- Host: Daryl Surat
- Time: May 23, 12:30-1:30
It’s impossible to really state just how much the anime world has changed in the past thirty years. In 1995, the North American industry as we know it was in its infancy; companies like Central Park Media, Funimation, and ADV Films were still building their infrastructure and exploring what “ticked” in the greater anime market, as tapes sold for between $20 and $30 as a matter of course. Anime news was shared through magazines or newsgroups like Usenet and Fidonet, and many of the standards for the latter were flexible on the best of days.
The biggest vectors for new fans were syndicated TV networks and the Sci-Fi channel, as titles like Dragon Ball Z and Vampire Hunter D became fan-favorite darlings. Meanwhile, Sailor Moon was tearing up the Canadian charts, becoming one of YTV’s biggest titles nationwide.
This is the backdrop to which Daryl Surat set his panel, “30 Years Ago: Anime In 1995.” His “30 years ago” series has been a staple at the conventions he panels at, and offers audiences new and old a chance to revisit the bygone eras of three decades ago, guided by Surat’s knowledge and acerbic wit.
Surat opened the panel with a brief introduction, joking that the Anime World Order podcast was “roughly Anime Boston years old.” He noted that the shows he covers in the panel would be “stuff from thirty years ago, much of which is going to be significant, [but] not all of it.” He laid down ground rules, adding that “from 1995” means that the show started in that year.
With the basics taken care of, Surat set the scene with a brief history of events that helped to define the year 1995, including the O.J. Simpson trial, the launch window for the Sony PlayStation, the Million Man March, and the launch of Windows 95.
It’s against this backdrop that Surat began talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion, jokingly noting that “Megumi Hayashibara was in freakin’ everything in the 1990s” before explaining that the world still lived in the title’s shadow. He explained the show’s roots as a direct homage to Ultraman, while throwing shade at the tens of thousands of essays that attempt to prescribe deeper religious meanings to the work. Surat’s biting sense of humor worked well when explaining this, and became particularly apparent when he described the show’s legal status. “You can watch Evangelion on Netflix,” he exclaimed, “you can buy the Blu-Rays, you can watch the shows that are ripping off Evangelion […] and it’s all powered by Pachinko!”
He closed the section off with a clip of Asuka and Shinji’s synchronized angel kill from the series’ ninth episode.
This first title set the tone for the rest of the event, as Surat talked up an additional seventeen titles, which ranged from iconic works like Gundam Wing, Ghost in the Shell, and The Slayers, to under-the-radar favorites like Elf Princess Rane and Nurse Angel Ririka SOS.
Despite only having two minutes per show, Surat’s knowledge and research shone through as he delivered a tight, well-researched treatment of each series. His visual aids, which ranged from photos and slides to videos, were well composed, and his clips did a fantastic job of giving attendees an idea of what each show brought to the table while being genuinely entertaining.
For example, when discussing Ghost in the Shell, Surat pulled information from a range of sources, which included books and even previous DVD releases. For the clip, he queued up a scene depicting Major Kusanagi fighting hand-to-hand against a camouflaged cyborg in the rain, her opponent showing as a barely visible silhouette. As the clip was rolling, he remarked that director Mamoru Oshii “loved him some Virtua Fighter,” and pointed out the similarities of the animation and the scene to a fight between Vanessa Bryant and Dural.
Likewise, when discussing Fushigi Yugi, Surat was quick to explore the title’s impact in the greater fansub scene. He remarked that “entire fansub tape networks went live nationwide” thanks to the show. And indeed, Fushigi Yugi’s fansubs were popular enough that Pioneer cited their popularity as a factor for their 1999 release of the show, and that fansub groups fought over beefs related to it. Surat was also quick to note that the show had “content warnings for basically everything that happens” in the series, which was not far removed from the truth.
Arguably, the biggest surprise of the panel was Surat’s discussion of Studio Ghibli’s On Your Mark music video, which Surat described as “sort of a choose your own adventure” experience, which offered both sad and happy endings. The title was never released in North America and only saw limited home video releases in Japan, partly due to Aska, from On Your Mark performers Chage and Aska, being arrested for alleged possession of MDMA and methamphetamines.
Overall, the panel proved to be a genuinely fun experience. Surat’s effortless recall of facts and figures about works like Gunsmith Cats and Armitage III was impressive, while his strong stage presence helped to keep the overall presentation from feeling dense.
