From: dan@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Dan Parmenter)
Subject: Re: ANIME
Organization: /home/fsg/dan/.organization
	<DAN.92Oct27101743@wombat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
	<1ctb9eINNi6v@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:21:55 GMT

In article <1ctb9eINNi6v@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bn981@cleveland.Freenet.Edu 
(Ryan Mathews) writes:

   [I made the mistake of asking what Dan wanted as "realism".  Looooong paper
   on realism deleted]
   I don't really want to take the time to respond to that, other than to say
   that I can't see how you can feel as you do and still love YAMATO.

"I don't really want to take the time to respond..."?  What utter
crap!  :-)  If you don't write a real response Ryan, I'm going to
assume that you are tacitly conceding defeat before my withering
rhetorical blows against your puny arguments :-) :-)  You "made the
mistake of asking"?  Well geez, so that's what you get for actually
responding to what people say on the net.  From now on I'll just
ignore what people ASK ME TO WRITE ABOUT and just flame like everyone
else! :-)  :-)  :-)  

I told you why I thought Yamato was absolved from blame.  I'll admit
that part of my affection for it is nostalgia, it being the first
Japanese cartoon that I really got into obsessively.  I learned to
draw the Yamato and all the characters, I bought many soundtrack
albums and I even learned a prety significant part of the soundtrack
on the piano, in addition to having a costume, complete with phallic
arrow that I wore to my early SF cons (ca. 1981).  So the damn thing
sufficiently impressed my 14 year old mind that I adored it utterly.
My eventual dissatisfaction with later shows of lesser quality was
quite simply that their soap-oper wasn't as good.  And I don't totally
dislike soap-opera either, just BAD soap-opera.  I even used to like
the X-men pal (up to about issue 130)!  

   The folks on the Yamato don't seem that deep, more like heroic and
   villainous archetypes.  I take it you want your realism subtle?

Hey, it was my first love, it's got sincerity, cool designs and a
great score.

Me >The first Yamato series was crude, but it had a sincerity and inspired
   >amateurism that made it work.

   Oooookay.  That one went right over my head.  It was good because it looked
   cheap but honest?

Gaah.  If you don't understand the "crude yet charming" aesthetic,
then there's no possible way you can understand my criticism.  It's
really very simple.  To my mind, there is a distinct charm in
simplicity.  Less is more.  Sometimes, as in the case of Yamato,
budget restraints pretty severely limit how "slick" a cartoon can
look.  Furthermore, the industry in Japan in 1974 when Yamato was
first broadcast was still in its nascent stages and on a small time
show like the first Yamato series, the animators looked as though they
were learning their craft on the job.  Yet somehow or other, due to
strong art direction and design (courtesy of Leiji Matsumoto) or
perhaps just utter hubris, the stuff works.  Some things barely move,
sometimes design continuity isn't perfect (how many windows DOES the
Yamato have anyway?) and the women all look anorexic, but it works!
It has a sweet, sincere quality that much modern animation lacks.
Even later entries in the Yamato series, though good, lacked the first
series' charm.  Compare Final Yamato (the last entry in the Yamato
series from 1983) to the first series.  Final has some dazzling
animation (and some real crap too), but zilch in the way of real
feeling or sincerity.  Another good comparison for the "crude but
charming" test is the original Star Trek.  They spent about a
bazillion bucks on the first Star Trek film (The Motion Picture) and
it was this bland, washed-out affair, yet the original tv episodes
with their cardboard boulders and ridiculous monsters were somehow
more memorable, due once again to their crude charm.  

- Dan
--
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| Dan Parmenter       |"I'm waiting for a time, when I can do without these  |
| dan@gnu.ai.mit.edu  | things that make me feel this way all of the time"   |
|                     |                            - Spiritualized           |
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