General Anticipations on a Specific Anniversary
I just happened to see today that Robotech started airing in syndication exactly thirty years ago. Although that had been something I'd been more or less aware of, it didn't start airing in every market on the same date; I happened to see my first episodes of it on WUTV-29 from Buffalo on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and by going to the library and checking microfilmed newspaper TV guides I'm now more or less certain it didn't start airing the series until the fall season. (I haven't yet looked far enough into that microfilm to confirm reports that CHCH-11 from Hamilton also aired the show back then; I wasn't as inclined to tune to that channel when I was visiting my grandparents and didn't see the show on it then. Perhaps I don't want to acknowledge a missed chance, even if I keep telling myself I'm not wondering if I might have wound up more interested in "that anime stuff" if only I'd seen a few more episodes of Robotech years ago...) As I'm always wondering about topics to post about, though, a few thoughts did happen to fall together right now.
Last year I returned to and watched my way through the two anime series that had been turned into Voltron, but as I looked ahead to this year I suppose I was thinking I've seen the three series that got turned into Robotech more often; the urge to see them once again didn't seem quite as compelling. The thought of watching a selection of the Robotech episodes I'd seen on TV back in the 1980s, however, did seem a bit more interesting, but then so did the thought of waiting until time lined up more exactly.
That it was going to be a selection, though, did get me thinking back to last year when I got around to revamping my home page and decided I ought to move from just saying something there about Robotech to using it to lead into anime itself. Enough time's passed since the burst of nostalgia-fuelled effort that began with the creation of an "official site" and the release of the show on DVD that there's been nothing left to do but proclaim criticisms of what that effort did produce; the suspicions about Robotech "blocking Macross," unchallenged by anyone detached just enough to take a neutral position, don't seem to help either. Even so, I spent enough time between when the show went off the air and getting the chance to see actual anime just sort of contemplating the composite story as related through the print sources that I can still contemplate how it brings what might have been a "background explanation" in Macross closer to the surface, so I'm still thinking past this "general" date to the more personal one some months ahead yet.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/231918.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.
Last year I returned to and watched my way through the two anime series that had been turned into Voltron, but as I looked ahead to this year I suppose I was thinking I've seen the three series that got turned into Robotech more often; the urge to see them once again didn't seem quite as compelling. The thought of watching a selection of the Robotech episodes I'd seen on TV back in the 1980s, however, did seem a bit more interesting, but then so did the thought of waiting until time lined up more exactly.
That it was going to be a selection, though, did get me thinking back to last year when I got around to revamping my home page and decided I ought to move from just saying something there about Robotech to using it to lead into anime itself. Enough time's passed since the burst of nostalgia-fuelled effort that began with the creation of an "official site" and the release of the show on DVD that there's been nothing left to do but proclaim criticisms of what that effort did produce; the suspicions about Robotech "blocking Macross," unchallenged by anyone detached just enough to take a neutral position, don't seem to help either. Even so, I spent enough time between when the show went off the air and getting the chance to see actual anime just sort of contemplating the composite story as related through the print sources that I can still contemplate how it brings what might have been a "background explanation" in Macross closer to the surface, so I'm still thinking past this "general" date to the more personal one some months ahead yet.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/231918.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.