Robot Wars

So, [adult swim] has been bitching since Jumpstreet about how no one watches anime. Of course, as I've emphatically stated in the past, I'm 32 years old and [adult swim] is about 15 years too late; that ship has sailed. One can sit through Akira only so many times -- and trust me, I stretched the limits.

Of course, I grew up on manga, in a matter of speaking. I mean, it wasn't actual phonebook manga, but I was an avid reader of all the translated stuff I could get my hands on, most of which was from F1rst Comics (Lone Wolf & Cubs), Eclipse (Kamui, Airboy, Lum...), and other independents. To say nothing of Epic comics' full-color reprints of Akira itself!

And, aside from Frank Miller's overwhelming popularity back then (his own Japanese manga interests being almost single-handedly responsible for spawning the ninja trend of the 1980s), the other thing that spurned this great Japanese interest at the time was anime, which was sometimes called Japanimation.

With their TOO-wide eyes and weird hair-dos, they really changed the way we Americans, and I guess everyone, viewed cartoons. And they all had robots. Why, I'm still not sure, but even the shows set in Feudal times had robots. It just became a staple of the genre.

[as] has been pandering to that in the early mornings, with Gigantor  -- an older, black and white cartoon about a large robot built to protect humanity -- followed by the new Transformers series. Now, they've changed it to Voltron, another giant robot series many of us also grew up on. I never really got into Voltron -- I was a Thundercats kid -- but I've been checking it out here and there lately and it's not bad. But, I saw at least one bump the other night where someone was knocking Voltron, and I kind of agree.

I mean, Voltron was big in its day, but not BIG, and while it's pretty good, it certainly wasn't the best out there. And, since they'd asked what we'd like to see, I decided to just go on and throw it out there, just to do so:

Robotech.

The end.

Sabreriders might also be kinda cool for that timeslot (it's more kids' fare), but if [as] wants to get real and show some real anime, Go get that Fokker boy and give us what we got coming!