Growing up, I remember seeing quick flashes of Japanese cartoon in music videos or in the apartments of the hackers in film. I think even in Hackers (1995) this happens. Probably in one of the scenes that crappy grunge/techno music plays while they…y’know…hack. I remember growing up and being a little creeped out by it, the various miscellaneous screaming faces that seemed to come with the territory of anime. Every one in the shows and movies seemed to be drawn with a weird amount of detail, i.e., veins in neck, veins drawn in the eyes and always seemed to be stressed out and angry. Being that the X-Men animated series grew up watching was almost too much for my eight year old brain to comprehend, Anime was left alone.
This was also true for the first couple years in my teens. I’d thought similar things about the cartoons that I had as a kid, while a girlfriend in my later years summed up the feeling I’d had then perfectly; “Anime? Oh you mean those Japanese cartoons where people who watch them wear cat ears and draw all the time?”
I just…No. Just no.
Adult Swim aired in 2001 and had begun airing many of the cartoons that eventually led to my interest in 2004, when I first laid eyes…on Cowboy Bebop. Read more »
