How do you feel about the art & animation style differences between the 70s and 80s Ashita no Joe shows? I switched from one to the other and I don't know if I can really say if one is "better" or "worse".
Also discuss old anime & manga. What have you been watching and what are your all-time favorites?
I should not have expected the last thread to live as a show-specific one especially if it's a show that most people only read the manga for
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70s:
-has a dirtier look with muddy colors that feels really fitting for the subject matter
-lines are much thicker
-cartoonier proportions, bigger eyes
-less motion, more rushed QUALITY frames
80s:
-obviously had far more time and money put into it, less shitty-looking frames, generally more solid, more movement
-the proportions are more realistic including the eyes being smaller (the latter is a bad change)
-more colorful
-thinner lines, feels more scratchy than sketchy
It also feels like Dezaki experimented more at age 27 while the 80s one is more "ok, this is my style and these are its limitations" at least from what I've seen
The show being so rushed & low budget definitely holds it back most of the time but there are some really neat bits
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but the 80s one definitely benefits from being less of a wonky slideshow
Also I'm sure people will disagree but the manga does not look better. 70s Tetsuya Chiba is the second blandest out of the super-popular old-school manga artists from what I've seen and he wasn't very technically skilled either.
I really like the music for ashita no joe 2 the movie
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I previewed the final episode and man, the TV version's final song is not nearly as awesome as the movie one.
It's also executed worse with the utterly pointless and redundant "I BURNED MY ASH" monologue. I dunno what Dezaki was thinking when the movie version was so perfect.
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I generally stay far away from movies that just summarize TV shonens but the movie version seems to have by far the best version of the ending.
I disagree. the style may seem odd but I find it charming and most of the time really cool
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I've also had the first Golgo movie downloaded for months but I've yet to watch it. I'm afraid I'll end up loving it and argue with everyone who says it's a piece of shit that you only watch to laugh at how awful it is.
I mean, the only genuinely horrible part that can't be explained away as "it's a cartoon, don't take it seriously" seems to be the 3DCG. The story seems like it dodges the biggest problem with the series i.e. the emotionless protagonist not having to put any effort into winning and thus everything being completely predictable.
"Odd" is not what I'd say to describe my issue with it at all. The early Cyborg 009 manga chapters are really weird-looking but in a really cool way, for example.
Chiba could draw a cool page occasionally that he put more detail and anatomy into, like here but even then I prefer the Dezaki versions of those shots since they have both good art AND expressive color use. But generally I feel that it's neither technically impressive nor expressive enough to be preferable over the anime.
I'll give Chiba some credit though, his people are not as boring as Mitsuteru Yokoyama's. I've skimmed through multiple manga by the guy and while he designed some cool robots, the humans are as basic as it gets and the anime character designers are why the Giant Robo OVAs are so charming to look at. I even figured "maybe he was forced to draw in a bad Tezuka-ripoff style in the 60s and 70s" so I looked through his later manga and it was somehow worse-looking with everyone having Ctrl Alt Del-tier expressions.
I was super disappointed by how boring Yokoyama's manga looks since he's the guy who designed Black Ox, one of my favorite robot designs of all time. Obviously a huge influence on the Getter too.
Just googling "Tetsujin 28 manga" brings up some great mecha
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but then his humans are pure old manga autopilot
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and he only got worse over time
Have you read or watched Rose of Versailles OP?
The Professional? I didn't think it was that disliked. It's at the very least awfully pretty. I dunno if it's something I'd ever revisit but I enjoyed watching it.
I watched a small chunk of the anime but I never got to the Dezaki episodes. The early episodes were fun but I felt that too much of it was unintentional comedy, and this is coming from someone who's able to take all of Joe's supposedly "badly aged" drama dead seriously.
I've been told by a friend whose opinions I tend to agree with that the show gets better and more genuinely good once Dezaki takes over.
Oh god the sameface, it's painful.
