Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine "The Anime Thread" Thread

I've never been one for live-action adaptions of cartoons to be honest. They tend to make the campy stuff even campier.

I know what you mean. I can't stand the recent Transformers films. But the kid in me wants the Star Blazers film to rock.

And I hope it does for you.

Some shows last; others run briefly and disappear forever. Who can say why?

There were 4 B&W Japanese cartoon shows that ran in Philly back in 1966. I don't remember which station had it, or even exactly when it started or how long it lasted, but the 4th was called PRINCE PLANET. This may be one of the most obscure Japanese cartoons that actually ran in America.

Sadly, I don't recall much about the show. What I do recall (if memory serves) was that that, like ASTRO BOY, it starred a young boy hero (not a robot this time!), an alien from another planet, who could fly, and wore a medalion that gave him great powers. I'd be really curious to see this again, to find out more of what it was about, and see if it was any good or not. (Oddly enough, my brother did one comic of his own inspired by this show, only in his version, he turned the hero into a robot-- like ASTRO BOY.)

"Some shows last; others run briefly and disappear forever. Who can say why?"

Because the markets can't spin a line of cheap toys off it?

Is this the Prince Planet you mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Planet

Well what other one is there?

"Because the markets can't spin a line of cheap toys off it?"

That's NOT what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the way some shows run in syndication ENDLESSLY, while others have short runs and disappear forever. In Philly, I'm pretty sure PRINCE PLANET ran once-- EVER. Ditto for JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT. There were 25 episodes of that show, Channel 17 ran each one ONCE. After that, it disappeared. I mean, that's ridiculous! ULTRA MAN hads several runs in Philly, and during the 70's, ran for 8 YEARS without ever taking a break. Ditto for the 1967-70 SPIDER-MAN cartoons. I don't care how much I like something, when I was a kid, I would always wanna see SOMETHING ELSE. The thing used to be, they'd run all the episodes of a show twice, then put something else on. If the show was popular enough, 6 months or a year (or two) later, it might come back, and get another 2 runs.


I'm guessing doing it the other way makes it simpler for brain-dead programmers who can't be bothered to actually do the work they're hired for. (He said, sarcastically.)

I must have missed his comment, I'm sorry.

Star Blazers is sooo totallly right!
I really liked that show!
Maybe, more than my kids.

I know I'm afraid to see the live action 'Avatar - the Last Air Bender'!
I don't know how they'll compress all of those lovely episodes into 2 hours.
sigh

Star Blazers might work, though.
That series didn't have as much going on between each event, so to speak.
That I remember, anyway.
Avatar was SO rich.

The Japanese live action stuff tends to be really dorky.
I remember a comment from one of the producers/directors/etc. of Jurassic Park who said that when they showed the show to a sample audience in Japan that when the first dinosaur appeared the entire audience's mouths dropped and not a sound was heard for the rest of the picture.


They got kind of, what, lazy? traditional? with their live action stuff with Godzilla success, I think.

My older grandkids love Power Rangers, though.

Ooh. I didn't mean to come off as rude.

Usually, the cartoons that are re-aired over and over are the ones that have a bunch of merchandise spun off them. There must be at least a billion different Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards by now.

And toys, DVDs, VHS, CDs, video games, computer games, art books, clothes, cups, plates, health items, bumper stickers, accessories...

If my logic is flawed I'm willing to admit it.

For me when it comes to live-action adaptations it really depends on the material, for instance I very much enjoyed Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.

Candle you'll likely be disappointed the the live-action version of The Last Airbender but it's planned as a trilogy of films.

As for syndication issues there a ton of factors that go into that like the intended audience, how much of a success it was, how long it ran, if the series is getting an update somehow, etc. Some series are just created to be longer or shorter then others. From what I understand (although I could be wrong) when series are aired in Japan they don't generally show reruns. That's why so many popular series such as Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc often have "filler arcs" also sometimes to let the series keep going while the manga version may be on a hiatus, finishing other arcs and various other factors.

Proth0011 if you really want to see Prince Planet again the whole series appears to be available to view on Hulu here:

http://www.hulu.com/prince-planet

You know, I've never seen the live action version of Sailor Moon. I was turned off by seeing what the actresses look like in costume.

I think another factor in reruns is if the shows are timeless enough to interest the next age group that comes along.
My older grand kids, who are 17 and 18+ liked pokemon and now my younger set, 2, 4, 6, 8 are loving them.

The American Disney films are a lot like that.

In the newest episode of the new MAD cartoon show, they did this parody of Grey's Anatomy called

"Grey's In Anime".

The patient basically hallucinates that the doctors are anime characters, including parodies of Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, and DBZ.

If your a fan of either the manga and/or anime of Sailor Moon I suggest giving the live-action version a chance. It's cheesy at times but it has a lot of heart put into it.

The manga does as well. It's one of my biggest inspirations in terms of the themes of hope and forgiveness.

Speaking of good series, have you ever read/watched YuYu Hakusho? It's by Yoshihiro Togashi who's married to Naoko Takeuchi, creator of Sailor Moon.

I've seen some episodes and listen to the opening and ending songs, but I didn't become a diehard fan.

It's one of my favorite supernatural based series.

I'll second Actor Lad's support of YuYu Hakusho. Probably my favorite "fighting" anime.

Well if there's one another anime I'll hype over than SM, it's Revolutionary Girl Utena. Metaphysical, bizarre, and beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mQFGdHSbTY&feature=related

I've seen some of that series, it's interesting enough.

I want to thank Fanfic Lady for bringing this thread to my attention. It has been a strange year so far for manga and anime. Tokyopop closes it's North American branch (though it was predictable by longterm company followers) which leaves alot of titles in lingo. On the other hand series such as Hetalia are extremely popular.

Hetalia is my current obsession.

God I forgot I started this thread.

I am excited because FUNimation has released the trailer on YouTube for "Hetalia Paint It, White!" I really like the dub's accents and the effort this company puts into the series.

I'm watching STAR BLAZERS again. Man, what an emotional show this is!

Going thru it about one episode per day, to get the full impact of each one. Just got to the destruction of Telasart today. Really powerful message in this one, as Trelayna tells Prince Zordar that if he were really powerful, he'd help others, not ENSLAVE them.

Tomorrow will be the very 1st episode I happened across back in November 1979, which totally blew my mind. I came up with my own titles for each episode decades back, and that one I named "A GATHERING OF ARMADAS".

I discovered Kochikame yesterday. It's really funny and I can totally relate to their lives.