Adventure Time

While DS is at camp and the Old Man is driving down  to Tampa to see Black Sabbath, I'm left home pondering the existence of the animated universe.  Not to say I don't mind being alone - I'm on vacation and being on vacation from everything and everyone is pretty crucial, I'm realizing.  While I ache for my family, I also know that I need this time to myself.  'Nuf said.

It's about time I finally got around to writing about Adventure Time.  I realize that, as DS grows up, our tastes will diverge but for right now I feel somewhat vindicated for putting my foot down about watching vapid cartoons that had no redeeming quality (if you want a short list of those cartoons, message me - I'm not going to be judged for my opinions of what passes for children-oriented animated fare).  Even as I've recounted in the past that I've made some bad parenting decisions, I still feel at least like I steered the debate  to "why is this cartoon valuable to watch?" rather than "you can only watch cartoons I deem to be okay."  But out of it comes an appreciation of animation that is entertaining and trying at least to say something.  Adventure Time is one of those cartoons.

But while it's entertaining, Adventure Time is also pretty dark.  It's one of those cartoons that I saw a couple of minutes of and decided it was ground-breaking enough in its content that it would make up for the simplistic artistic style.  But the simplistic style is also a mask; the latest episodes tell more of the back story behind Ice King and Marceline, and the story of the world that became the Land of Ooo - I would write about the specific episode, but why rehash a good summary already with my own confused, theoretical take - and the story is pretty harrowing, but with the stylized character design, it seems less heinous, somehow.

If one were to look at the more recent dystopian worlds, they usually involve some kind of huge catastrophic upheavel; in Hunger Games, it appears to be the punishment of proles who dared war against the rich; in Adventure Time, it is the apocalyptic nature of the world inhabited by Ice King and Marceline a millenium ago.  So, is Ooo, then, a utopia?  No way!  Dystopia does not beget utopia, it only begets more of the same.  It negates itself, which is why Ooo is so non-descript (how many candy kingdoms have we seen rise and fall, my friends?) - Princess Bubblegum and the rest of the inhabitants of Ooo are mutants, facsimiles of humans, anthropomorphized objects that recall a past that is so far removed from the present as to not really exist at all.  This is the woo-hoo point where conspiracy theories dwell; DS watched the series Bravest Warriors and apparently there is a similarity to Finn in two of the characters so Finn is their offspring.  I don't understand!  But I just started watching Bravest Warriors - so far not as good as Adventure Time but I'm willing to give it a chance.

Anyway, so what?  It is not unheard of for a writer to string together different parts of the same universe and call the thing a narrative.  It would not surprise me that Adventure Time's creator, Pendleton Ward, has super-seriously thought the narrative through; it's just a matter of whether he can keep the show on the air long enough to unfold more of the story.

Swiped the photo for this post from Comics Alliance and their lovely selection of AT covers.

Happy New Year from SMC

Yes, we have been watching this, too

Haha, the last time I posted was last July, so fast-forward to January 2012 and Happy New Year!  Will update soon with what DS and I have been watching - right now he's going through a Speed Racer redux, and it's been fun to go through the episodes we have on DVD.  Not so crazy about Scooby-Doo anymore, which is sad in one sense but I think there'll always be a soft spot in his heart for those meddlin' kids and their dog.  His advancing age (he's almost 10) makes me think he's ready to handle Gatchaman so thinking about changing back to the 1-DVD-at-a-time plan with Netflix and go through the ouvre again - I think I'm ready to go back and tackle these, as well, now that I have a bit more Japanese subtext under my belt.

Goodbye Gatchaman

Just finished watching the last of 18 discs of Gatchaman. It is mind-boggling to realize that I watched 105 episodes of this show. It was so worth it and feel, ultimately, like I watched the show for the first time, even though I was a big fan of Battle of the Planets as a child. In the span of 105 episodes I saw about every type of insect and fish stylized into a giant "mecha" built to destroy the earth; in the Gatchaman universe Jesus has a place on Mt. Rushmore; a giant Buddha mecha destroys a bunch of stuff. I cannot remember every weird disconnect I noticed but it was so amazing. I recommend this show to anyone who wants to see some really good, early Japanese animation in a developing genre.

