Wednesday, March 9, 2016

T5W#30-Top 5 Classic Adult Swim Anime


Last week, we took a look at the Anime Block for the younger generation.  This week, I’m taking a look at the shows that kickstarted the late night, uncut Anime goodness for those of us who craved it.  Now as a guideline I set for myself, I’m only picking Anime from the first five or so years of Adult Swim’s existence.  Some background: Adult Swim debuted back in 2001 as a late night comedy/action/adult cartoon block for Cartoon Network.  With the monstrous success of their first Anime airing, Cowboy Bebop, Adult Swim branched off their Anime into a whole separate night, at the start Saturdays.  This would go on to become a hugely successful endevour and today, Adult Swim’s Anime has merged with a newly resurrected Toonami (though I still consider it Adult Swim).  So yeah, the block’s come a long way.  So I’m looking back at the shows that signaled for all kids to get out of the pool.

 
#5-Blue Gender
It’s Starship Troopers with a darker, scarier psychological edge.  The adventures of Yuji and Marlene in this post apocalyptic, bug infested planet Earth both excited and genuinely terrified me when I first watched it.  I suppose it turned out a lot like The Walking Dead, when the real problem ended up not being the giant bugs roaming the Earth, but Humanity itself becoming one of the worst evils on the planet.  Adult Swim never did a lot of horror based Anime back then.  Blue Gender was a fine test into this genre backed with the addition of action and mecha scifi story telling.  And wouldn’t you know it, some of the images seen were just down right haunting.  No wonder I couldn’t get to sleep after watching an episode.

 
#4-Inuyasha
While I did lose a little interest later in, the first few seasons of this show were great.  A half human/half dog demon hybrid teaming up with a cute school girl from the present was a match made in destiny.  Inuyasha was an arrogant but loveable guy and Kagome was too pretty to ignore.  Factor in a smooth talking monk named Miroku and a sexy demon slayer in black and pink named Sango and I was ready to watch more and more adventures every week.  The romance worked as well as the action.  Inuyasha and Kagome still stand as one of my favorite couples in all of Anime and their relationship is pretty well explored come series end.  I don’t think Inuyasha was my first fantasy Anime (I think I might’ve seen Record of Lodoss War right before or after this, I don’t remember really), but it’s still one of my favorites, if only for the cast.
 

#3-Fullmetal Alchemist
It was a tough call between this one and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (both debuted on Adult Swim at the same time).  While GITS will always be a hit with me, no matter the incarnation, there was something most special about FMA when it first debuted.  I once heard someone tell me this show was the successor to Dragon Ball Z here in the States.  He was right but not in the way I expected.  The action on FMA was great but it wasn’t the main focus of the show.  The tightly knit brotherhood between metallic limbed Edward and his soul armored brother, Alphonse, really drove home with me and many others.  You cheered when they won and cried when they lost…especially when they lost big (oh Hughes).  So in a way, that stranger was right.  Fullmetal Alchemist became just as big a name in Anime as Dragon Ball Z and would become one of the big flagship titles of Adult Swim.

 
#2-Cowboy Bebop
The Anime that nursed me into my high school years.  I had heard of Bebop thanks to the sneak peak trailers on the Gundam Wing VHS tapes that I owned.  I mustve watched those trailers a million times.  So I knew what the show was when Adult Swim was first announced.  Boy was I not prepared for its brilliance.  The characters, the action, the music, the storytelling, the genuine feel of cool.  It was like Cowboy Bebop was the title I was always heading for when I got to a certain age.  Like Dragon Ball Z or Code Geass after it, Bebop practically got me to love Anime in a new way.  And it wasn’t just an effect had on me.  Cowboy Bebop became Adult Swim’s first big Anime hit and soon stood as the blocks flagship title, staying in regular rotation almost ten years after it debuted in 2001.  You cant really say any other Anime has had such a success on this block or Toonami.  The legend of the Space Cowboy will never die.

 
#1-FLCL
Bebop got topped?  How?  Well as much as I love it, Cowboy Bebop is not my all time favorite Anime, FLCL is.  It’s so good that I chose it for my one year anniversary review here on Anime Corner (see here: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/flcl-special-one-year-anniversary-review.html).  A guitar sword wielding hottie, robots vs monsters, the best quotes to ever use in life (Ukulele No Good) and the greatest soundtrack ever conceived on a guitar and drum set.  FLCL isn’t just an Anime you can dive into as your first taste of the genre.  No, this is a show meant for long time fans of the Anime, call it a coming of age, graduation test.  In any case, when I first saw this on Adult Swim, I was curious.  When I watched it over again, sad it was only 6 episodes, I was in love.  And thanks to Adult Swim, I know which Anime is my all time favorite.  Challenged often (by good titles too) but never dethroned, Long Live FLCL.

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