I wonder if young people who watch channels like these can actually understand how INSANE it was to be into anime in the 80s and early 90s. It was as crazy as being into, like MOON ROCKS or something, right now. It was this thing that you couldn't really find anywhere and if you did, you had little to no control over what you found. If you got into a series, there was no guarantee that you could even find 2 continuous episodes. Most people had collections of shows that were like episodes, 1, 3, 7, 9, 14 and 27. And it cost a fortune just to get THAT much.
I still have my star blazers comic books from issue #0 through 30. I am shocked someone else knows about that show. I got into star blazers many many years ago growing up. I also remember buying anime vhs tapes from video store chains like suncoast video in the mall. Forgot the names of some of them but I recall them costing a fortune per tape, but I bought my first vampire anime among other genre's from stores like that in the late 80's and early 90's. I always thought that I was one of the few people into it growing up, but I guess it was just a new thing growing up on the east coast of the states.It took a while before anime became somewhat more mainstream here in the USA. I always felt like a outcast of sorts for liking this genre of entertainment and later on stopped watching for a while. All these years later I am rediscovering all the old shows and movies I used to love while also catching up on all the stuff I missed because I could never really find friends that were into anime growing up. Thanks for sharing your collection with us.
I can relate to your collection sir. I have (probably way too many) art books ranging from the old-school to the new-school of today. It's awesome getting to see what other enthusiasts have.
wow i thought i was the only one who had seen Arion, nobody ever talks about it. Great collection. I don't have many art books but they're essentially the pure essence of why I collect, pages filled with memories. Wings of Honneamise is severely under appreciated in terms of story and animation quality.
+HappyConsoleGamer Very deep stuff indeed! I remember being kinda overwhelmed by the (massive) scope of the story and how deep the film was emotionally, when I watched it in the late 90's, lol. But I want to watch it again. I remember loving the props and clothes designs.
HappyConsoleGamer i remember i watched that movie 8 times in a single week with various friends. you notice so much after a while. like a fish splashing in the water at the edge of the screen, everything is alive. i often use it as an example to people who believe that modern anime looks better simply because of technological improvement. effort and vision are most important
This was a great video at a great time for me as I feel a pull to go rewatch some anime and catch some major titles I missed. This video gave me some great ideas of anime to seek out soon. I have the Langrisser art book. I played a few Langrisser games, with a translation when necessary. Satoshi Urushihara really was amazing. Thanks for this great video.
Iczer-1, Zeorymer, Grey, FiveStarStories, Gall-Force, Dangaioh, BGC ! You have wonderful taste in old-school anime, my friend! I thought I was SO cool collecting back in 1990... But 1985?! You were ahead of me by 5 whole years, amazing! :) I love that you're introducing a whole new wave of younger fans to some of the classics, you're doing the fan-base a wonderful service in doing so. Now these fans can go and search out these older anime and appreciate these gems from a bygone era! Rock on Johnny! (SUPER jealous of your book collection!) ;)
Within the first minute or so of watching this gave me a warm rush of nostalgia, maybe the pain pills contributing a bit too but always enjoy these good old stories, appreciated, thanks always.
Nice collection. I have a couple of those. But I really got into collecting books once I had a more disposable income, so a lot of mine are for newer shows. I see you're a fan of Haurhiko Mikimoto, have you heard he's doing character designs on a new show called Kabaneri of the Iron Blood? I believe it's directed by the guy that did Attack on Titan.
I have tons of Space Battleship Yamato roman albums and one Wakusei Robo Danguard Ace. I'm just a few years older Johnny so Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman) were my first anime as well as Force Five. Great episode!
Haruhiko Mikimoto finally came back to doing character designs for Koutetsujou no Kabaneri which is currently airing. Really nice stuff as usual from him.
Nice collection mate :) I only have but two art books and they are two of the biggest manga/anime series of the 80sFist of the North Star and City hunter both of these series had amazing art Tetsuo Hara is a master artist of the manly action anime genre (DBZ has nothing on it) and Tuskasa Hojo is quite possibly the classiest manga artist to this day, his women characters in particular look stunning.
Nice collection! Mine is rather small in comparison and consists of Cardcaptor Sakura, Patlabor, Detective Conan, and Matantei Loki Ragnarok. I like your assortment of mecha artbooks. Good choices.
Oh wow, a Windaria art book? Such an underrated fantasy classic, needs a re-release bad. The ending of that film gave me the feels. Animation still holds up. You really should watch Rose of Versailles and Utena someday, great shows.
+Klonoa7H Just checked a short clip of Windaria, and the artstyle is gorgeous, the character designs are so elegant, to me this is the sweetspot of awesome mid-80's design, just like Bubblegum Crisis is. Really the kind that I personnally crave. And it also has 2 layers of shading on characters close-ups, wich is always a plus. AND those pastel-y yet vibrant colors that I also love from that era. Will definitly watch it, especially since you guys say that the story is good
You have a lot of robot art books, have you tried the game series Super Robot Wars? They stick all anime robot series together, add a few originals, and mix all the stories together to create one big story.
Hell yeah im so envy right now! Crazy collection, here its so hard and exoensive to get japanese artbooks (thanks god internet exists lol) 80s and 90s were the shit man so much gold
It's the year 2016 - No one really bats an eye at hentai anymore. I mean hell, real people do far more serious stuff with each other or webcam after all and few people bat an eye at that either. I highly recommend Masamune Shirow's artbooks. Absolutely amazing art. Though unlike Satoshi Urushihara, he tends to draw the female body wavefer thin.
I have added everything you mentioned that I have not seen to my to be watched list. I tend to share your tastes minus mecha(they always seem to put me to sleep) thanks!
