Anime and Bangladesh: The 90's Connection

Bangladesh and Anime:

The 90s’ Connection

By Le Chupacabra

A quick glance at the wall clock shows the time as 5:30pm. Outside, the summer Sun has sunk low and casts cool shadows all over the place. The sky is a bluish-purple and the clouds are still white and fluffy; the chance of rainfall is quite slim. Ah, perfect conditions.

It's time to prepare yourself then. Call your cousin (or heck, cousins) over and ring up your friends…

… Robotech is about to begin on Star Plus.

What, you were expecting, cricket or something? Well, not for me.

During the mid-1990's, my (and certainly many others') evenings were characterised by half-an-hour of blistering fast fighter jets that miraculously (I was six) transformed into sleek robots armed with all manner of laser rifles, mounted machine guns and of course, an infinite stock of missiles with wonderfully ceaseless smoke trails. Robotech was its name and despite being a pretty old anime series already, it was rather brilliant. Granted, most of the story and characterisations zoomed over my head, but what bits I caught could be deemed 'ultra cool' for me. And even if all the plot pouting lost me, there was still some very awesome fighting as the consolation prize. Watching the Veritech jet fighters pirouette through barrages of gunfire to emerge unscathed from the smoke and then slickly transforming into the Guardian mode and unleashing their own salvo of heat-seeking missiles - the warhead count numbering in quadruple figures, it seemed - that was entertainment like no other. Back then, the now-ancient artwork was considered incredible and how could one not like it with all those superb robot designs? I'd wager that even now Robotech could hold its own - heck, if Victory Gundam can do it, why not? But best of all was the music; call it outdated, call it pointless… but the music was (and still is, in my opinion) the very definition of memorable. A decade on from the ending, and I still recall some of the tunes. A particularly unforgettable moment for me was when the story arc made the huge leap over to the bit with the Cyclotrons and the alien Invid. I simply didn't understand how or why back then, and I was so disappointed that the Veritech fighter parts were over that I decided never to watch Robotech again. Fortunately, curiosity got the better of me and the good times rolled again - the last arc of Robotech was still brilliant.

Within the next few years, Star Plus started degenerating into yet another pointless Hindi channel. At first, the shows were dubbed in the language (Small Wonder, we will never forget) but later they were completely replaced with the forerunners of today's never-ending serials beginning with the letter 'K'. Anime, it seemed, was being snubbed rather badly. Even early morning showings of Sabre Rider and the Star Sheriffs slowly vanished. However, it was replaced by G.I. Joe which was much better, so no big loss. However, waking up that early made it a bit tasteless. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ran for a while during the afternoons, but that didn't last too long either. Pity, because that was my favourite cartoon when I was younger. (Okay, so both of those weren't anime, but you know… I'm kinda being washed over with nostalgia while writing this - work with me here!)

Salvation came after three years and two house shifts in the form of a little channel called AXN aka Action TV.

At first, I didn't pay much heed to it - after all, they still showed too many 'reality TV' shows on it. It wasn't until I was really bored that I flicked on to the channel while at my grandmother's house. What a fight scene it was... Himura Kenshin versus Aoshi Shinomori! It was a fantastically tense clash of two great swordsmen and the battle choreography was superb; I was hooked within minutes! After that, I caught every episode of Samurai X (aka Rurouni Kenshin) and I absolutely loved it! The final fight with Shishio was breathtaking but no other scene stayed with me like that one with Aoshi - after all, that was the one that got me interested in Samurai X in the first place! The later episodes spiralled rapidly away from a coherent storyline but back then, it didn't matter; those episodes were entertaining at the very least. The ending song during the Shishio saga (Heart of Sword, FYI) still stands as an all-time favourite. And in 2004, I bought the DVD boxed set of the entire Rurouni Kenshin series - one of the very few anime I have in original DVD form.

Another anime that was shown alongside Samurai X was Flame of Recca. I don't remember too much about it (they are showing it on Animax, so yeah I'm watching it again), but it was a great example of those tournament based anime that keep throwing an endless barrage of increasingly powerful.

Foes. Of course, the hero hovers near the brink of death only to burst forth with hitherto unseen powers galore; a certain Mr Goku can attest to such a formula. However, the fight scenes were still superbly entertaining and it was quite an imaginative show as well. The recent and super-popular anime Naruto owes many of its fight scenes, techniques and what-not to Flame of Recca. Recca Hanabishi, Naruto fans all over the world salute you!

Now, while Samurai X and Robotech retain a certain timeless quality, others faded from my memory. (Kudos to Lancer for the heads up.) One such anime was Ninja Robots. Yes, it of the same fight scene… over and over and over again! And now that I think about it… how did ninja fit into the context anyway? Somewhere in Japan, stealthy masked assassins are taking their own lives. Jokes aside, this has to be said: no matter corny or lame Ninja Robots may seem now, I (and plenty of others…. 'fess up you all) actually, honestly and genuinely liked and enjoyed the show. Besides the blatant copy-pasting of the aforementioned fight scenes, some of them were quite entertaining. The story wasn't too bad (or maybe that has to do with the fact that I reached an age where I could understand 'plotlines' - sorry, Robotech) and the artwork was quite decent. Let's not forget the, bless it, 'catchy' theme song - courtesy of the whole Americanisation process. Still, no matter how many times the Princess ended up being kidnapped (once you realise you can't count off your fingers, it was no longer funny), when Joe, Michael and Jenny (and later, Damien) strapped up into their robots to rescue her, you were rooting them on to victory. Cybertroooooooooooooooooon!

And, you cannot talk about anime in the 1990s without mention (unfortunately, that's all this one gets) of the one, the only… Speed Racer! *cue large-eyed, lopsided-mouth gasps of 'Oh!' ala Speed himself* What can you say about Speed Racer? (Preferably avoiding expletives). Nothing much. Of course, you could do some of those character expressions - they're a great hit when you and a bunch of friends go all nostalgic regarding TV shows. Speed Racer was embarrassingly corny and the constant exclamations made you roll your eyes, but hey, it was somewhat entertaining. Also without that Volcano Mountain race with the whole Snake (or was it Viper?) racing team, you wouldn't get that brilliantly hilarious parody episode of Dexter's Laboratory. Speaking of which, Dexter was at its satirical zenith during that time - the newer version lacks much of what made the old Dexter so bloody brilliant. Sad.

Lastly, and on a more serious tone, was the Anime Fest on Animax during the end of 1999. As a fitting end to that decade (and this article), that week highlighted some great anime films, particularly the subliminal Ghost in the Shell. That was the time when they also released The Matrix (the first, and brilliant, one) which shared much in common with Mamoru Oshii's animated opus; it was a doubly sweet dose of sci-fi centric philosophical musings. More importantly, it was also an indication of the burgeoning International audience for anime. And within a few weeks, we celebrated the New Year… the year 2000.

That golden decade ended on a fantastic note and was a forerunner of things to come. Cartoon Network picked up the slack with the loveable DragonBall Z and rather fun Cardcaptor Sakura. Unfortunately, it also started showing the inexplicably popular Pokemon, Digimon and Beyblade, and so on. One Piece is due to air soon (avoid the English dub, read the manga - bloody brilliant stuff!) The anime channel Animax commenced a few months back and we got access to anime like Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, GetBackers, Inu Yasha, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ranma 1/2, Samurai X, Escaflowne and other wonderful shows. The sublime FullMetal Alchemist and entertaining Great Teacher Onizuka are due soon. Whoever's writing this piece in 2010 will need all of RS for that article then!