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Tonight we're going to watch that CG Captain Harlock movie. I'm pretty sure it will be a bad Harlock movie that looks great. I'm OK with that. I've seen a lot of bad Captain Harlock. That Niebielung thing, for instance, was really terrible. No, it was lousy. I never finished "Endless Odyssey", I don't know why. Maybe because nothing at all happened in the first episode and the pacing irritated me. Cosmowarrior Zero is a Harlock thing, I guess, and lord a-mighty did that look terrible; it really did look like a videogame adaptation, stuffed full of fanservicey callbacks and tail-eating continuity. The fact is, they've been trying to wring cash out of Matsumoto concepts for decades now and since Queen Millenia went off the air they've been shooting blanks.
What's that? Interstellar 555, that Daft Punk music video that Matsumoto did the character designs for? I guess that made money. I'll never know if it was any good or not. I can't stand Daft Punk. Not a fan of EDM or whatever it is they do, which the one time I heard sounded like a Mike Post TV theme from the 80s with slightly more bass. It's OK. I'm not supposed to like them. I'm 44.
So yeah, gonna watch this Harlock. If the mood strikes me I might get a Let's Anime column out of it, and then again, I might not.
This is one of those things that I think American anime fans are "into", that we have an idea that this is Japanese pop culture, when the truth is that Captain Harlock hasn't impacted pop-culture meaningfully in thirty years. No, not even this latest movie. It's a niche thing. People my age might remember it from when they were kids. For kids today it's something 30 years ago that nobody cares about. We get a distorted view of what anime means in Japan. Europe does too, don't get me wrong. Of course Japan goes crazy for American and European pop culture that either faded away or never made it here, so it's a fair trade, I guess. I've always felt that my particular obsession with the things is because I got to see a tiny bit of the great stuff that was made in the 1970-1990 time frame, and if I'd had a full exposure to that material then I wouldn't be nearly so obsessed with it. If I'd spent six months in Japan in 1979, the things wouldn't hold nearly so much fascination for me, and I could move on to more important things, things that later in life my interest in would not put me in a demographical circle with people who collect pillows printed with the images of naked pubescent girls or mouse pads that feature breasts. Because I don't want to be in their club, I don't want to be the "otaku" that flies to Tokyo and is put on a bus to Akihabara where he's shoved into any one of fifty stores catering to sweaty men and their failure to connect with the outside world, empties his bank account on cheap plastic trinkets starring girls he can never meet (because they're cartoons), and goes home with an extra suitcase and knowing looks from the customs officials. Sure, I like a lot of stupid kids cartoons, but at least they were enjoyed by millions of stupid kids around the world and became part of a wider stupid culture, not a spiral of self-referential narrow-culture. Without that connection to the wider world, it's failing at not only art, but communication.
Wow, that was a lot more than I intended to write.
What's that? Interstellar 555, that Daft Punk music video that Matsumoto did the character designs for? I guess that made money. I'll never know if it was any good or not. I can't stand Daft Punk. Not a fan of EDM or whatever it is they do, which the one time I heard sounded like a Mike Post TV theme from the 80s with slightly more bass. It's OK. I'm not supposed to like them. I'm 44.
So yeah, gonna watch this Harlock. If the mood strikes me I might get a Let's Anime column out of it, and then again, I might not.
This is one of those things that I think American anime fans are "into", that we have an idea that this is Japanese pop culture, when the truth is that Captain Harlock hasn't impacted pop-culture meaningfully in thirty years. No, not even this latest movie. It's a niche thing. People my age might remember it from when they were kids. For kids today it's something 30 years ago that nobody cares about. We get a distorted view of what anime means in Japan. Europe does too, don't get me wrong. Of course Japan goes crazy for American and European pop culture that either faded away or never made it here, so it's a fair trade, I guess. I've always felt that my particular obsession with the things is because I got to see a tiny bit of the great stuff that was made in the 1970-1990 time frame, and if I'd had a full exposure to that material then I wouldn't be nearly so obsessed with it. If I'd spent six months in Japan in 1979, the things wouldn't hold nearly so much fascination for me, and I could move on to more important things, things that later in life my interest in would not put me in a demographical circle with people who collect pillows printed with the images of naked pubescent girls or mouse pads that feature breasts. Because I don't want to be in their club, I don't want to be the "otaku" that flies to Tokyo and is put on a bus to Akihabara where he's shoved into any one of fifty stores catering to sweaty men and their failure to connect with the outside world, empties his bank account on cheap plastic trinkets starring girls he can never meet (because they're cartoons), and goes home with an extra suitcase and knowing looks from the customs officials. Sure, I like a lot of stupid kids cartoons, but at least they were enjoyed by millions of stupid kids around the world and became part of a wider stupid culture, not a spiral of self-referential narrow-culture. Without that connection to the wider world, it's failing at not only art, but communication.
Wow, that was a lot more than I intended to write.
