Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
So why is a good show axed when bad shows still get season after season?
Well these examples may put a few things to rest.
1. Invader Zim
Everyone's favorite psychotic alien in one of Nicktoons darkest & funniest shows of all time.
Why Cancel?: Nickelodeon claimed it was low ratings, the real reason was that Invader Zim frequently broke its budget and became too expensive for the Network to make.
Aftermath: It's staff would later be hired for Avatar the Last Airbender.
2. Class of 3000
A performance arts college led by Andre 3000 of OutKast. Decent animation and decent music.
Why Cancel?: Cartoon Network claimed it was too expensive to make, the real reason came when Andre 3000 was sued for plagiarism which ultimately sealed it's fate.
Aftermath: It was the last cartoon to be made under the old Cartoon Network banner which led up to the events of the 2007 Boston Bomb Scare which cost former head Jim Samples his job, what followed was a few years of crap Cartoon Network.
3. Warner Bros 90s Cartoons
Freakazoid, Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain, Hysteria, all of Warner's finest from that era.
Why Cancel?: Some guy named Jamie Kellner decided to scrap the range claiming it wasn't right for the channel's image to have cartoons appealing to grown ups. Ironically this also happened to the Avengers cartoon.
Aftermath: Warner Bros have not been the same since.
4. Cancelled without reason
Danny Phantom, El Tigre, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go, Juniper Lee, American Dragon, Young Justice, Megas XLR, Swat Kats & Samurai Jack.
Why Cancel?: In some cases poor time slots, in others it simply dropped off the channel for no reason. For Swat Kats, Ted Turner claimed it was too violent. Samurai Jack's chances look slim for a comeback following Mako's death and because Samurai Jack needs his voice but not other voices it poses quite a problem.
5. Gargoyles
Core of Disney's epic run of tv cartoons in the 90s.
Why Cancel?: Fell out of Disney's favor and ended up being drawn by a different animation house.
Aftermath: Disney seem to do this a lot with these kinds of shows, the same fate befell many of the shows I've mentioned along with the likes of WITCH & PB & J Otter.
6. Adult Swim Cartoons
Anything not Venture Bros or Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Why Cancel?: Adult Swim is too poorly run to sustain cartoons properly, some never made it pass episode one. In the case of Titan Maximum which had better ratings than many of it's staple shows, creator Seth Green felt that Robot Chicken was more important.
7. Classic British Cartoons
It's worthy of note that many of our classic cartoons, mostly stop motion shows like Postman Pat, Bagpuss & Camberwick Green are notoriously short.
Why Cancel?: They were never cancelled, the shows were really that short.
Wallace & Gromit our best cartoon has only had four episodes, one movie and numerous shorts in 24 years and it frequently wins awards no problem.
Explain: We British don't do filler, also helps that British shows tend to have all episodes filmed in a series before broadcast.
8. And an Anime Example
The original Gundam Series
Why Cancel?: Surprisingly poor ratings cut the show to 39 episodes forcing creator Yoshiyuki Tomino to improvise an ending.
Aftermath: Rerun figures were better and with new editing and cuts was redone into a film trilogy before Zeta Gundam's release.
Not long ago I showed a Cartoon from Argentina and mentioned briefly about the cartoon superpowers along with some lesser nations, but what about South Korea? Japan's closest neighbor and a country that can at least compete on Manga but what about cartoons? Well there's a good reason, today is about Cubix.
Connor likes robots and manages to encourage his father to move to the Robot City of the World, Bubble Town. This is where RobixCorp is, an organization who have perfected an Emotional Processing Unit to give robots human like emotions. (I've seen that enough times to know where this is going)
Connor joins a Robot fixing club called the Botties looked after by Professor Nemo's daughter Hela. Nemo is the head of RobixCorp but has been missing after a horrible accident with a potent substance called Solex.