I feel bad that we couldn't let our son watch the rest of the series, but the ADV dubbing and the heavy violence made it simply inappropriate for a 5 year old. I did make him a Gatchaman t-shirt, however, which I will surprise him with today when I pick him up from school.

I did see one other instance where I suspect Watanabe is referencing Gatchaman in Cowboy Bebop. In Gatchaman it is the scene where Joe is shot in the front of the church in the episode where he returns to his home town, only to find out it is a Galactor stronghold (and -- gasp -- his parents were Galactor agents); it is sort of like an altar-like area with steps leading down and I was suddenly reminded of the last scene in Cowboy Bebop where Spike is shot, also on an altar-like space with stairs leading downward (ever downward).

When I retire I'm going to sit down with the entire oeuvre of Gatchaman and completely deconstruct it. Yes, and that is what I'm going to do in my dotage.

Hang your head in shame, Gatchaman

I've been meaning to update on our Gatchaman-watching activities since...when was the last time I posted? September 1st -- wow! Anyway, over the course of the fall we've gotten through 9 out of the 18 volumes and then I lied and told DJ that V9 was the last one in the series. It was just too full of cuss words. I realize that ADV Films was trying to be faithful to the original Japanese version, but I just couldn't continue to let DJ be exposed to words we never use in our home (well, at least not in front of our son). I didn't experience the deleterious effects of this exposure, but the old man did. He and DJ were talking and DJ just suddenly uses "dammit" in a sentence. The old man told me later and that was the last straw. But, I'm still getting the volumes from Netflix, just watching them when DJ is asleep.

Gatchaman and Cowboy Bebop

Okay, I totally didn't blog about watching the entire run of Cowboy Bebop this summer, including the movie. It was totally freakin' awesome. That said, there were a couple of times while watching Bebop where I was like, "is that...? Could that be a reference to...?" After watching Samurai Champloo I sussed that Watanabe is referencing many other classics of Japanese media culture. I caught only a few of them, however, being the dreadfully clueless gaijin that I am. However, there was an episode around halfway through the 26-ep run -- dang it, and I wish I had a screenshot of it to put up -- where Spike and Faye are in space gear ready fly out of the Bebop in their ships, and they TOTALLY look like Ken and Jun from Gatchaman! You heard it here first, folks! I googled this reference and I am totally the ONLY ONE who caught it! Nyeh! I am so going to get a screenshot and post about it at a later date.

Battle of the Planets or Gatchaman?

Most definitely, Gatchaman totally rocks and rolls over Battle of the Planets, the watered-down, weird U.S. transposition of this totally cool anime from the early 70's. You know, leave it to the Yankees to screw up a totally good imported cartoon. I am reminded, of course, of the New Line Warriors of the Wind fiasco, where Roger Corman bought the U.S. distribution rights to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and edited it so badly that it made absolutely no sense. It would be another 10 years before Miyazaki would trust us with another of his movies.
I grew up watching Battle of the Planets and so watching the original source anime, Gatchaman, is like watching a whole different story. I recognize the characters and the music, but the stories are completely different. For one thing, the stories in Battle of the Planets all take place in space, while Gatchaman's stories seem to occur more often under water.

The nice thing about finding all the original Gatchaman episodes on DVD is that I get to introduce DJ to this important cartoon from my childhood in its original, unadulterated form.

Check out the very cool Gatchaman fansite by Veronika Henkels which has a link to Tatsunoko's website (not for easily culture-shocked Gaijin). It was totally not a surprise to me that this was the same studio that put together Speed Racer, and in fact just before I left for work the old man and I had a discussion about the music from Gatchaman. He said it sounded a lot like the music from Johnny Quest and therefore was a total rip-off because Gatchaman came out 8 years after JQ; I said the music sounded just like Speed Racer. Back and forth until I said, "well, honey, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree," to which the old man said, "yeah, to agree that I'm right and you're wrong!" We have such intellectual discourses in our house. In your face, old man!