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Growing up in the 80s, anime would you believe they called it Japanimation
at that time? was a legend of quality in a race-to-the-bottom world of brutal
cost-cutting shortcuts in Western animation. At the same time it was present
everywhere flying in stealth mode, repackaged and rebranded for western
audiences like Rankin/Bass The Hobbit or The Last Unicorn both animated by
Topcraft, or done as work for hire like the G.I. Joe, Transformers, Dungeons
and Dragons, and TMNT cartoons animated by Toei. All we knew is that it
looked amazing and we wanted to watch more, but to get a line on the good
stuff you might have to join a university club dedicated to importing
subtitled NOT dubbed copies of iconic OVAs, one that likely met right next
door to the demoparty-hosting computer graphics club or the tech model
railway club that lay down the fundamentals of hacker culture. There you
would learn the sobering truth that unlike in North America, you couldnt
assume in Japan that just because something is animated, that it was for the
enjoyment of kids. Then some Western perverts found extremely sus strong
motivation to become fluent in the Japanese language and fully conversant in
its culture as quickly as possible, briefly giving their peers the impression
that no Japanese animation was suitable for kids, which was also a very
incorrect conclusion to draw, ultimately overturned by the pervasive and
widespread appeal of Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and Naruto.
To the online kids in the 90s, anime was a niche interest, present in
artpacks as a tertiary influence on par with hip hop and heavy metal album
art, but way behind the inescapable drum beat of comic books. It captured
the imagination of black-outline innovator Noel Gamboa, but dialing out from
area code 604, for lack of releases by Japanese artgroups we would only catch
hints of anime and the manga comics that inspired them reaching us by
peculiarly circuitous routes, via Quebec by way of Frances bande dessinee
culture from artists such as Young and locally from artists with stronger
cultural ties to Hong Kong such as Visionary and Darkforce. Anime manifested
in our Mist Classic artpacks, but only at a baseline background radiation
level. By the time we returned for our second swing at things in 2014, it
was no longer a special subcultural current -- anime was by then just a part
of global culture. Consequently, we have never released an artpack
specialising in this theme I dont believe that anyone has! until now.
We havent necessarily kept up with breaking developments in the field
practically a full-time job given its scale today, but the old cranks in
the Mistigris computer art community and the young cranks aspirationally
taking up the hobbies of the old to prematurely age themselves have
attempted to look back and celebrate the classics of the genre as we remember
them: Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Serial Experiments: Lain and a hell of a lot of
Studio Ghibli work. Then Horsenburger, who is a little older, says Stand
aside, whippersnappers, you have to go back to the 70s for the OG anime
classics like Battle of the Planets!
AtonalOsprey, Cthulu and MC Fresher weigh in with several screens
demonstrating their taste in anime. Nitron, who we only just missed meeting
in area code 604 last week, represents with a single, perfect specimen, but
he draws anime subjects all year round so were just lucky to land such a
practiced hand! Similarly Zeus II draws anime screens practically nonstop on
a purely commissionned basis, so he got a free pass out of participating in
this pack. Also an exciting development on the Mist pack contribution front,
we are thrilled to be sharing art from Picrotoxin again after a five-year
hiatus. Thanks to Cth and Picrotoxin for sharing the DIZ and infofile art
used in this pack, and a big thanks to LDA and Consolejockey for helping us
to polish off a few WIPs just before release.
Thanks everyone for joining us in our voyage to Japan, and once this pack
drops, keep your eyes open for the debut release of Pizzatoe coming up
imminently!
PS, apologies for the extreme delay in this packs release -- I got
sidetracked watching Suzume with my family! Its a very on-brand excuse.