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Wasn't the LAC featured on TV?
(Posted on Friday, 3 August 2001 by Dragon)
Yes, we were featured as part of Channel 4's Dope Sheet. This is a transcript of the programme...
[Voice Over]
But first it's time to find out what's hot and what?s not in the world of Japanese Anime. Anime may be big in Japan, but in England, the only people who know anything about it are it's hardcore fans. Dope Sheet decided to catch up with some of them on a summers day in London.
[Dragon]
My name is Dave Cotterill. I'm the President of the London Anime Club, and we meet here at the Daiwa Foundation twice a month.
When you first arrive at the London Anime Club, we have a general meeting room here, where everybody comes together to meet old friends, to meet new friends. We have a meeting here twice a month. It gives people chance to come here after work on the Thursday or come in from Birmingham, Cambridge, or from even further afield. Today we have some people from Hull.
The typical fan of anime is anybody with a very good imagination. The word of anime covers absolutely everything you can think of. Sports, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Drama, Action Adventure... anything!
[Jake Laverde]
And here people witness... an anime fan with a girlfriend.
[Interview: David 'Dragon' Cotterill. Website Designer]
Initially the anime world has received a lot of bad publicity. People have got the impression that it's very sexist and very violent.
[Clip: Lain Experimental Series (Kids). Courtesy of Pioneer Entertainment Ltd.]
Lain: Mmm. It's wrong.
But this is such a small amount of the anime world. You may as well say that anything that comes out of the Hollywood factory is sexist or violent.
Lain: It's becoming something else... Mmm... Not me.
Where for example, are the Dead Poets Society's and the Dances with Wolves of the Anime world? There out there, but you have to search to find them.
[Interview. Andrew Osmond. Freelance Journalist]
The best kinds of Anime are those that take risks. They explore subject matter that you just wouldn't find in most animation in America and not even Britain.
[Clip: Kite. Courtesy of Media Blasters]
[Interview: Philip Bond. (Real name Peter Bird) L.A.C. Treasurer]
The stories themselves are very carefully crafted, they're very well designed. They hang together so well.
[Clip: Dragon Half. Courtesy of A.D. Vision]
Red Lightning: Bitch! You dare challenge the Red Lightning?
Mother: Oh shut up!
RL: That hurt!
Mink: Mom, Dad, stop that!
I cannot think of too many films that can really handle three or four separate major plots and cope with them. But it's commonplace with Anime.
Mink: That Saucer! Dick Saucer!
[Interview: Duncan Law-Green, Research Astro Physicist]
There is a great diversity of Japanese animation as it's produced in Japan. We just don't see a lot of the slap-stick comedy, the soap operas, the romance. Generally the softer side of Japanese animation. Which if people could see it would have a very wide appeal.
[Clip. Whimsical Orange Road. Courtesy of AnimEigo]
[Interview: Ian Dunkley. (Real name Dave Dammerell)]
In this country Manga Video had an enormous success With Legend of the Overfiend.
[Clip: Legend of the Overfiend. Courtesy of Manga Entertainment]
Which, although the original is still a disgusting work, its one with a fairly strong plot. And what been done in terms of an atrocious translation into English, fairly lousy dubbing and the BBFC making extensive cuts, is that it i's still disgusting, but no longer has a plot. They've removes its merits with removing its vices, and as a result people think of anime as basically tentacle porn. That's the kind of people who buy it, so that's the kind you get a success by releasing.
[Interview: Wednesday]
Sailormoon! It's probably one of the better known anime series at the moment in North America, and not sure if quite as much here.
[Clip: Sailor Moon, Courtesy of DIC Entertainment]
An atrocious hack job and adaptation was done for the English market in North America, and most English speaking fans think, you know, it's a dreadful thing for little girls. What we in fact have in the Japanese is a fairly solid love story, strong lesbian and trans-gendered characters in the last three seasons. And something very intricate and delicate that I am petrified of seeing further adapted into English.
[Interview: Dragon]
Whether to sub, or whether to dub. The problem is with the language barrier. Many people prefer to see their films in English. Fans have a tendency to see it in the original language, which means that we have to subtitle all of the films that we show.
[DLG]
I prefer to see the anime as the Japanese producers originally intended it. I also find that the Japanese voice actors can act, rather better in many cases than the English voice actors can.
[Voice Over]
However some fans take the microphone into their own hands and record their own voiceovers onto films that are neither dubbed nor subbed.
[Emmiline] Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.
My Knife.
I'm warning you.
Don't cut my throat. I already cut it shaving this morning.
[Interview: Chris Plaice, Betting Shop Manager]
I first came across anime by seeing Akira. As a kind of side effect of that I started looking into the culture as well. Like why is it so popular over there? They'll show cartoons - anime - at main time TV times. 7 O?clock on a Friday night. That will never happen in this country.
[Clip: Gunsmith Cats, Courtesy of A.D. Vision]
I'm not entirely sure why it's that popular but I think a lot of it is because of the large eye style. Which basically is like the first westerners when they came to Japan. Japanese have small eyes. They'd not seen anything like [it]. So what we consider as normal size eyes, to them they probably perceived as large eyes.
[Clip: Obnoxious Aliens, Courtesy of AnimeEigo and Fuji C4reative]
[Interview: Jake Laverde]
My favourite kind of anime is more retro stuff. Something like Urusei Yatsura - Those obnoxious aliens. You have the main character, Lum. Who?s kind of a
Marilyn Munro'esque figure for anime in general. She a very fun character. She's almost like a typical girl. She can get happy, sad, or at times incredibly violent, but there is always something that makes you want to take her up, and to take you up in her arms, and hug her to death.
[Interview: Oliver Barder, President of Hull Anime Institute]
A good series, like a good recent series like Cowboy Beebop, which is the equivalent of Shaft in Space. Think like Bullet animated.
[Clip: Cowboy Beebop, Courtesy Sunrise Inc.]
Very, very cool.
Giant Robots! Big Giant Robots!
[Clip: Macross Plus, Courtesy of Manga Entertainment]
Big Giant Robots are really huge in Japan. They're like "the thing". What really got me into animation full stop, was a series called Macross Plus. The opening fight in an asteroid field... that just blew me away. The choreography was just amazing.
[Interview: Dragon]
Anime is becoming a bit more well known in the public awareness now. So now people are beginning to realise that it's not all the sex and violence that originally came around. But now it's been accepted a lot better.
[Clip: Kite]
They look weird, yet really beautiful.
They're... made from the blood of my papa and mama.
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