and was spearheading much
of modern entertainment, as it still does.
But it meant that spreading anime to america meant spreading anime to the world.
And while I could of course discuss the roots of anime and its first steps in america through 1963s
astro boy or 1968s speed racer, in reality it's difficult to even call this era anime,
let alone a golden age. Because of american redubs and heavy censorship from television
networks, these shows were adapted completely to a non-japanese audience; most american audiences
at the time didn’t even realize this was originally japanese.
Plus, it wasn't really a hit with networks
Astro boy could only air 106/124 episodes they planned,
and the show was taken off the airways after just one year;
it's safe to say, the anime scene had yet to flourish.
And so we fastforward to the 80s, the beginning of which was marked with
one major landmark for us otaku, and what kickstarted the golden age: VHS.
alongside an interest in anime in general, which had already made waves in japan, many american companies
rose to the occasion of adapting anime for western markets through VHS, because all they had to do was re-dub it
and...
a-and… that’s about it. It was cheap and pretty damn easy. We saw a massive proliferation of domestic
licensers producing anime: animeigo and streamline in 1988, central park media in 1990 and manga
entertainment in 1991, which didn’t actually make manga despite the rather misleading name. And with
these companies, some of the most famous titles to this day were brought to Western audiences:
Captain Tsubasa, which established the sports anime formula in the early 80s and set the
standard for what has now evolved into basketball with superpowers or devolved into whatever keijo
is, a series that i’m sure makes our ancestors proud of how far we’ve come as a species.
Streamline adapted akira into vhs, a movie which was surprisingly a huge financial disappointment
back home in japan despite having a huge film budget and state-of-the-art animation at the time;
hell, it’s still beautiful to this day. It’s better than 7 deadly sins.
Akira was one of the most extreme cases of international attention popularizing anime,
skyrocketing it to the famous heights it now rests upon everywhere in supreme collabs and art books.
Studio ghibli’s first film, nausicaa of the valley of the wind, dropped in '84; central park media
released grave of the fireflies, a tearjerker and historical drama, manga entertainment adapted Fist
of the north star and ghost in the shell… ALL of the biggest titles we still know to this day
were making their debut through VHS. However, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine quite yet.
After all, when america colonizes things its usually not all that great… and that
feeling was starting to set in. Companies like streamline only released dubbed versions with
no extra subtitles at all, and alongside their rather-interpretive- voiceovers,
much of the original value was actually lost in translation. Though some companies went
for more literal translations, certain jokes or references to famous Japanese historical figures
simply didn’t work in English, and some companies even went so far as to make "Dubtitles",
where the subtitles aren’t of the original Japanese script even, but the dubbed version.
So not only were they interpretive translations, but the subtitles couldn’t even serve as closed
captions because they had no captions for sound effects or background music either.
Safe to say, dubtitles did not go down well in the history books.
In the mid 80s, as mainstream anime made huge strides,
another industry knew they had to step up to the plate. And thus, in 1984 the first ever h*ntai,
Lolita Anime, and the released-soon-after Cream Lemon, rose to the occasion. I… don’t think I
ever want to see the words Lolita and Cream in the same sentence ever again. And YES this is still
relevant to america ruining the image of anime in their country because big companies like
Central Park Media decided that the best adult titles to adapt were ones like Urotsukudoji,
the hentai that kicked off the longlasting Western misconception that all anime was
was tentacle porn. AD Vision’s release of Neon Genesis Evangelion with a built in Jiggle Counter
-which they did, in fact, trademark because i guess it was just such a groundbreaking idea-
was also rather detrimental to the show’s rather mature themes and philosophical introspection.
But I gotta give em credit, it's still pretty funny. One of the biggest companies, Manga Entertainment,
also confused us ignorant americans because… well, they didn’t make manga. For people getting
introduced to the medium, which may be already difficult to traverse, this was just icing on
the cake really. But, pressure makes diamonds, and looking past all of these different forms
of censorship or misleading marketing, at the end of the day anime was starting to take its
hold in the world through new accessibility in VHS and amazing films like Akira and the eldest
siblings in the Studio Ghibli family. And despite the economic crash in Japan in 1991, anime’s
grip on the world was already too strong for a mere recession to stop its impending takeover.
Notably, Studio Ghibi continued to get stronger and stronger through this period,
releasing big hits like Kiki’s Delivery Service and their very underrated and not-well-known at
all film my neighbor Totoro. Toei also released Sailor Moon in ‘92,
kickstarting a generation obsessed with not just magical girls, but alongside the slightly older
Ghost in the Shell; female characters being prominent and powerful leads in animation.
