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davemerrillMadox was an OVA I would have sworn was released in 1987 but it turns out it was released in 1988. I remember watching it first in the home of a friend of a friend who was in the local club- this guy wasn't in the local club, but somehow he got this new OVA ahead of any of us so-called anime experts. That's the great thing about being an anime fan, because Japanese cartoons are mass culture that seeps in through the cracks and that person you never knew was a fan may have hundreds of tapes of cool stuff at home. Happened to me more than once.
Anyway AnimEigo released it in 1990, it was the first uncut subtitled commercial release of Japanese animation in the United States, which is kind of a big deal. We take this stuff for granted nowadays, that something would get a domestic release without being edited and dubbed with silly voices and the script changed to be silly, or sillier than the original anyways, but in 1990 it was a big deal. Naturally some big-deal anime fans were less than happy that some guy from North Carolina nobody'd ever heard of was going to do what THEY patently could not do, namely import Japanese animation, and this led to some really huffy and in hindsight hilarious editorials from a certain San Antonio-based anime club president, which led to this response from AnimEigo head Robert Woodhead, which the San Antonio club was big enough to print in full, though not without a "rebuttal".
From what I can tell, the anime club prez made some really silly calculations based on figures pulled out of thin air, and concluded that AnimEigo was charging too much and that AnimEigo could never succeed. Since AnimEigo is still in business, somebody was blowing some smoke here, and it wasn't AnimEigo. Think of the paper and ink and membership fees that were wasted on this pointless argument that nobody else in the club gave a flip about, and then multiply that by 12, and then multiply that by three or four years, and you might see why anime clubs of this type died and stayed dead.
AnimEigo re-released Madox in 2005 as a 15th anniversary reissue DVD and I reviewed it for Anime Jump, and that review is now up at Let's Anime. I had that DVD which is now commanding ridiculous prices on the secondary market, and of course I can't find it now. Oh well, as the Chinese say, over the course of a long life one must be ready to lose one's baggage from time to time, or something.
Anyway AnimEigo released it in 1990, it was the first uncut subtitled commercial release of Japanese animation in the United States, which is kind of a big deal. We take this stuff for granted nowadays, that something would get a domestic release without being edited and dubbed with silly voices and the script changed to be silly, or sillier than the original anyways, but in 1990 it was a big deal. Naturally some big-deal anime fans were less than happy that some guy from North Carolina nobody'd ever heard of was going to do what THEY patently could not do, namely import Japanese animation, and this led to some really huffy and in hindsight hilarious editorials from a certain San Antonio-based anime club president, which led to this response from AnimEigo head Robert Woodhead, which the San Antonio club was big enough to print in full, though not without a "rebuttal".
From what I can tell, the anime club prez made some really silly calculations based on figures pulled out of thin air, and concluded that AnimEigo was charging too much and that AnimEigo could never succeed. Since AnimEigo is still in business, somebody was blowing some smoke here, and it wasn't AnimEigo. Think of the paper and ink and membership fees that were wasted on this pointless argument that nobody else in the club gave a flip about, and then multiply that by 12, and then multiply that by three or four years, and you might see why anime clubs of this type died and stayed dead.
AnimEigo re-released Madox in 2005 as a 15th anniversary reissue DVD and I reviewed it for Anime Jump, and that review is now up at Let's Anime. I had that DVD which is now commanding ridiculous prices on the secondary market, and of course I can't find it now. Oh well, as the Chinese say, over the course of a long life one must be ready to lose one's baggage from time to time, or something.
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no subject
Date: 2015-11-01 11:28 pm (UTC)I think at the core it was that left coast/right coast stuff. Lots of people LOVED that newsletter. It could have evolved into a pro-zine sold at comic shops, then a glossy magazine sold all over. It could well have been Otaku USA circa 1989.
But, fandoms eat their own. Producing good product on a regular basis can be a thankless job, and more people needed to step up with content.
Blah blah blah. All I know is I have a hole in my C/Fo newsletter collection caused for completely unknown reasons. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 03:56 pm (UTC)I have yet to uncover the issue where he slanders the Hannifens, the one that resulted in legal action.
From what I hear from Florida peoples, the Blacks could be difficult to get along with. Of course this is Florida we're talking about, the land of feudin' fans. I really can't see them keeping that magazine going past the mid 80s, though; the kind of anime that got them into the fandom was going far, far away. By the time the onslaught of Robotechies hit they were outta there and I bet they were breathing sighs of relief.
It is weird how the latter issues of the Stukey San Antonio zines are pretty much by himself and Pat Munson-Siter, with pleas for content in every issue, while at the very same time Anime Hasshin was cranking out a monthly newsletter with ten or twenty contributors in every issue. Of course The Rose had no axe to grind and would print literally anything, except editorials on how much of a hassle it was to publish a newsletter for a lot of ungrateful, unhelpful members. The power of positive zining, kids
Pat left a comment on my FB about the Class Of '85 piece and she pretty much acted like she had no idea who I was.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 08:16 pm (UTC)I have to do a memory check. Pat was a big Gatchaman fan, then kinda sorta shifted her interest to Saint Seiya, almost a counterpoint to Rob Gibson's Hokuto no Ken obsession.
I want to say Pat was also a big J9 fan but maybe I'm thinking Pat Malone.
Yeesh.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-02 08:30 pm (UTC)She did seem to go from a Yamato/Gatchaman fandom to a Saint Seiya/Shurato fandom to dropping out of anime fandom entirely. I don't know what she's doing these days.