Connor and his crew, which include token female Abby, annoying smart kid Chip & token fat guy Mong (Say what you like about Pokemon X & Y's tag-a-long crew but they have more personality than this lot) they find a robot called Cubix which is deemed unfix-able. He kind of resembles a mash up of thrown away Rubix Cubes, but before they get any further, Dr Wily, I mean Dr K the evil villain turns up and steals everyone's robots but this incident triggers the awakening of Cubix who defeats Dr K and his army of bad robots and the series repeats this formula for 25 more episodes.
If you've seen this show, yes it's a 4Kids property, and yes it's an early CGI, not a terrible CGI, certainly better than Gormiti's CGI attempt. Cubix is pretty harmless, it doesn't exactly evolve beyond it's set formula and the title robot Cubix is endearing enough to not be annoying with it's lack of speech, although credit to the Koreans for ending the show when Cubix got his full voice in the last episode, they saved us from pain. It ran for two years from 2001 and probably has a DVD release, I'd only watch it out of curiosity and a look at the Pokemon voice cast in full outside of anime.
I'm curious to see if South Korea can give me anything else to look at, while this isn't terrible, it's still a surprise from what I thought Korean animation would be like and I'm curious to learn more.
The Sengoku Period has always been an easy to go to era for inspiration, the actions of it's characters shapes much of Japanese Culture in terms of history and it's samurai and these ten take their inspirations from these characters either directly or indirectly. Rules this time is one per franchise otherwise this will just be a top ten of Sengoku Basara Characters. So lets begin.
10. Matsukaze from Majikoi
Maeda Keiji's horse Re-imagined as a phone charm in possession of Mayucchi Yukie, believed to have a mind of it's own but could also be Mayu's true feelings.
9. Kenshin Himura from Rurouni Kenshin
Kenshin Himura was given his name by his master based on Uesugi Kenshin something later confirmed by the Manga's creator.
8. Ieyasu Tokugawa from Saber Marionette J
Named after the leader who united Japan, this Ieyasu became the leader of the Japanese like colony of Japoness and it's inhabitants are clones of the same leader.
7. Ryo Sanada from Ronin Warriors
I so wanted to use Sengoku Basara's Sanada Yukimura but I got to follow the rules. Ryo Sanada is the fiery leader of the Ronin Warriors borrowing namesake color scheme and armor from the famous hero.
6. Sasuke from 2x2 Shinobuden
Sorry that's to troll the Sasuke Uchiha fans.
In reality I still have more fun watching the Sasuke Army.
5. Oda Nobunaga from Sengoku Otome
The gender flipped Nobunaga actually cares about her people instead of almost every other depiction of the tyrannical leader being overwhelmingly negative; she still looks the part though in an outfit inspired by Red Sonja.
4. Hanzo Hattori from Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Girls
Another Gender flip, this time for ninja Hanzo Hattori. This version is a happy slave to Sen but this version is a Maid Ninja with a ninja scroll for a hair tie, a pair of glasses functioning as a scouter and a skirt that contains hidden blades, is that awesome or what.
3. Jubei-Chan from Jubei-Chan
Not long ago I reviewed this, the title character uses Yagyu's eyepatch to become the legendary samurai, others were considered but the action from this show is so fast paced and incredibly well choreographed that it's a match for everyone else on this list.
2. Ishikawa Goemon from Lupin III
This version is a descendant of the legendary Japanese thief and a worthy ally to the equally famous Lupin III. He doesn't say much but, he doesn't need to and considering all his other depictions this is Goemon's finest homage.
1. Masamune Date from Sengoku Basara
Of course it's going to be Masamune Date, he's my favorite Male character of all time, my favorite historical figure, he's a total badass, his horse is a motorbike and just looks awesome!
It's quite clear who the Cartoon Superpowers of this world are, if it's not Japanese, American, French, Canadian or British then you really start diving into unknown territory; Italy, Spain & Germany produce a couple, Russia is just weird and Australia according to some people are alienating children but if I were to say Argentina, you would wonder what cartoon I could possibly talk about?