Gainax’s release of Neon Genesis, as I mentioned earlier, similarly established two of the most
famous anime female archetypes, through Asuka and Rei: the tsundere and the moe, tropes that still
rarely change to this day. On top of this, giant robots and integration of religious symbols made
waves in the anime community in new ways. And as fresh and more diverse anime started to be
released, many otaku’s of the time knew that america’s ways of adapting couldn’t remain,
that it had to meet these high standards: and thus, we began a great wave, of FANSUBS.
Individuals or small collectives of fans started subbing anime of their own accord,
which was the origins of the great sub vs dub war.
I was personally raised with dubbed anime: dragon ball z and naruto on tv were my bread and butter,
I didn’t watch a subbed anime until i was at least 10. And so even though subs are
important to mention, at the time they were only really made for diehard fans;
even companies caught on to this, and did start making subtitled versions of the movies. However,
they made less copies for higher prices, because they knew the demand from the smaller, sub-chasing
otaku audiences would be willing to pay the extra money for the quality. And because, in america,
dubs simply sold more from a sales standpoint… and thus, during the golden age of anime,
dub ruled the world. Moreso, what is important about fansubs is that anime was getting around:
a new kind of japanese animation that was- frankly- taking over. Even more companies started
hopping on the train; most of which, you all will recognize as modern day monoliths: Viz Media
with Ranma ½ , 4Kids with pokemon, Bandai with cowboy bebop, and Funimation with dragon ball:
even Disney hopped on the train, striking a deal with Studio Ghibli and releasing their
movies in america starting with Kiki’s Delivery Service. And, of course, with more attention,
comes more and better anime: the most notable, of course, has to be Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
The integration of anime onto actual television, transitioning from VHS to TV was huge and marked
the climax of the golden age of anime. First released in Japan in 1986, Dragon Ball was already
huge in japan as the first big shounen anime (or at least, shounen in the way we refer to it
nowadays). Despite taking an entire decade to be aired in America in 96, it likewise took american
television by storm. The most popular cartoon on cartoon network for 6 months straight in 98,
Dragon Ball Z was huge. And for good reason. Even as a kid growing up in the 2000s, dragon
ball z was the first anime that I ever watched and certainly had a huge impact on me as a kid,
maybe even a decade after it was first aired by the time I hopped on the train.
Alongside fist of the north star, the trope of muscular dudes duking it out and saving the world
soon began trailblazing a path for just about every kind of anime genre you could imagine.
Pokemon exploded onto the scene in '98, expanding its reach on younger audiences into games and toys
and all kinds of merchandise on a level that have never been replicated since. Princess Mononoke,
released in 1999 by the already established king of classic anime Studio Ghibli, was the
most expensive anime movie made up until that point. Genres were expanding, giving rise to the
dark and psychological Serial Experiments Lain and the political epic legend of the galactic heroes.
Which i highly recommend of course. Anime was improving in every way, financially and
in diversity of quality. And to wrap off the decade, in 1999 bandai just managed to creep in
with Cowboy Bebop, fighting for the spot of magnum opus of the decade in terms of cult following and
longlasting cultural effect in america. With a dub that is renowned to be just as good, if not
better, than the subbed version, something that can’t be said for many anime, it signified that
america was finally getting their act together with adapting anime properly. The iconic opening
and soundtrack, stylish animation, and clash of western themes meeting japanese animation.
It all worked together perfectly.
And what distinguishes this era isn’t just that it gave rise to mainstream anime across the world,
but the permanence of the new anime as well. Dragon Ball Z is a household name to this day,
as is just about every Studio Ghibli film out there. Inspiration of shows like fist of the north
star in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and the onset of anime-inspired cartoons like Avatar the Last
Airbender are just a handful of the numerous inspirations. The golden age was something to
behold, and it still is. It is something that will never be forgotten among us anime watchers.
And that is it's legacy.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, I didn’t wanna put it at the beginning of the
video and detract from the main ideas, but thank you for 10k subscribers.
It really means a lot, and I hope that we can continue to grow together and keep getting better.
My next video will kick off a new series I’m starting called Bedtime Binge,
which I’ll give a little spoiler of here but look forward to it, definitely. ACC only up.
And also,
thanks for watching till the end of the video :)
As always, this has been the Anime Culture Corner. I hope you enjoyed the video.
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