drforsey@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Forsey) (11/16/85)
I've just spent ages catching up on over 100 net items; colour me disoriented! I don't know how to mail to individuals yet, so I'm going to salute a few individuals publicly. Thanks to Kathy Li, Mary Anne Espenshade, Sean Rouse, and any others I may have forgotten or misspelled, for giving me a crash course on the state of Japanimation in translation. This is a very recent passion of mine, and my store of information is not vast. I wasn't even sure whether or not Captain Harlock was being shown over here, or ever had been. All I know is what I read in the animes! The first anime to catch my eye was Phoenix 2772 (will we ever see that in English? Has it already been done? etc?), but Harlock is my fave of the moment. Its more stylized, less 'realistic' technique appeals to me. As for melodrama, Harlock's visuals are the only example I know of the melodramatic imagery of the pirate, eyepatch, cape, and all, incorporated with SF *convincingly*! (even Chaykin's IRON-WOLF didn't catch it quite as nicely) Harlock looks GOOD, dammit! I acknowledge that ROBOTECH is doing as good a job as can be expected under the circumstances. The hatchet jobs on such things as BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, FORCE FIVE, and TEKKAMAN are truly sad; consequently, if a series conveys a coherent story line with characters and relationships that grow and develop, I deem that a superior job of translating. My standards are, of necessity, not very purist. To me, ROBOTECH fills the bill. Same with STARBLAZERS. Even the new ASTROBOY is okay in these respects. I've seen fragments of the original MACROSS, though, and it does seem to have a certain... integrity? seriousness?... missing in our version. Also, Minmei's voice in Japanese is infinitely less annoying. I notice that in Japanese, her singing voice is better. Strangely enough, I prefer it in English! Her okay-but-off-key- at-times English singing stresses the idea that they only had the people of Macross City to choose from. Hey, does anybody remember MARINE BOY? Who did that one, anyway? (Artist, animator, translator, whatever..) I saw that when I was 9 or 10 and thought it had the best water I'd ever seen in animation. The stylization bugged me at the time because it was different and I was intolerant then, but what the hell. Is it still showing anyplace else anymore? Is Kathy Li on the net the same Kathy Li who had a letter printed in SHURIKEN #2? Now, about Jean Grey... As I said, I whipped through over 100 net items in a row... and I *could not believe* the number of them that were about Jean Grey! (This saved me a lot of time, as I didn't read any of them :-)) Am I the only person in the world who no longer gives a $#!% about Jean Grey? I think that more people who have been deprogrammed away from X-MEN should make their presence known here: I feel so alone. (nasty but triumphant leer in voice: "I DIDN'T EVEN BUY X-MEN #200!! NYAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!So it's a *collector's item*!! SO WHAT?!!! I'm *free*, you fools!! FREE!!! HA-HA-HA-HAA......") The Gray Mouser