I may have just been unlucky, but I made a thread once some years ago and all the responses were extremely negative along with the general consensus on Golgo being that everything to do with it is horrible around 9 years ago. I've seen some people praise it in more recent old anime threads and no one responded saying "shitsux" so I guess it's a matter of the time of day and who's online.
I think the problem with the older threads may have been that the only people familiar with it got introduced to it through dumb shit like The Anime Encyclopedia while more recent viewers judged it without any preconceptions. I've also seen old anime that used to be considered perfect and sacred in say 2007 get criticized more, like Gunbuster.
Also
>that Kanada-as-fuck fire
The characters look more cartoony in the manga but they're unique/distinguishable designs. More importantly, Chiba drew action sequences well.
Is that Pluto?
Yeah I recommend you stick with it, it's easily one of my favorite series
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>constantly forced to destroy his own kind, even when they bring up valid points about how shit they have it
>couldn't say goodbye to his dying mother because he got sold off into slavery
>saves a village in Vietnam during the waronly for it to be destroyed the next day
Existence is suffering for Astro Boy.
What's the most agreed upon way to get into this? Should I just read the manga, or should I watch one of the animated series?
I generally love cartoony old manga; I just feel that Joe's art is boring compared to the anime. I guess the best way to word it would be that people like Tezuka and Ishinomori seemed like they understood their western comic & cartoon influences really well, while Chiba was probably just doing it because it was a kind of default for 60s and 70s shonen manga. That one video where he talks about Rikishi's death also makes it sound like he wasn't all that passionate about what he was doing or took it all that seriously and was shocked when he saw that people were that emotionally invested.
I'll give him that he's much, much better than the Tiger Mask artist. I wish Hokuto no Gun were doing the anime instead of the manga.
Yeah, expectations play a big part I think, if you're going into it wanting something more than sex and violence then I can see how someone would be disappointed. It's an 80s action flick through and through. It definitely falls into a lot of the pitfalls you mentioned earlier, namely Golgo being utterly boring and the plot being predictable (corny twist at the end too). It's got a great aesthetic though and the fight scenes own, so I'd call it a good movie nonetheless. It's my only exposure to the series though, only watched it cause the director.
Sorry, I just realized how dumb that question probably is considering the new show probably didn't talk about most of the stuff you mentioned. What I should ask is if the older animated series is worth a watch?
From someone who's not actually "into" the series, probably read it, watch parts of the old one for historical purposes, and then watch 2003 for actual enjoyment. That's what I'd do, at least if I gave a fuck about Astro Boy.
The 60s show has some "money shot" animation moments but is mostly pretty ugly to me.
The 80s one is bland as fuck and outright horrible at times judging by its adaptation of the Greatest Robot arc.
The manga aged very well in every way except for redundant dialogue, which was generally a problem with 60s Tezuka. The art is kinda inconsistent and depends on how busy Tezuka was at the time but when it's good it's REALLY good.
The 2003 show is totally different; it's a modern reinterpretation with modern anime cliches like "find someone to protect". It focuses far more on evolution as a theme and Tenma is more of a mysterious mastermind than a deeply flawed guy who tends to go nuts but is also capable of doing good. It's still good though and the production values are amazing.
I say read the manga and watch the 2003 show. Avoid the dub like the fucking plague.
Alright, I'll read this some time soon. I've never read one of Tezuka's works despite seeing a lot of stuff inspired by his stuff, so I guess I'll make this my first one. Also, I didn't even know there was an 80's animated series for it.
Urusawa is probably right that Tezuka made his best drawings in the 60s
its been ages since i watched astro boy but I'll never forget the episode about the train where the father gave his engine and astroboy saving his daughter. made me cry at the end when the little girl was looking for her father ;_;
what emotion are they supposed to be showing
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It definitely felt like he had the most fun drawing stuff back then.
If you're not particularly impressed by Astro Boy I recommend checking out Phoenix volume 2 for possibly the best example of why Tezuka was a fantastic creator that I've personally read. It's an insanely well done story with good art that is arguably better at being 2001: A Space Odyssey than 2001: A Space Odyssey (and I'm saying this as someone who loved that movie).