Always wanted Robotech Art book 1 but never had the money bitd. I did find part 2 with all the fan-made art and felt a little cheated....lol Those books are true treasures. Anime and manga were hard to find. You could only really find them at conventions or specialty shops in the 80's. Hardcore to the end!
as an anime fan i can relate to this stuff even to this day.. and I really like when you say "we can't download this stuff because there was no internet back then" and you are saying that in this show alot, im living in Turkey and im 31years old now and i didn't seen an anime artbook stuff in this country ever! there are some mangas here and there but alot of them just dropped recently maybe 2013-2015s and alot of them just kids stuff, because who ever needs a gory, mature japanese comic book in this country? xD don't even remember seeing just an any artbook not just anime stuff and we are living in 2018.. maybe we are living in 1990s with improved internet connection? :3 sorry for my broken english
That's a great collection of artbooks. Some of my favorite manga is from the mid to late 70s from Go Nagai (especially Devilman and Mazinger). Do you ever get into the really super old-school manga/anime?
+Retro Cynical Having Devilman on VHS was awesome & most stuff with Go Nagai is just pure gold haha for most of this I was wondering if HCG saw or knew of his works
Damn, what a great collection you have there. This item is hard to find in my country, you can't find one in regular book store except kinokuniya. I only have ten art book anime, 6 of them is one piece color walk.
What you felt for Robotech I did for Uchu Senkan Yamato the 1977 movie. I had a dusty VHS copy and I used to watch that shit over and over, and over. It was in japanese and I couldn't understand shit, but didn't matter cause it looked so damn cool.
I'm still waiting for The 20th Anniversary Sailor Moon Art Book to be released. I mean there's hasn't been any news about it for a few years now. You'd think being Sailor Moon is a huge series that influenced other manga artests and anime series you'd think they would keep us updated on it's progress. I know that I would buy it from both Japan and here in America. They said that each version of it was going to have different art and stuff I think. I hope they didn't cancel it.
Just wanted to say love your shows man, keep it up! Did you know that Sega made a new Phantasy Star Online for the PS4, but we won't be getting it outside of Japan.😔
Satoshi Urushihara is an incredible artist, be it hentai or not. It's all so good. The Macross stuff you have is so cool, i'd never watched it before you used to talk it about it all the time, and so glad I did. You're right, theat guy was born to make robots ha.
Can't believe you have a Dragonar art book. Tried to watch it but couldn't stomach the Hong Kong English subs! I have Outlaw Star and the manga it spawned from Future Retro Hero story artbooks I've bought recently but I really recommend the Toshihiro Kawamoto ones if you can find them.
Hey Johnny what do you think about Macross Plus the movie? Got it back when I was like 16 or so and loved it. You have the art book, i'd love to hear your take on it. Such a wickedly good movie and great sound as well.
+RadicalSoul I used to work with a guy who thought it was funny to creep up behind you while working and whisper to you "I'm going in dryyy". Guy was fucking creepy haha
Hey Johnny. I've heard you talk about anime for years now. I was introduced to it in the early nineties by Vampire Hunter D on the Sci Fi Channel. I,ve never heard you talk about VHD. Do you have any thoughts on it? Yay or nay?
Lol dude most of those books are like as old as I am... Pretty awesome. I'm curious though do you watch any newer anime series at all? (Aside from AOT.) As much as the anime market has become oversaturated there is still amazing series coming out all the time, I would love to hear you talk about newer stuff you like... Though I guess your focus is more on retro stuff.
Johnny, do you give a high recommendation for Gall Force? I'm a huge Ken'ichi Sonoda fan, and when a series has character designs done by him it piques my interest. And you're not alone : I also love Dirty Pair to death! The movie "Project Eden" and the OVA series "Dirty Pair 2" (a.k.a. "Original Dirty Pair") are phenomenal. It's very light-hearted (wich is actually a strenght I think) and is actually a very solid detective/action show. The pacing and storytelling are both excellent. Plus the characters are so well drawn, and animated. Very few show have girls drawn as good as Kei and Yuri! They're both hot af! Also I really want to look at that artbook by the guy who did Langrisser. That illustration on the cover has some extreeeeemelly well drawn girls so I'd like to see more art from him And no I'm not just saying that because it's an hentai book, lol ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
You mean Satoshi Urushihara? I love his style too but not so much all his hentai stuff. I'm fine with some bare boobs and nudity but his characters all look too cute and innocent for sex scenes. You can really tell that he designed Vision in the Double Vision episode of Bubblegum Crisis. Fits unexpectedly well with Sonoda's designs on the rest of the series.
Yes I just found out his name after a bit of research! I really like his drawing style and his colouring. His female character designs are great of course. Oh cool, I didn't know about Vision! Yeah it really meshes well Sonoda's designs.
FinalBaton Some of the animes he's worked on have great colours too. I once spent an entire day adjusting my grandfather's old CRT TV's colours, brightness and gamma to get my VHS recording of Plastic little to look just about better than the official DVD quality.
+Tanerion That's awesome! Love to hear a story like that I'm a big CRT fan, in fact I still have a big professional CRT monitor that gives an unbelievable picture, and I watch anime on it too! VHS look its best on a CRT for sure. I love to tweak settings on TVs to get the best picture, so I would have done the same as you. Isn't it exciting when you manage to get the best image you can on a CRT? If you're like me, I'm sure you were thrilled to no end to be watching your copy of the anime with great colors, and that wonderful CRT glow.
FinalBaton Yeah I saved the settings and used them whenever I watched anime. Getting it right on that particular anime was something special though since I was watching it in the summer and it takes place in a sub-tropical setting and the colours really made it feel like it was a warm climate. I keep a few CRTs around as well for my old consoles and laserdisc players. Don't know if you've found out already but some of the girls from Plastic little were on the cover of Johnny's artbook btw.
