While you wait for my Year in Review podcast episode, you can hear me on the newest episode of ANNCast talking about Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars! You can find it here.
What was it like being an anime & manga fan before the 2000s? And were some of my favorite anime series really as good as I remember them? Welcome to the Anime Nostalgia Podcast, a mix of anime & manga history, reviews, and talks with other fans on titles and aspects of fandom from everywhere from the 70s to the 90s!
Long time listener to both yours and ANN. It's always lovely to hear when both of you come together. Anyway, as I was listening, somehow you triggered off memories of an older anime, circa early 2000s, but no matter how I try, I just can't remember the title. As you're fond of nostalgic anime and dabble in detective works (Miami Mike was great), I thought may be you can help me out. This show started out as a standard shoujo genre anime (though the designs tended toward more realistic and high school in age), but around episode 5 (or 3), the girls suddenly started singing their lines. They belted out their lines for another episode or two (may be), then never did it again. (I think the singing caused quite a negative stir at the time both here and in Japan ...this is before Love Live or Haruhi Suzumiya). Weirder yet, I think around a third though, they abandoned the girls-bullying-each-other in a very real and non-fantasy setting, and introduced psychic power. Buildings were destroyed, space got split; I think people were murdered. By the end the world ended (several times), and these same girls who were fighting each other are now friends. Heck, I think some of antagonists switched roles playing who's bad and who's good. Does this really weird but also really original anime ring a bell? Any help would be deeply appreciated.
ReplyDeleteHello, "unknown"! Thank you for the comment! I must say, I'm not as knowledgeable about stuff that came out in the early 00s, because that's around the time I started falling out of "keeping up" with anime (I didn't really come back to regularly trying newer stuff til around 2009? 2010? I can't remember, but somewhere around there, I think.) So at first I was a little stumped...I did some googling and while I've never seen it, it reminded me vaguely of Mai-HiME? I hope that helps, if not maybe someone else out there reading this could lend a hand!
DeleteThanks for the effort. It's not Mai Hime. It's a lot more shoujo oriented and set in modern day Japan schoolyard (no fan service), whereas MH is geared toward guys and in a fantasy setting. But thanks anyway. Always your supporter... I think as time moves on we'll need more and more sites like yours for us older fans... I truly believe our demographic will only continue to grow (for reference, I witnessed the original broadcast of Mazinger Z on tv). But even the best memory among us will begin to lose track of the less popular titles simply because the explosive growth in recent years. There was a time back in the 80s and 90s when I could boast having watched or at least be aware of every title out there year after year. Not so anymore. So it bothers me greatly how I could not remember the name of this title. I must have watched 26 episodes of it (I think)
ReplyDeleteHmm, interesting. I'll ask around and see if maybe anyone else might have an idea! Yeah, with the massive glut of shows we get every year now, it can be so difficult to find or keep track of things. I also worry about the poor animators in Japan working too hard for so little pay. :(
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