For a long time, anime was an inaccessible thing to Western audiences, except for what was available on Toonami in places like the US and UK, or the sneaky, not-so-legal, often expletive-filled Fan subtitles aside, none is really a good way to watch it. Big names like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Sailor Moon and more are popular here, but it’s only in the past decade or so that animation has really become popular outside of Japan Very easy to find stuff.
Especially in the past five years, more and more streaming services are vying for Crunchyroll’s share, with platforms like Netflix even acquiring the rights to anime that will also appear on the aforementioned anime streaming sites. Now you don’t have to watch Goku’s showdown for the millionth time, you can watch, uh, VTuber Legend: How I Got Popular After Forgetting to Turn Off My Live Broadcast, the same day it aired in Japan.
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Honestly, it’s awesome that this season we have Mappa’s remake of the classic gender-bending series Ranma ½ simulcast on Netflix. Of course, if an already good series needs a remake, there needs to be a conversation, and I won’t comment on that right now (maybe another day), but the first episode was already entertaining. It quickly segues into the frenzy you’ve come to expect from the series, with the main character transforming into a girl every time he’s splashed with cold water, and the martial arts-focused action sequences have a nice, classic flow that feels refreshingly fresh. Damn those exaggerated things you usually see (it’s still good to be clear).
Most of all, while watching the first episode, I couldn’t help but think, “Man, I really should watch more of the classics.” That’s one of the difficult things in the age of streaming, is that even if we With all these anime available now, people are more focused on the new content than your actual taste. As a result, most of the conversations you see on sites like Twitter (er, I mean X, I guess) are about anime from the past few years, with no real opportunity to talk about old movies. Really, I hope people who watch Ranma 1/2 can take a moment and think, “Hey, this was really good, maybe I should check out more older anime.”
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I admit, legally it’s not the easiest thing to do due to the aforementioned obstacles, but there’s a lot of fun to be had in old pieces. For starters, the original Ranma 1/2 has some great sequences that aren’t as gorgeous by modern standards, but you can’t help but fall in love with them. 2022 obviously marks the release of the very popular Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, and if you’re a fan of the show, you really should watch the first version of the show – it’s a classic for a reason. OMG, if you’ve ever laughed at a “you’re dead” meme, you should check out where it came from (Fist of the North Star).
The thing is, I haven’t seen all of them either, so this is as much a plea to myself as it is to anyone reading this. I could go on and on about old anime you and I should watch (Dirty Couple, Bubblegum Crisis, Galaxy Express 999, seriously, there’s a lot out there), but I think I find some of them pretty cool too interesting. Go to some niche forums – not the sketchy looking ones – find a “Classics You Must See Before You Die” list and go ham on it. Just don’t be one of those “oh yeah, I like the old anime, the new stuff just doesn’t work for me” type of person, they’re annoying.
