Tuesday, September 29, 2009

More Gundam Stuff: When 14-year-olds Saved the World


So, to put a temporary end to all this giant robotness on this blog, I figured I'd go into the wayback machine and share with you a column on Japanese giant robot anime that I wrote back in June 1999 for my friend Aaron Barnhart's TV Barn web site.

When 14-year-olds Saved the World
By John Zipperer

(June 15, 1999) In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when American animation viewers were watching such uninspired TV fare as Superfriends and Scooby-Doo, Japanese and other Asian audiences were treated to the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam. As Americans would later discover from watching bootleg copies of Gundam, their Pacific Rim counterparts had the better deal. More recently the series has resurfaced in legit form. To watch these vintage Gundam episodes is to realize how poorly served American audiences have been by their animation studios until very recently. In the spirit of this season of repeats, here's a summer project that will be both enjoyable and educational. Let's look at what we Americans have missed.

[Read the complete article here on my main web site.]

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