kokoro wa tamago
I've been watching the Super Sentai series Chojin Sentai Jetman lately. It's the 1991 series, the one right before Zyuranger, which you would know better as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It's also ridiculously entertaining, thanks to a coupling of the most batshit plots and situations with insanely outsized emotions and doomed romance. Even given my yen for operatic storytelling, the last couple episodes I watched, 13 and 14 ("The Love Labyrinth" and "Special Bazooka of Love") sort of got to me a little. Basically, Pink Swan Jetman Kaori loves Red Hawk Jetman Ryu, who still can't get over his presumed dead girlfriend Rie (who is actually alive and brainwashed into one of his enemies, Maria). Black Condor Jetman Gai is in love with Kaori and can't stand that she loves Ryu. (It doesn't help that he already hates Ryu anyway.) It all comes to a head at the end of 14, when Kaori confesses her love to Ryu knowing he doesn't feel the same (though no one knows about Rie), despite Gai having been tremendously open about his feelings (to an annoying extent). It's all deliriously soapy and I might have loved this series even if it didn't have an episode where the team fought a giant ramen monster. (That definitely helped though.)
But really, it's not the blend of action, romance and batshit that gets me so much. It's the closing theme, "Kokoro wa Tamago," that really gets under my skin. That song is everything I love about '80s Japanese pop culture distilled into three minutes, but it also reminds me of other songs like "Give Me Your Love Tonight" from City Hunter that remind me of something special to me, something I greatly miss. These songs remind me of what it was like to be an anime fan at the turn of the century.
It wasn't just the shows or the music. There was a community. We talked about all these things. I felt like I was part of something, whether it was on AOL message boards or at anime club in college. The apotheosis of my fandom had to have been the years between 2000 and 2005, when I visited Otakon regularly, with one year volunteering at Anime Boston. My group was usually made up of school friends, and later people I met through the scene in some way, though my brother came down a few times, and my mom accompanied us that first year. (She came along to watch my brother, who was about sixteen at the time. I took advantage of her existence by partying.)
The first few years at Otakon and the one year at Anime Boston 2004 were my favorites for sure. We hung out, bought stuff, watched some anime, took photos of awesome cosplayers, partied and made new friends, some of whom I'm still in touch with to this day (a couple of whom are likely reading this). I talked to strangers, passed out on hotel room floors, stuffed my face, walked around the Inner Harbor, played someone else's DS, sang anime karaoke, hung out with voice actors, made jokes about hentai and corn, met internet pinup girls who became friends, and bought weird hats and rare CDs. We made midnight CVS runs, walked around Boston, looked for missing children, ducked out on panels and danced 'til 2. We were young and invincible.
It was a place and a time that was special to me, that I'll miss and I'll likely never get find again. The scene isn't the same, and the time away likely hasn't made it any better. I don't know how to identify with fans today, even the fans my age who kept up over the years. I used to wander the con floor and think, "These are my people. I feel at home here." I used to feel every bit of my youth.
We joke around a lot about being old, but every time I hear "Kokoro wa Tamago" or "Give Me Your Love Tonight," I feel old. I feel so painfully old, the sort of old you feel when you simply realize those feelings are gone and you'll never find them again.
But really, it's not the blend of action, romance and batshit that gets me so much. It's the closing theme, "Kokoro wa Tamago," that really gets under my skin. That song is everything I love about '80s Japanese pop culture distilled into three minutes, but it also reminds me of other songs like "Give Me Your Love Tonight" from City Hunter that remind me of something special to me, something I greatly miss. These songs remind me of what it was like to be an anime fan at the turn of the century.
It wasn't just the shows or the music. There was a community. We talked about all these things. I felt like I was part of something, whether it was on AOL message boards or at anime club in college. The apotheosis of my fandom had to have been the years between 2000 and 2005, when I visited Otakon regularly, with one year volunteering at Anime Boston. My group was usually made up of school friends, and later people I met through the scene in some way, though my brother came down a few times, and my mom accompanied us that first year. (She came along to watch my brother, who was about sixteen at the time. I took advantage of her existence by partying.)
The first few years at Otakon and the one year at Anime Boston 2004 were my favorites for sure. We hung out, bought stuff, watched some anime, took photos of awesome cosplayers, partied and made new friends, some of whom I'm still in touch with to this day (a couple of whom are likely reading this). I talked to strangers, passed out on hotel room floors, stuffed my face, walked around the Inner Harbor, played someone else's DS, sang anime karaoke, hung out with voice actors, made jokes about hentai and corn, met internet pinup girls who became friends, and bought weird hats and rare CDs. We made midnight CVS runs, walked around Boston, looked for missing children, ducked out on panels and danced 'til 2. We were young and invincible.
It was a place and a time that was special to me, that I'll miss and I'll likely never get find again. The scene isn't the same, and the time away likely hasn't made it any better. I don't know how to identify with fans today, even the fans my age who kept up over the years. I used to wander the con floor and think, "These are my people. I feel at home here." I used to feel every bit of my youth.
We joke around a lot about being old, but every time I hear "Kokoro wa Tamago" or "Give Me Your Love Tonight," I feel old. I feel so painfully old, the sort of old you feel when you simply realize those feelings are gone and you'll never find them again.