For example, instead of just "what if a computer programmed to be perfectly logical did evil, unforgiving things for the sake of doing a perfect job?" it's "what if every culture built a computer to be ruled by and programmed it to be perfectly logical, yet all of them ended up being humanely flawed because they were created by humans to begin with and were thus based on human prejudices? And what if this was used as an allegory for religious dogma?"
It also deals with escapism as a theme in a way that is really ingenious.
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And unlike Phoenix V1, the comedy is actually fitting and in-context instead of feeling like an insecure irony shield in case the drama fails. Less "haha it's ok guys, this is just a shonen manga, it's not that serious!" and more "the world is really ridiculous".
Phoenix V1 is also really good though, just more flawed. I've not read the rest yet.
Also, Black Jack is probably the most popular Tezuka manga on Sup Forums so check that out too.
I think it's kinda hit-and-miss, but still worthwhile. A lot of the stories kinda just blend together as merely ok but at its best it's REALLY good.
The Dezaki OVA series does its own, more serious atmosphere that works; the 2000s TV series is just the manga but sedated to be more kid-friendly but with inexpressive talking-heads art and cheap animation.
Comparing Pinoko's origin story in the manga to the 2000s anime in particular is pretty fucking dreary.
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I definitely need to watch this since I tend to enjoy old OVAs that people say are too shallow or whatever.
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The first Ashita series sucked balls though. The second one was great, Dezaki found a way.
Black Jack is pretty cool.
It's great, but I'm not surprised that you can't appreciate it since its qualities aren't instantly noticeable while the second series is far more instantly appealing to typical anime fans.
Scenes like the first Joe vs Rikishi cross-counter are fantastic.
I've always liked how Leiji characters were drawn. Maetel and 999 particularly.
diebuster, have you seen ringing bell? what do you think about it
Nope, but is it as similar to Legend of Sirius as it looks? I found that one too boring to even finish watching.
Then again it's been a very long time since I gave it a try; maybe I just had unreasonaly high standards.
iirc ringing bell is a bit more flamboyant but yeah the sanrio stuff has that Disney lite look to it. there's some interesting shots like dezaki triple exposure, silhouettes, etc in ringing bell and the story is more fable-like and concrete with a theme so it's probably better than sirius at everything.
I'll give it a shot sometime probably.
And yeah the "Disney lite" thing is what I didn't like about Sirius, though it seemed better at it than Toei's Puss in Boots which I only watched in its entirety for the history. Funny how Animal Treasure Island did like shit in terms of ticket sales when it did the 'fun silly adventure Toei film' thing so much better.
Speaking of old Toei movies I want to watch this but I can't find a download that wasn't taken down sakuga.yshi.org
All the animated versions of Astro Boy are great, but each does its own thing. 60s is the most faithful, 80s changes things while trying to adapt certain stories, while the 03 series is entirely new. 80s is worth watching for Atlus, he is a glorious son of a bitch, while 03 is really well animated. Watching it recently for the first time, 03 has a nostalgic feel to it.
Do you know a way to watch the 2003 series in Japanese fully?
The Toei film that's pretty cool drawing-wise is Ali-baba. It's a cheap rushjob project-wise, the story barely holds together and it has audio issues but it's so nice to look at. backgrounds, colors, compositions. And it has an almost Mushi Pro-esque feel to some of the lineart, kinda rough unlike the typical Toei's perfect smooth lines.
I don't think you read NIPPLES.
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btw have you tried asking dragonhunteriv for a video source of that film?
I liked it much, much more than fucking Puss in Boots and I think Miyazaki was wrong about it. The style is really fun and obviously inspired by Chuck Jones' Dr. Seuss adaptations.
I can't tell how ironic Hox is being there, he sounds like a manga version of Otaking.
Fantasy World Jun and Swallowing the Earth both have some of Tezuka and Ishinomori's most fun art respectively and poop all over the Joe manga visually.
