Tuesday, October 2, 2018

My Life In Fandom: The Anime Informing #StarKnight

It's not a bad time to be an anime fan in the West. Not the best time--that was some years ago--but not that bad either, and hopefully the great days will come again soon.

But what is lacking is an appreciation for the great shows of yesteryear, the classics that defined genres, in the younger cohorts raised on streaming services and the outright glut of material coming out of Japan. It was telling when, some time ago, several of the marks doing reaction videos for Super Robot Wars X didn't recognize Aura Battler Dunbine or Nadia.

And mecha fans? Well, it's no secret that the Real Robot subgenre's dominance--specifically Gundam, with some also-rans--has been nigh-total since Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann over a decade ago. This matters to me because I'm mixing Real and Super Robots with #StarKnight, and I can't just rely on half-assed (memories of) Voltron for maximum impact. That's like writing a Sword & Planet series to an audience that doesn't know John Carter.

So, with a little help from my friends, allies, and associates--you know who you are--I'll spend some posts in the run up to launching Reavers of the Void on the Eastern side of things informing #StarKnight. (Don't you worry, the Western side will get its due.) Not all the time, but at least once a week or so, and if it's available in the US for streaming or sale I'll gladly link to where you can find it.

In the meantime, run on over to TV Tropes and (re-)read the pages on Mecha Shows, Giant Robots, Super Robots, and Real Robots. Oh, and some Space Operas, because those massive fleets didn't come from nowhere. As for some other common tropes, like The Power of Love in Music, that I can do upon request.

We'll come back to this later this week.

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