Well presenting this week in Cartoon Vault, Argentine superhero Cybersix.
Cybersix began as an early 90s comic series about a genetically engineered superhero fighting her creators monstrous bio-weapons during nighttime while acting as a "male" literature teacher as a civilian identity during the day; as to why, she needs their substance to sustain herself and it acts as a form of revenge against her creator, it's all good.
The story goes, a former Nazi from the war named Dr. Von Reichter flees to South America in order to continue his genetic engineer experiments after the war ended. He created a 5000 strong army of cyber humans built to be perfect servants but did his job a little too well and gave them free will so he ordered to have the entire series massacred. The only two survivors were Cyber-29 who died before the massacre happened and the brain was transferred into a Black Panther and renamed Data-7, the other being Cyber-6 who managed to escape thanks to a slave. So were a short while into the plot and were looking at some pretty risky stuff here but the comic made no qualms about it's content; Cybersix's outfit was stolen from a prostitute, there's sexual content, the obvious Nazi references and in the comics she got her substance from draining her victims vampire style, it's clearly not for kids.
Thankfully the cartoon manages to tone it down enough to play without controversy. We go to the fictional Argentine city of Meridiana where to avoid being discovered, Cybersix adopts the identity of a "Male" School Teacher named Adrian Seidelman but it's not long before fellow teacher/love interest Lucas Amato gets dragged into Cybersix's battles. Also being dragged into the war is a kid named Julian and the panther Data-7 who switches to Cybersix's side very quickly. Von Reichter doesn't always do the battling himself, leaving it to his clone and son Jose and his army of mutants, this is where the slapstick for the cartoon comes into it as Jose and his goons are obviously incompetent but the story can survive without comedy.
This cartoon came in 1999, four years after Batman re-established a bit of action and grittiness in cartoons, however it's short run of 13 episodes makes it an under-appreciated gem of it's era. It was developed as a collaboration between Argentine & Canadian animation companies and had some animation duties outsourced to Japan's TMS Entertainment. It would broadcast in those countries along with America although according to my sister it also broadcast in the UK.
There is currently no DVD release but Discotek Media have the rights to it and hope to release in 2014. They are the same company who successfully released Samurai Pizza Cats in it's unedited Japanese form, so the show is in safe hands.
If I was to talk about a cartoon set under the sea then the first thing anyone would think of is Spongebob Squarepants but what if I was to tell you that there was another Undersea cartoon that not only predates Spongebob but is better. Today I talk about 1988 French Canadian cartoon Sharky & George.
Sharky & George are two private detectives who fight various gangs and villains in the city of Seacago; in fact the narrator often states that Seacago is the city of peace or something similar, either way this is how every episode starts.
The whole cartoon is a take on classic detective noir shows like Dick Tracy, Sharky even having a fedora hat like Humphrey Bogart.
Sharky is the pink shark often narrating each episode's plot. He's lazy and often driven by money, while George is the straight younger blue & yellow sidekick who keeps Sharky on focus.
A typical episode would have Sharky & George take on a case that usually involves one of a handful of villains including a Jellyfish & a Lobster. The series ran a decent length at 52 episodes and had a wide run in Europe & Canada.
The intro is very very catchy so give it a watch.
You know there really isn't much else to say about this cartoon; it's very straight forward in it's narrative and doesn't need much else. It's very much a cartoon of it's era late 80s, early 90s even though it relies on themes often shown in 50s cartoons. There is no DVD release anywhere and videos are rare treasures if anyone has them, luckily the show is relatively easy to find on Youtube so check it out.
Extra: As something that predates Spongebob by a number of years this show manages to pull off the Underwater World better than Spongebob does. The big difference is that the art style incorporates a number of dark areas that are common place in deep Oceans and add the fact that the characters look more fish than human makes it a more believable setup than Spongebob's world of fully clothed Sponges, Starfishes & Crabs.
