This Week in Anime

Anime Just As Good As I Remembered

Coop
That sounds like a great idea to me, Lucas! After all, I'm always thinking about the anime DVDs that flowed in and out of my small collection growing up. Oh boy, I was a huge FYE rat in the mid-to-late aughts. And you don't know what an FYE is, dear reader, it's kind of like a Suncoast... Wait, that's even older and more obscure now... Anyway, FYE is (instead of "was", surprisingly) a chain of movie and music stores you'd see in your local mall. Today, they've fallen into the "Hot Topic" trap of morphing themselves into an overpriced Funko hell. But back in the day, I nabbed a couple of scuffed volumes of this little show about a band of Southeast Asian pirates...

As a then-edgy pre-teen just about to hop into high school, Black Lagoon sung to my heart like the trashy action movies I'd occasionally rent from the video store—filled with near-constant cursing, crude humor, ludicrous action, and cool girls with guns. I had a great time with the series back then, but sold off all of my Geneon DVDs in a college purge (this will be a recurring story). However, I did keep the first volume, signed by Brad Swaile, who plays Rock.

I'm not sure if it was because of Chris, Steve, or your recent look at anime's greatest smokers, Lucas, but something made me go, "Welp, it's time to put this ancient DVD into my PS5." And I'm glad I did, because I felt like that edgy pre-teen again in all the best ways. Who wouldn't shout "f*ck yeah!" at the TV after seeing this for the first time in a decade?

I'm frankly surprised this aired on TV! However, I love the idea of every other word being bleeped out for a show like this. It kinda fits the "bonkers action movie you caught at 2 AM" vibes of Black Lagoon. Learning that the series was a part of the revived Toonami lineup in 2014 makes it no small wonder that I almost always see the Blu-ray set at Walmart. You're either GKIDS or you've broken through if your going-on-twenty-year-old anime is sitting on those shelves. Which reminds me, I should nab that set the next time it goes on sale, because I had so much fun returning to the series' first quartet of episodes.

Seeing MADHOUSE's name in Comic Sans during the opening credits felt like a jumpscare, though.

I am so thrilled you brought up Hunter X Hunter '99! I became fond of this one REAL fast back when I hopped in on a group of friends watching it during the early stages of the pandemic. This adaptation blows what I've seen of the 2011 version out of the water. This might be because I'm a huge fan of cel animation, but something about the look of 2011 is sterile in comparison to '99. The introduction of Killua's brother, Illumi, is a great example of this.

In the fight that follows this moment, the generally darker palette and dynamic framing of '99 works in its favor—showing just how frightening Illumi is. For a moment that I was talking about with my buds years ago, it's cool to see that others are also comparing how it was adapted.

Gon trying to pick himself up after his forest encounter with Hisoka is a sequence that's burnt into my brain. It's so agonizing to watch.

But your mention of the year 2011 reminds me of a series that defined the latter half of my high school days—Tiger & Bunny. I've brought up this modern classic a time or two in past columns, but this ganimata oji-san (see this for context) and his cocky partner stole my heart back then. Every Saturday night, I'd made an appointment to watch the series as it aired on Hulu, and it was probably the first time I'd learned the joys of week-to-week, anime zeitgeist viewing, especially for a show with so many great twists and turns. Look to JoJo's Fridays, Suletta Sundays, Machuesdays, or Delicious Bravern Thursdays as examples of what I mean.

I returned to this series ahead of Tiger & Bunny 2's initial drop on Netflix, and again, it was still as amazing as it was before. Filled with memorable heroes, biting use of branding, sharp storytelling, and plenty of tension for the BL enjoyers out there. Admittedly, I didn't fully notice that last bit till WAY later. I remember talking to someone in school about Tiger & Bunny and they were like, "Oh, the show with all the gay fan art on Tumblr?" Yep, that's the show.

But here's my only caveat about watching it today: check it out on Tubi or Blu-ray because you'll be missing out on the sponsored super suits otherwise! Those ads are characters in their own right!

It was ahead of its time, even predating the first Avengers flick by a year. The series has a handful of early MCU-esque aesthetic touches, but I generally find its design work to hold up way better than more recent heroic efforts. If you're feeling a little of that superhero fatigue going around, Tiger & Bunny's still a breath of fresh air all these years later. If you're looking for a little further reading on this, I dug into why the series has aged so wonderfully for Anime Herald back in 2022.

He says as he eats a potato chip to make the editor think he's doing something else.

I'd bet that camp element is probably thanks to legendary anime and TV screenwriter, Toshiki Inoue, who came in to adapt Ohba's story for the small screen. As not only the writer of the famous Trans Rights episode of Dirty Pair, Inoue's long been lauded among queer fans and fujoshi alike for his soap operatic plays at gay camp in series such as Kamen Rider Faiz and Avataro Sentai Donbrothers. Inoue knows what's good, my man.

Aside from my love of Inoue's work and the many classic memes driving me toward a proper rewatch, I remember being quite fond of the series as it aired on Adult Swim back in the aughts. However, I was a bit more familiar with the live-action movies produced around the same time. Back then, I'd purchased a Hong Kong release of the film with English subtitles and quickly learned what region codes were. What a sweet summer child I was.

I forgot that "Dani California" was the theme song of this movie...

One of the best to ever do it.

I recall being on the edge of my seat while watching it, so I might end up revisiting the movie first.

On the topic of movies... There's been this little flick that I've found myself regularly revisiting since I first saw it in 2006-2007ish—Project A-ko. Like Black Lagoon, I discovered the film among the sea of anime DVDs at an FYE in a set alongside the other A-ko movies for $15. At this point, the oldest series I had seen was probably Dragonball Z or a little bit of Mobile Suit Gundam on Toonami. Coming home and putting that first disc into the DVD player was a religious experience—one could only compare it to the first time I saw Gunbuster.

Jump to a decade later, I'd long sold off this set but came across a new release at an anime convention. It was at the booth of some company called Discotek Media, and this was LONG LONG before I started working with them. At that time, I grew to love the film even more, especially as I came to better understand what A-ko was specifically parodying. At the same convention, I also bought a Japanese VHS tape of the film, which later showed up on the recent Blu-ray release—a contribution I made solely as a fan. That tape now lives in the Anime Home Video Museum, by the way.

But for as much as I love this film, its villain and her henchwomen can come off as incredibly transphobic. It's something to keep in mind when approaching this one. A-ko's very of its time—for better or worse.

With as much as I've talked about DVDs in the column, you might be able to tell that I'm a sucker for home video and the provenance behind certain titles. The general public might not care about that history, but it's endlessly fascinating to me. Someone recently asked me why I'd like to hunt down that old box set, and it's because of what that specific release meant to me at that time. Feelings like that aren't easily upgradeable in my book.

I caught a bit of Rave Master as it aired on Cartoon Network around that time. I was obsessed with how Haru's sword morphed into a bunch of different forms while asking myself, "What's Ska?" As if Tony Hawk's Pro Skater hadn't led me to ask that question already.

You know, that lines up with the impression that I get: the series you loved always tend to hold up.