Notaku 2.0 reaches double-digits this week, as I host a wide-ranging episode with a deep dive on anime’s most influential series. It’s a new season, so Setsuken and I also expand our “What We’re Watching” section to focus on a week of premieres. And of course theres news, manga, haiku, and listener questions.
Keep those questions coming!
Timecodes:
Introduction & Feedback – 0:13
What We’re Watching – 10:05
Anime and Manga News – 33:18
The Most Influential Anime Ever – 1:10:23
Manga Recommendation Corner (Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu) – 1:43:43
Haiku Challenge – 1:52:55
Listener Questions – 1:57:53
Sign-off – 2:07:05
Red
October 13, 2020 at 10:57 pmI’ve gotta add the Jojo series mostly for the memes and to a lesser and different extent, Slam Dunk since it influenced the growth of basketball mostly around Asia (not quite sure of its effect in the Americas or Europe though).
Guardian Enzo
October 13, 2020 at 11:42 pmI did think about JoJo, and you could make a pretty good case. Slam Dunk is an interesting call, because the argument is based almost entirely on influence beyond anime itself (where I don’t honestly think it’s been all that influential). For that matter, I think Haikyuu has single-handedly made volleyball popular with an entire generation of young Asians, especially girls.
Princess Usagi
October 14, 2020 at 4:45 amI would definitely agree about Sailor Moon and Pokemon; those were the 1st animes that I watched as a kid (and I still absolutely love Sailor Moon)! There are many people in my generation, even non-Anime fans, who still talk about growing up with Sailor Moon, which I find so fascinating how certain Animes reached such a wide ranging appeal. As a child, Tuxedo Mask never creeped me out- I was actually infatuated with him as my 1st crush! Interestingly enough, the age gap between Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask is less in the manga vs the anime; in the manga he is 18 and shown to attend high school, while she is 14. In the anime, they made him a 19 or 20 year old college student and she is still 14; definitely an uncomfortable age difference if I think too much about it!
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2020 at 7:30 amTakeuchi just likes to mess with expectations, same as Togashi.
Princess Usagi
October 15, 2020 at 6:14 amYour discussion of Shinji Ikari (great Haiku, by the way!) got me thinking about whiny characters. Shinji actually reminds me a little of Sailor Moon, in that she also whines a lot and is initially reluctant to fight. Even though that can be grating over time, I feel it is also a more realistic reaction to being suddenly faced with a fight against frightening enemies with everyone’s safety depending on you. I would cry and be reluctant too if, without training, I was told to pilot a giant, fighting robot or moon tiara the heck out of monsters (all that on top of teen emotions and family problems).
I am curious, for you and Setsuken, are there anime characters that you hated in the beginning, but by the end of the show they had grown on you?
Guardian Enzo
October 15, 2020 at 8:31 amIt’s always been my contention that if you don’t get Shinji, you don’t get Eva. He’s the one in the cast who actually reacts in a normal, sane way to what’s going on around him.
Blatrix
October 14, 2020 at 8:01 pmSetsukens presidential pick made me laugh hah. There is not any candidate that clearly jumps to mind if I were to pick. Maybe one of the brothers of Space Brothers? I would think someone with some level of emotional intelligence and general intelligence would be good. Maybe Yona towards the latter part of Yona of the Dawn? It’s a hard one when you also know all their weaknesses 😀
You asked what resonated with the topic last week. For me I just thought the topic was interesting. I had been thinking about that beforehand. Why other people thought the same thing is harder to answer.
Maybe it is because “Who owns a story?” is a question everyone can have an opinion on, but it is still vague enough that it will generate different opinions.
For example, if the topic is about isekai alone, it will not generate excitement among people who are not into the genre. That would be my guess without being able to look at the traffic.
About the topic of the week, I pretty much agree with all of your examples. When I think important I generally think about what was most influential on later works. And as you mentioned its also has a tight relationship with what is popular, although not neccesarily. You mentioned all the ones I would have like Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Astro Boy, Evangelion, Nausicaa, Cowboy Bebob, Akira etc. If I would chime in I would mention maybe some modern ones like Haruhi for light novel adaptions and Sword Art Online for the isekai genre.
I do think an anime can be important without it being influential if it can bring in a new audience. You mentioned Sailor moon and Death Note for bringing in a new audience, and I would also add Saint Seiya which was very popular in latin america.
To kind of turn the question on its head I’m wondering why One Piece is not imitated more, considering the juggernaught of a property it is. It was my gateway into anime because the manga was very popular among me and my friends. But in terms of noticable influence I see very little even in the manga space. I mean there are Toriko and Fairy tail, but Toriko got cancelled and I guess Fairy Tail did end up somewhat succesful, just not for me. However One Piece is probably influential in other ways that are not immediately noticable.
Guardian Enzo
October 14, 2020 at 8:06 pmI just don’t think One Piece breaks enough new ground to give imitators much to go on.
Blastrix
October 15, 2020 at 2:53 amI don’t know. I think I disagree with that statement. I mean One Piece is certainly very stylized in both art and character designs and with the popularity it has had the last 2 decades I would have guessed more mangas would at least imitate that. Storywise I would have to contemplate a bit. The themes might not be that unique, but the manga felt very different from its shounen contemporaries in the 2000s. Today I’m not so sure. I dont read that many shounen anymore. Also, I may be colored a bit by the fact that it was one of my first forrays into japanese media 😀 It is just hard to view something objectively when there is love involved 😛
Speaking of love, I plan to watch Seirei no Moribito based on your love, after I’m done with The Great Pretender. It’s cool to know that there are still gems out there I havent watched 😀
Guardian Enzo
October 15, 2020 at 8:32 amYou’ll love it.
Riv
October 15, 2020 at 11:00 amGreat episode, as always–I look forward to them every week! A question for a future podcast: I’m curious about how and why the structure of the anime tv schedule came into being. Has it always been broken into the four seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall)? If not, when did that start? Is that breakdown why a series usually has around 12-13 episodes per cour? Or did the 12-13 episode cour arise first and contribute to having the seasonal division? It’s obviously quite different from the old U.S. network TV scheduling system that has a long season stretching from fall to spring usually, but with weeks where there are no new episodes.
Guardian Enzo
October 15, 2020 at 12:22 pmGood question! I’ll take a stab at it next week.