I know Tezuka disowned Swallowing the Earth but fuck what he thinks, it's his loosest work where he actually made his Milt Gross influence super-obvious (from what I've read) and I think that alone makes it worthwhile. I enjoyed the story far more than say Book of Human Insects too.
Nope but I searched Sup Forums and someone linked a DDL but Toei took it down.
I guess I should ask him.
I hate to be that "read the manga" guy, but Golgo actually has a personality in the manga. Unfortunately people only know him for his TV series that spawned his somewhat-deserved Gary Stu meme. It doesn't help that the TV show chose his most straightforward hits. He fucks up plenty of times in the manga.
To each his own.
Actually I don't know shit about Golgo and I was ignorantly regurgitating opinions I read from others hoping someone with more info would respond.
I'm being fairly serious there in that write-up concerning the evolution of Chiba's art. The nipples and nostrils, as trivial as it seems, is just one of those things that early-art Chiba and many of his contemporaries often disregarded, since they deliberately chose to go for a cartoonier look. The fact that he decided to draw them in, along giving muscles more "shape" through hatching and cross-hatching is a pretty big-point about Chiba's change in art style during Tomorrow Joe's serialization.
Sorry if I come across too pretentious there.
I'll be 100% honest dude, I've never read your essay-like posts before but based purely on talking to you on Sup Forums over the years you seemed much, much more knowledgeable. Those two paragraphs are some of the most ignorant stuff I've ever read on the subject of old manga and I'm honestly fucking dumbfounded by what I'm reading.
Equating artistic evolution with making things less cartoony or more realistic is freaking ANN-tier. Fantasy World Jun and Swallowing the Earth poop all over Joe in terms of sheer technical skill and using "muh hatching" as a way of rating Joe's art above Fantasy World Jun is ridiculous given that hatching is one of the things Ishinomori always did infinitely better than Chiba. This is how Ishinomori drew when he was just SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. He also drew far better hatching than that hideous Joe page you posted during the same period when he worked as an assistant on Astro Boy. He actually knew how to draw extremely solidly while Joe was almost always flat and amateurish.
I suspect you were negatively influenced by Frederik L. Schodt's completely retarded introduction to Swallowing the Earth. The guy is an oblivious moron who has no knowledge of even basic American history let alone the history of manga. Swallowing the Earth is MORE cartoony than most of Tezuka's work and intentionally so. In a panel there's a crate that literally says "Milt Gross" on it.
I thought you got your point across fairly well. When you start reading it, it seems ridiculous, until you keep reading. The kinds of things we simply take for granted is overwhelming, and the fact that you chose to focus on these little things is really fascinating.
I'm surprised you never finished watching it. You really should.
That's just a side-effect of Yokoyama stepping away from his early art which was heavily Tezuka-esque, considering he even worked as Tezuka's assistant. But still, I agree with you. Yokoyama is definitely NOT a mangaka you should read if you like cartoony, expressive art. In a way, that's actually what makes him so fascinating to me. In the late 60s to 80s, you had all these new mangaka trying new things. Some sticking with a very expressive but rooted in a cartoonified look, while others went expressive but in a very realistic style. For a lot of readers, just looking at Yokoyama's art looked terribly dated even in the late 70s. And because of this many people in and outside of the industry just wrote him off, thinking he'd just fade away into history. The fact that he didn't and his stuff continued to sell all the way into the 80s and early 90s (and still gets regular reprint editions today) is astounding. A lot of that has to do with the narrative style and the fact that he draws stuff that no one else does. But if you're not a fan of history, it might as well all be boring shit.
>implying General Caster's Last Place isn't an iconic feature of American history
>Those two paragraphs
Wait sorry, I never copypasted them in this thread (I did to a friend on Skype)
I mean these two:
>"While these 3 images are from Tezuka's Swallowing the Earth [...]"
and
>"But then towards the end of volume 1, you notice [...]"
