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!
(If you somehow missed part 1, check it out here!)
The second part of the Yoshitaka Amano art exhibition at The Warehouse is here! A whole new set of paintings is now on display--this time showcasing Amano's more commercial work, like things related to anime, video games, etc. (If you missed seeing the first part of the exhibition, some of his ink and paint works from the first part ARE still on display in both the lobby and the small "room" near the end of the main area!)
Like many nerds of a certain age, I've been a fan of Yoshitaka Amano's ethereal & dreamy art since first seeing his work on the Final Fantasy game series. He's also well known for his artwork for the Vampire Hunter D novel series, as well as his dreamy character designs for Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg. So you can imagine my elation when Instagram actually did something RIGHT for once in it's miserable existence-- it showed me an ad for an upcoming art exhibition of works by Amano at a museum that was not too far away from me. Usually Amano's works are shown in galleries in places like New York City and Los Angeles, much too far away for me to consider seeing myself, so this felt like an incredibly rare opportunity. Because of this, I ended up going with a group of friends I told about the exhibition, because why WOULDN'T I share this kind of amazing experience with others?! The more the merrier, right?
On April 14th, 2025, the North American premiere of a rare anime film happened in the historic Texas Theatre in Dallas, Texas. While this statement might not seem huge at first glance, if you know a bit of anime history, this is indeed quite an important event.
For those not in the know, a little history lesson is in order. Chibineko Tom no Daibouken, better known as Tomcat’s Big Adventure online, is an anime film released in 1992 that had a pretty rough production history. In a nutshell: the story goes that after five years of production, the movie’s theatrical release was canceled due to their distribution company going bankrupt (as this was around the time of Japan’s Bubble Economy finally bursting), leading to only a few scattered showings in small venues and supposedly a handful of regional Japanese TV airings. This was a tragedy, as even though Tomcat’s Big Adventure is a kids movie, it was produced with an incredible A-list of staff & cast: The film was the directorial debut of the late Ryutaro Nakamura, who anime fans probably know better as the director of Serial Experiments Lain. Character designer and Animation director Manabu Ohashi might be better known to some as Mao Lamdo, the creator of the Cloud short in cult-favorite Robot Carnival, not to mention his gorgeous key animation in projects like The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, his work on the Space Adventure Cobra opening, and the second ending theme to Sailor Moon, “Moon Princess”, just to name a few. Music for the film was scored by the great Kenji Kawai of the original Ranma ½ and Ghost in the Shell fame. Key animators included such talents as Koichi Arai (Akira, Macross Plus, Sailor Moon R: The Movie) and Toshiyuki Inoue (Kiki’s Delivery Service, Venus Wars, Memories short Magnetic Rose). The voice cast includes heavy-hitters like the late Toshiko Fujita (Rui in Cat’s Eye, Taichi in Digimon Adventure) as Tom, Masako Nozawa (Son Goku in Dragon Ball, Tetsuro in Galaxy Express 999) as Mark, Minami Takayama (Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service, Conan in Great Detective Conan/Case Closed) as Alex, Akio Otsuka (Batou in Ghost in the Shell, the title character of Black Jack) as Leonis…As you can see, almost every person involved, I could write an entire article JUST on them and their career accomplishments. That’s how impressive this movie’s DNA is.
So it’s no surprise that for years, the film was held in high regard as a thing of legend–some folks in the anime industry even wondered if it truly existed at all, given how few people had ever seen the finished film. But fast-forward 20 years later, an individual named Mitsuhiro Akashi discovered one of their friends actually owned the copyright to the fabled long-lost film, through her late father who had invested in the production. The duo decided to promote the film online, not only leading to online interest from anime fans, but to small theater showings in Japan and eventually a successful Japanese crowdfunding to remaster the film back in 2015. As of this writing, the only blurays of the film that exist are the now sold-out ones that Japanese backers to this campaign could get, and the film isn’t streaming online (legally or otherwise).
And now, you have a better understanding as to just why getting to see Tomcat’s Big Adventure is a pretty big deal!
If you're a Patreon supporter of Anime Herald, you might have noticed that I recently wrote an article for them about how shojo was a major influence on the original Gunbuster series. Well, now it's free to read for everyone! You can find the article here.
Enjoy!
Recently, Rightstuf sent me several random anime releases to write reviews for! This is the second and final review I’ll be doing for them. While I did receive these titles for free, that had no influence on my final reviews. Thank you again, Rightstuf, for your support!
Recently, Rightstuf sent me several random anime releases to write reviews for! This is the first of the reviews I will post over the next couple of months. While I did receive these titles for free, that had no influence on my final reviews. Thank you again, Rightstuf, for your support!
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors is an extremely important part of animation history: It was the first feature-length Japanese animated film. It was a product of amazing ingenuity–as supplies were scarce during World War II, celluloids were cleaned in acid to be reused over and over until they started to deteriorate. It ended up being a source of inspiration for both Osamu Tezuka AND Leiji Matsumoto, who both saw it at fairly young ages.
It is also a World War II Propaganda film commissioned by the Japanese Naval Ministry aimed at children.
A popular “wholesome meme” that has been periodically making the rounds over the last few years is a screenshot image of the text “Let's celebrate Naoko Takeuchi. She was a struggling artist when she created Sailor Moon. 'I was at a low place, so I write about girls I wished were my friends.'”
In the age of easily shareable, bite-sized quotes on social media, it's easy to get hooked into a feel-good, wholesome meme. So of course whenever this specific image is posted, it tends to go viral and spread like wildfire. It's been shared online probably thousands of times, everywhere from Facebook to Reddit to Twitter, and people share it because, well, Sailor Moon is important to its fans, and this seems like the underdog story of the century, right???
Except
that all signs point to it being not true. At all.
I had the honor of writing about the career of Osamu Kobayashi's career for ANN recently, though tragically due to the fact that he passed away this April. You can read the article here.
If you enjoyed this little article, consider leaving me a tip of a coffee at Ko-fi! If you purchase 2 or more coffees, you get a shout in the next episode of the podcast! Thanks for reading!
