Classic, repetitiveness, and 90s OVA

[Fireminer]

One of my personal beliefs is that a work of art, whether is it a novel, painting, or a song, needs not only the quality (though it is still the most important thing) but also the repeating discussion and examination for it to be considered a classic. Sure, there are popular arts that lasted for centuries which people can still identify, but I think that classics different from them on whether could the audiences find the works resonating through group contemplation.

Anyway, I happened to know that OVA were an important things to American anime fans back in the late 80s - early 90s. There are titles which you were bound to encounter (Project A-Ko and... Devil Hunter Yohko?) after being in the circle for some times then. To many people, these rented OVA proved to be their gateway drug to anime.

But that brought me to my point: How were OVA, even them, seemingly to be quickly forgotten? There were certainly gems and rocks, but even the gems did not seemed to me that they had gained a status that demanded any anime fan 10-20 years after their release to watch them, unlike anime theatrical releases or TV series.

So, I have two theories here that really need your opinions:

- Back in the early 1990s, OVA were mostly consumed as tapes circulation through video renting stores, which meant that not a lot of people could watch the show at the same time, unlike if the shows were shown in theatres or the TV. This in turn lowered the number of fans who could join the discussions at anytime.

- It is the same thing as with direct-to-dvd movies, which have the stigmata of being lowered quality than theatrical releases and could barely generate any discussion among the fans, who were busied with consuming all the big hits now could be seen in their home and could not spend more time or money for the OVA.

(I really hope my second point is wrong, because it contradicts what I heard from a number of old-school fans: They all thought most of the Japanese OVA in the 80s and the 90s being licensed in the States were regarded highly on their quality. Some went as far as to say many OVA was heads-and-tails over most contemporary US cartoons at the time.)

[SeijiSensei]

Most works of popular culture leave little trace. My daughter (now 26) knew about many more older movies than any of her friends only because I made a point of showing them to her. If I had asked any of them whether they had seen Citizen Kane or Some Like It Hot, I'd have gotten blank stares.

TV shows are equally transitory. In the US, Homicide: Life on the Street and Picket Fences were two of the best shows ever produced. Hardly anyone mentions them today.

[Fireminer]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Most works of popular culture leave little trace. My daughter (now 26) knew about many more older movies than any of her friends only because I made a point of showing them to her. If I had asked any of them whether they had seen Citizen Kane or Some Like It Hot, I'd have gotten blank stares.

TV shows are equally transitory. In the US, Homicide: Life on the Street and Picket Fences were two of the best shows ever produced. Hardly anyone mentions them today.

Your post aligns with what I have said, though what I want to stress here is "time" and "choices". Basically, back in the old days, when anime brought overseas were rare, audiences had the time to systematically consume and then dissect the shows with their fellow fans, who had watched the same shows as he/she had. That was what created the "classics".

(The process you mentioned happened back then just as it does now, but the matter to me is that the speed which it happens is simply too fast. It's almost impossible for a TV anime series to become a classic nowadays.)

What I want to say that OVA seems to fare worse in this regard to TV serials and theatrical releases, that's just all. To me, most of them feel like closed story that leave relatively little for interpretation and therefore ongoing discussion.

[SeijiSensei]

With some forty or more shows each quarter, what else might you expect?

The OVA audience from the 80s was minuscule, and what few of them remain in the audience today are just a tiny sliver of the modern audience. Also, OVAs were designed to tell a closed story because there was no certainty any more episodes would be produced.

I guess I just don't find any of this surprising.

[Fireminer]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

With some forty or more shows each quarter, what else might you expect?

The OVA audience from the 80s was minuscule, and what few of them remain in the audience today are just a tiny sliver of the modern audience. Also, OVAs were designed to tell a closed story because there was no certainty any more episodes would be produced.

I guess I just don't find any of this surprising.

For a new guy like me, it's pretty jarring. Imagine one day you stumble upon an archive of old OVA and realized yourself and your fellow fans are missing a lot.

It's kind of a shame, anyway, because I do think OVA isa wonderful medium with its own unique characteristics. It certainly feels like a better medium for experimental ideas than TV serials (looking at Seraphim Call).

[0cean]

It's because there are no "masterpiece" OVAs. Movies like Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa (1984) didn't only stuck because of the association with Ghibli. It's genuinely a good enough movie to be still good today. If it wasn't, maybe Ghibli wouldn't have flourished.

There are some OVAs that I personally really enjoyed, like Photon (1997), Riding Bean (1989), Armitage III (1995), Yuugen Kaisha (1994), Yagami-kun no Katei no Jijou (1990), Shounan Jun'ai-gumi! (1994), Golden Boy (1995), AIKa (1997), .... the list goes on, I know about a thousand OVAs from before 1999 that ain't porn. But even about the very best of them, all I can say is that I really enjoyed watching them. Except for Armitage III they don't come to mind when thinking about "masterpieces".

[Solace]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Most works of popular culture leave little trace. My daughter (now 26) knew about many more older movies than any of her friends only because I made a point of showing them to her. If I had asked any of them whether they had seen Citizen Kane or Some Like It Hot, I'd have gotten blank stares.

TV shows are equally transitory. In the US, Homicide: Life on the Street and Picket Fences were two of the best shows ever produced. Hardly anyone mentions them today.

While it's a good point to pop culture changing, I would also say that there's some other reasons why this is true. For one, search engines have changed. They no longer prioritize searching and discoverability, but instead they resemble a feeding trough. It's an intentional change but an important one.

Second, services like Netflix have effectively crushed the idea that you leave your house, go somewhere that provides you with something entertaining, but if their inventory on hand is limited and you can only pick what is available. That's how I discovered Blockbuster's anime OVA selection. Wanted to rent something new, nothing interesting was checked in, so I searched the sections and stumbled across...Project A-KO? I think? There were some others. Armitage, City Hunter, Bubblegum Crisis. Good times. It was like discovering a whole new world.

But I don't think modern media services create those conditions anymore. I won't say what exists now is better or worse. The selection is better. I think the system has increasingly fewer reasons for people to leave their comfort zone and try new things, though.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Man, reading this thread makes me miss the golden days of 80s-90s OVAs. Most of them might not be masterpieces or even good anime, but they are bundles of crazy fun (like some really tasty fast-food out there) which don't waste too much time since they rarely went beyond 8 episodes. Not to mention strong gritty visuals and very nice hand-drawn animation. Here's a recent review of one of those OVAs:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/meX5eRFLk7M

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

All that said, there are definitely gems among those OVAs like Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Macross Plus, Ao no Roku-go, Gunsmith Cats, Robot Carnival, etc which deserve a watch even for today's generation who already consider anime from the 2000s as old shows.

[0cean]

Originally Posted by Solace

They no longer prioritize searching and discoverability

If you want that experience back, there's https://wiby.me/
Good fun to be had with that one.


Another thing that's sad about those old OVAs is that not very many of them have received blu-ray releases. For a whole lot your best option will be Laserdisc. Fifteen years ago it wasn't that much of an issue, because most people would watch on CRT anyway, so even the difference between VHS and those early DVDs (which were shit) wasn't all that big. But nowadays just the terrible quality is a huge turn-off. See for example this comparison for a 1993 OVA that actually got a BD release.