I'm not gonna read the entire post but my eyes glazed over to those particular parts and they are complete and utter nonsense.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding you have with my point. It almost seems as if you think evolution has a positive connotation, so that when I claim that Chiba changed towards realism, I imply that he became a better artist.
If this is what you're complaining about, that is NOT what I meant. I'm simply saying that Chiba's art DID become more realistic over time, and that was likely motivated by not insignificant reasons. There's really no objective way to argue against this, considering the changes in art between volume 1 and volume 20 are striking.
Moreover, I NEVER said nor claimed that Chiba is a better artist than Tezuka and Ishinomori. It honestly seems like you're not quite understanding what I wrote. I've also never read Schodt's introduction, since I read Swallowing the Earth in Japanese.
For the record this is what Milt Gross drew like. One of the biggest influences on Swallowing the Earth.
You made the "refusal to make things more realistic" thing sound like a criticism of Tezuka and Ishinomori, which is ridiculous ESPECIALLY for Ishinomori who could draw very realistically since forever. It overall reads like you see cartoony as 'lesser' or at least did when you read that.
Tezuka is kind of a different case since, even though he still had technical skill and life drawing experience, I feel that his attempt at more realistic art (MW) was really ugly and I think he realized that too because his 80s works like Adolf and Ludwig B got back to being much, much cartoonier.
But Ishinomori? The man never had this problem. In fact Fantasy World Jun in particular shows really well how he could switch back and forth between more realistic art and super-cartoony art.
Same goes for Sabu & Ichi which came a bit later. Compare this page...
...to this page. It has nothing to do with "evolution" but with tone; one fight scene is meant to be grittier and more down-to-earth while the other is meant to be over-the-top.
Or compare Henshin Ninja Arashi...
...to Banchou Wakusei. Both from around the same era of Ishinomori's career. Both well-drawn in their respective style. And both shonen so it's not like it's a matter of "maturity" but once again tone.
Okay I found my 2012-13 screencaps folder. Scenes like this are why the 70s Joe anime is good.
No offense, but I think you're still misunderstanding my whole point in that writing, because I agree with your point about the technical skill of Ishinomori and Tezuka.
Let me summarize my whole nostrils and nipples argument. Nostrils and nipples are basically dots. They're so simple to draw even a 5 year old could do it. But many mangaka in the 50s and early 60s simply didn't draw them. It's ridiculous to think that those talented artists weren't drawing nostrils and nipples because they couldn't. It was a deliberate choice. And if was a deliberate choice, why did they make that choice?
Or watch this clip sakuga.yshi.org
There is a lot of subtle shit going on in there with the backgrounds and expressions.
>It was a deliberate choice. And if was a deliberate choice, why did they make that choice?
I think it's lame to assume they did it because they thought people "weren't ready" or whatever.
Maybe it was bad wording but it definitely read like you were looking down on cartoony stuff. Which is weird because like... Mind Game is one of the most experimental and creative anime things ever and it's as cartoony as fucking Ren & Stimpy.
I don't think it's lame at all to wonder whether the authors themselves might not have felt hesitant towards the change. To us, it feels like an insignificant step, but when you live in an era that pretty much always did things a certain way, even the tiniest deviation from it can feel off. Paradigm shifts don't come easily for a reason.
Also, Mind Game is still my favourite Yuasa work and I quite enjoy cartoony stuff. I mean, who can hate stuff like the classic Disney cartoons?
>Maybe it was bad wording
Nah, it's just you. The blog post has been discussed on Sup Forums before and you're pretty much the only one interpreting it that way.
I disagree a bunch because I think
1. It's really really obvious Tezuka drew cartoony stuff because he loved it and
2. Ishinomori experimented with styles all the time. I think it's because he just had a wider pool of influences than Tezuka, but you can often find style swaps even in the middle of the same series
Desustorage doesn't have anything archived, but Sup Forums is full of people who see cartoony art as inherently worse or requiring less skill so maybe they read it the same way and just agreed.
