#Oh I'm so down to watch Sailor Moon again on Toonami

[but-thats-its-own-story]

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[i-keepmyideals]

Akira Toriyama

My first anime were Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Inuyasha and Dragon Ball Z. They were all on air at the same time when I was really little. The first time I saw DBZ was when I was like, five years old. I had just come home from my morning kindergarten class and my older sister was in like 4th grad at that point, so I was home alone with my dad for most of the school day, I would sit at the living room table and turn to Cartoon Network. Toonami used to come on in the afternoons and I think this might have been a marathon. The first episode of Dragon Ball Z I saw as the second episode when Raditz had touch down on earth. I was so into this man with crazy big hair fighting this guy in a orange jump suit and a green alien. It was fast paced and fun. After that, I was hooked. My sister didn't really care for anime other than Sailor Moon, so she wouldn't play fight with me, but I didn't care much. I'd just watch TV and pretend to be fighting with Goku

I'm from a small village of about 3,000 people. I'm black and there were other black families, white families, Hispanic families, I think my sister had a Japanese friend at some point. It was a very mixed community and everyone was welcome and everyone had their quirks. I was the only person that really watched anime, but I didn't feel ostracized. That is, until we moved to the south side of Chicago where it was, like, a 99% black community and people weren't so open minded. And the kids were mean in a way I wasn't used to. It was hard growing up as a black girl that liked anime. It's still kinda hard now in some places, but I held on to my favorite anime and they helped me make the right handful of friends.

I remember watching Resurrection F and getting so excited for Dragon Ball again. I remember being really little and my dad buying VHS tapes because they were Dragon Ball Z and I'd really want them. At that time we didn't know that the VHS tapes were waaaaaayyyy ahead of the US airing of the show so I was confused when one tape was somewhere in the Cell Saga and the androids were there lmao I remember not being super into Super, ironically. I remember laughing at 2AM with my friend like a year or two ago when I found out there were characters named Granola and the Heeters and losing our shit about it. I'm looking forward to Daima and I really want to play Sparking Zero when it comes out. I saw an article a week ago where Toriyama was talking about how excited he was to be working on some projects.

And then last night about ten minutes after I came in from work, another friend on discord told us Akira Toriyama passed away. And I was in disbelief, cuz ain't no way he died. He has so much going on and was looking forward to. And I think that's what made me cry after a while last night. He was so excited, so happy and so in love with what he did. Thinking about how he won't be able to work on these things anymore and see them come to fruition made me so sad. I was sad for his family for losing a loved one so suddenly and keeping that to themselves and grieving for a week before sharing it with the public. And then finally, I cried for that huge chunk of my life that was shaped by Akira Toriyama.

He didn't just make an anime or a cartoon, he made childhoods. He was an inspiration. So many mangaka we have today were influenced by him. Oda, my favorite manga and anime creator Kubo, Kishimoto. the creators of the big three, all point to Toriyama as their biggest inspiration. Without Toriyama, the world of anime would look very different. A lot of out lives would be very different. He is the reason why a lot of us began to draw, or learn Japanese, or get into making music. Yeah, we might not have known him personally, but he still touched our lives in some way, whether you are a Dragon Ball fan or a Chrono Trigger fan, or something else in between.

So, don't feel embarrassed or silly for mourning the death of a technical stranger. He did a lot for the medium and a lot for us fans. It's only natural to feel saddened when someone like that passes away. Same for when Kazuki Takahashi passed or Stan Lee. Yeah, I might have clowned Dragon Ball Super, but it didn't really matter. Toriyama was doing another victory lap at that point. He truly did it all. He did so much work that I think I can really say rest easy and in peace.

Thank you Akira Toriyama for creating a safe space for me when times were tough I faced really harsh bullies. When things were really looking down, I could think of Goku's goofy smile and turn on an episdoe of Dragon Ball Z and feel a little better. Thank you for being such an inspiration to myself and other creators I look up to. Thank you for working so hard, you did amazing work.

[blazehedgehog]

As an Internet veteran and draw-person, I really need to ask: what anime influenced you and many online artists circa 2000s? There's a specific style from those early 2000s webcomics and fanart I'm looking for and trying to replicate, and your old art fit in that "style", in my opinion. Thank you!

It’s hard to narrow it down, but it’s also not that hard to narrow it down. Anime was a much, much smaller industry back then. The “boom” was just beginning thanks to efforts by the Scifi Channel and Cartoon Network to bring anime to television in timeslots that people would actually watch.

So here’s your crash course in casual anime history, I guess, from someone who definitely isn’t like... obsessed with anime. Or isn’t anymore, but was back then.

For me, it all kind of started with, like... Dragon Ball, and this was a show that struggled to gain any traction at first. Where I lived, it aired at 5am on Sunday mornings. If you knew a kid that watched Dragon Ball, there was a solidarity there like, “Yup, you get it.”

Then DiC got the license to Sailor Moon and started airing it in the weekday morning slot I would typically describe as “right before you catch the bus.” You’d wake up around 6am, maybe 6:15, and watch whatever was on at 6:30 while you ate breakfast. As the credits were rolling, you’d head out to catch the school bus. Sailor Moon was what I remember doing that with the most. That combined with Dragon Ball formed my foundational interest in anime.