Anime is better now.
Better and more sophisticated. On point too. You Luddites should realize that better tech means better animation.
For example, we hardly have loose cells or out of place layers. A lot of layers could be put on top of each other. Lighting has also improved. Lewd shiny thighs wouldn't have been possible in old cel animation. So are bloom effects (although some purists hate that)
I love these advancements. No more limited movement.
Lens flares galore, sure. Of course there are cons. Visually speaking, though? Enchanting is the first word that comes to mind.
We (that is, they) work faster as well. In truth, there's an influx of anime nowadays. Tons of series. Hentai too.
Amazing strides in technology shouldn't be ignored because of your nostalgia.
Greatness can be seen in the latest works out there. Intense visuals. Realistic backgrounds. Luscious movement.
It's not just Sup Forums though. This sentiment can be traced back to the origins of modern newspaper cartooning. Ask any academic 18th century painter if cartooning takes skill and they'll tell you that "cartoon" means preliminary sketch so of course it doesn't. This kind of confrontation has existed since the beginnings of modernist painting (not that I'm saying it's exactly what's being discussed here)
Not him, but do you agree with that sentiment?
Not trying to start a fight or anything, I'm just personally curious.
Also
>In fact, Tezuka's background is so detailed that his simplistic characters stand out in stark contrast. These characters were hardly different from their earlier, more mainstream counterparts. Indeed, a character from the earlier Magma Ambassador could inconspicuously sneak his way into Swallowing the Earth and vice-versa.
This doesn't strike me as very observant because my very first reaction to Swallowing the Earth's character art was that it was meant to be MORE cartoony than most of Tezuka's art. Astro Boy for example is much more conservative with more focus put on drawing things correctly than fucking around.
I'm not basing this on anything but suspicion but I kinda think Monkey Punch's success with the Lupin manga may have been why Tezuka went fucking nuts with Swallowing the Earth.
If this is actually your example to prove your point you are a retard.
All this animation shows is animators don't know how the fuck real people act.
I know it's a common thing, but I think it's particularly silly when it comes to people into animation because shit like Looney Tunes is some of the most technically skillful animation of all time and it's extremely cartoony.
With people who are only into American cape comics for example it makes perfect sense.
I love cartooning but I can understand the opposite viewpoint even if it seems outdated. The recent history of painting is funny; photography and modernist styles like Impressionism created a context of disenchantment with the orthodox naturalism, and thus all sorts of self-expressive styles emerged, including the meteoric rise of modern cartooning including animation (cartoonists like McCay were the only ones really making any sort of leaps forward wrt conceptualizing movement, and therefore animation as we know it was born out of cartooning). Fast-forward to the late 70s, and suddenly people started becoming interested in realism again, often coupled with claims that the kind of art being made was alienating and escapist.
I don't think anybody on either extreme is really correct but I can see valid arguments on both sides. Personally I don't lean one way or another and generally like everything as long as it's well done and substantiated. But in general, I think modern cartooning is kind of like the Blues of visual arts. And I like Blues.
What is considered better, the show or the manga?
Honestly, unless the context somehow changes everything I have to agree with ; I have no fucking idea what that girl is even supposed to be feeling or what emotions she's going through.
THAT SAID. I actually agree with you that digital animation means you can animate more stuff cheaper... but that doesn't necessarily mean better work and things like talent and budget and deadlines contribute hugely. For example, the 80s Space Adventure Cobra TV anime has much, much more and better animation than the extremely half-assed OVAs.
I mainly chose Swallowing the Earth because the date fit better with my argument, but my main point wasn't that Tezuka didn't vary his character art throughout the long course of his career. It was the fact that he didn't take any big steps between the cartoony/realist-spectrum, even though he quite clearly leaned more and more heavily towards the realist side with respect to his backgrounds and objects for much of his "gekiga" manga. So my question in that argument is if Tezuka was willing to change how he drew backgrounds so much, why did he refrain from doing so with his characters?