Around this time (1995, 1996) you were starting to see anime start to seep in to the mainstream elsewhere. There was a commercial I remember for, like, an anthology of anime classics like Akira...

And, y’know, when you’re like, 14 or 15 and you see a commercial like this -- cartoons! With blood! And nudity! It’s like, holy crap. Most of the classics we know today (Akira, Ghost in the Shell) were only really available via mail order like this back then.

More shows started getting localized for TV, too, like Ronin Warriors was one a lot of my friends got in to. It was considered “The Manly Sailor Moon.” And then there was, of course, Samurai Pizza Cats. Eventually Saban stopped dubbing Dragon Ball altogether and moved straight over to Dragon Ball Z, and that gained enough popularity that I think it eventually shook it out of its Sunday Morning time slot to somewhere a little more visible by general audiences.

Coming in to 1997 and 1998, anime was really starting to gain some momentum. The Scifi Channel had begin doing their “Saturday Anime” show, which aired at 3am every Friday Night/Saturday Morning. They probably figured it was one of the only ways they could get away with showing violent cartoons.

For me, this was where I got my first “real” taste of anime. They had a stable of about 5 or 10 movies and OVAs they’d run. Venus Wars, Vampire Hunter D, Project A-KO, Robot Carnival, Tenchi Muyo In Love (my favorite), Project L.I.L.Y. Cat, Beautiful Dreamer, Galaxy Express 999, Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, Record of Lodoss War, Dominion Tank Police, Roujin-Z, Demon City Shinjiku, Gall Force...

That felt like the bandaid got ripped off. Suddenly we were all buzzing about anime. Hey, have you heard about this movie called Ninja Scroll? There’s hardcore sex in it! No American movie, live action or not, could ever match the body horror of Akira! Hey, does anyone remember Robotech from the 80′s? That was actually anime, too! Wow!

Cartoon Network was smart enough to take notice and snatched up the rights to air Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z at reasonable, non-morning hours, and they dug out Voltron and put together a simple block of anime. I don’t even think it necessarily had a name, it was just an hour or maybe 90 minutes of anime a day, and it exploded. Right place, right time. So Cartoon Network expanded.

They added more classic anime, and some shows that were similar in tone, and called it Toonami. Robotech, Ronin Warriors, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, Reboot, Thundercats...

And this became the place to watch anime. Which is when we enter the era you’re asking about, the early 2000′s. This is where it starts to feel like a little too much to cover, because it came hot, heavy, and fast. There was a thirst for anime that was hard to quench because production companies were small and choosy about what they’d dub, but at the same time, a sort of gold rush was starting.

When I think of peak, classic-era Toonami, the stuff that really influenced me artistically, it was shows like Outlaw Star, Ruroni Kenshi, and Gundam Wing. I’m sure I’d also have friends speak highly of Big-O, G-Gundam, and Yu Yu Hakusho, three shows I never really got in to.

Eventually, Cartoon Network (and Williams Street, then called Ghost Planet Industries) began to realize that there was a growing library of anime they couldn’t show in the afternoon because it was too intense for the kids. There was also an undoubtedly vocal contingent of anime fans who were frustrated when their favorite shows had to be edited for broadcast. This gave birth to Toonami: The Midnight Run, the precursor to what would eventually become Adult Swim. The Midnight Run became home to uncut (or simply less-cut) episodes of afternoon shows that restored blood, alcoholic references, and the few cases of more extreme violence.

Midnight Run started getting exclusive shows, too. When I think about what Midnight Run (and later Adult Swim) was known for, it was shows like Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and again, though it wasn’t really something I saw a ton of, Paranoia Agent.

Other networks did try to cash in on the anime craze. I think Tech TV/G4 tried to get in on things with Serial Experiments Lain and a few other shows, but to be honest, it never hit as hard as Toonami did. Then there was obviously the work of guys like 4KIDS, with the Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon shows on Saturday Morning, but those felt noticeably different in vibe and in tone (something that only got more pronounced when Kids WB started a Saturday Morning Toonami block that was even more aggressively sanitized than what could be shown on Cartoon Network).

Beyond broadcast TV, the stuff I remember being popular among my circle of friends were things like Tenchi Universe, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, Saber Marionette, and.... like, Di Gi Charat and Chobits? This was probably right around the era of Azumanga Daioh, too.

Unfortunately, much past 2003 or 2004 is where I started falling off of anime. The feeling of it being “new” and “special” was starting to wear off, and there was enough coming out that the standard of quality was beginning to drop. Whereas small studios like ADV and Manga Corps. could only afford to bring out the best of the best, we were starting to get junk like Duel Masters, Rozen Maiden and Tenchi Muyo GXP.

I remember friends speaking highly of shows like Bleach (heh), .hack, Full Metal Panic, Midori Days, Tenjo Tenge, Yakitate Japan, Eureka Seven, and Air Gear, but I can’t tell you anything about them, personally.

Either way, I’m sure I’ve given you more than enough to chew on.