Anime Wink

@animewink.bsky.social

Anime and manga history, nostalgia, and other cool stuff from around the world of anime fandom of the 70s to 20XX! Anime-on-DVD and VHS collector, anime magazine digger, and popular culture explorer. SysOp: @sharkabytes.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ She/her. UK.

Hyperspace gate exit in post-Earth Exodus solar system, 2071. When asked about the gates and how hyperspace works, Shinichiro Watanabe once described it like old movie film, where regular space is the visible frame and hyperspace is the gaps between the frames.

A screenie from the DVD Remix release showing the Bebop emerging from a swirling maelstrom in space. Ships, gate portal infrastructure, amd guidance rings, surround it.

Robotech! Now on Video Cassette in 1985! Just shy of ten bucks apiece. The gateway to wider anime appreciation and fandom for many back then. Which is why I feel it's such an important thing in the annals of anime outside of Japan, despite its infamy of Macross plus other stuff glommed together.

An F.H.E (Family Home Entertainment) ad for Robotech with a very flashy and honestly pretty cool illustration of Rick and Lynn facing off against a battle pod, towering above them as Rick shields her from harm.

Battle stations! Planet Latis is under threat! Lord British reaches out to Planet Gradius and three ace pilots for aid. Salamander, Studio Pierrot's 1988 three episode OVA, adapts the first three games of the Gradius series, adding character and political drama and featuring music from the games.

A screenie of the Salamander logo. A sleek red and white fighter against a background of a curving lava wavePilots in bulbous ships plunge down through the cloudy atmosphere, a close-up of one of the pilots in a clear canopy cockpit wearing a white and green-visor helmet close to the camera.Lord British, a blonde, long-haired pretty boy, considers with fingers curled against his head, the situation of the threats ot his world.

Anime featuring Church-sanctioned witch/vampire/occult hunters seen to have been one of those things that popped up in a little bubble for a few years in the early 2000s. Witch Hunter Robin (2002,Sunrise) is my favourite example of that from the time.

"A World engulfed by darkness. A mission fueled by flames."

A photo of a magazine ad for WHB with the protag and several other characters posed in their trademark long coats, one red, and pistols pointing out from either side of her at the front.

Where it all began for anime OVA's: Hisayuki Toriumi and Mamoru Oshii's Dallos. (1983). Just pipping another production to the post as the first direct-to-video anime, and the first direct-to-video animation anywhere.

A scan of the Bandai Emotion release of Dallos, with a brightly coloured pastel artwork of a brown haired young man holding up a sci-fi rifle up into the air against a nebula star sky.

Anime inspirations: Streets of Fire (1984) Fusing 50s rock-and-roll aesthetics with 80s cybernoir dystopia, SoF was an influential cult hit in Japan. One of the most direct influences can be seen in Bubblegum Crisis, with Priss' performance an homage to SoF's Ellen Aim and the Attackers.

A crt tv screenie of the first episode of Bubblegum Crisis, with Priss the Replicants performing in front of a concert crowd. A snap from Streets of Fire, with Ellen and flanked by a pair of teddy boy rockers and drummer behind her, with a silhouetted crowd in front of her.A snap of Ellen bathed in red light singing in close to a 50s style metal micA shot of Priss close to a similar looking mic, gripping it in hand and seen in profile.

Hentai, bishōjo, and an early online hub for otaku merch: the early years of JAST USA, J-List, and the announcement of Milky House. 📖 : Protoculture Addicts, July 1999

A photo of a page with a promo for the three companies, with a cute female anime character in sailor uniform in the background.

One of the other core isekai series of the 90s: Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi. (1995) Anyone familiar with the series and watched it through may now have "Tamahome!" "Miaka!" "Tamahome!" "Miaka!" ringing in their ears at the mention of it. 📖: DOKAN, Octoner 1998

A poster page from the magazine with a feature on Fushigi Yuugil. Miaka at the centre with several of the other pretty and handsome boys around her.

Mamoru Oshii and Yoshitaka Amano's combined vision of a gothic world drowning in silence and decay. Now back in UK theatres and well worth experiencing on the big screen. 📺: Angel's Egg, 1985

In a red sky, a strange, gigantic orb floats, a glass half open-lidded eye in the middle. Gothic structures jut from its surface, and a chequered floor can be seen below it. A figure stands, with an eldritch, spindly gun turret points toward it. A victorian-esque street of narrow townhouses, aged and decaying. A small girl stands by a grotty looking fountain, in front of which hunched figures, semi substantial, can be seen.

Anime on Commodore Amiga! World of Manga, released in 1993, is an Italian demoscene slideshow 'prod'. There was frequent crossover between the Amiga/ST demoscene and European anime fandom, with both screencaps of popular shows and pixel art fan tributes often shared.

An Amiga AGA pixel artwork of a head-and-shoulders dynamic pose of Venus Wars' Hiro Seno in combat/biker armour,

"The "Right Stuff" has never been so nicely packed!" Ahem. (The Right Stuff refers to post-WWII high-speed test pilots) 801 T.T.S. Airbats (1994-1996, Studio Fantasia) is a seven episode OVA focused around the slice-of-life misadventures of an all-female JSDF acrobatics squadron.

A photo of two of the three VHS releases of dubbed Airbats, with one of the cases flipped to show the promo blurb and tagline.

Soaring from the big screen to videotape in 1993: Porco Rosso. As vintage inter-war aviation is one of other things I'm fond of exploring, Porco is one of my favourite Ghibli movies. 📖: Technopolis, December 1992

A poster ad for Porco Rosso's VHS release, for sale or rental, in 1993. Lovely sunset above the clouds motif.

A snippet from the 1998 dub of Panzer Dragoon OVA (1996) Studio Giants, Production I.G, and a whole mess of other companies doing bits and pieces on it, including Studio DEEN and Gainax. They try to cram a *lot* into a touch over 25 mins.

A manga series (and movie!) that I'd forgotten about, but had a little niggling remembrance of when I watched Girls' Last Tour and saw how that played around with WWII military vehicles. Just couldn't place the name of it until today. Yoshihisa Tagami's Grey (1986).

A screencap of a promo for the Viz published localization from a 1988 issue of ANIMAG

Scrapping off a few cobwebs, and kicking off some new, regular posting with a voyage into infinite space. Pulled from a 2002 Minami CD. 📺: Lost Universe (1998) 🎶: Infinity 👩‍🎤: Megumi Hayashibara

Casting a spotlight on Outlaw Star in September 2000's Animerica. Collectively, this show got a lot of coverage in ani-mags around the world from 98-2000. About as much as its space cousin, Cowboy Bebop.

A photo of a page from Animerica of most of the main cast, including Jim, Aeisha, and Gene.

Two of the personal crown jewels of our anime collection: Image Entertainment's (and US Manga Corps) 1998 two-part DVD release of Record of Lodoss War OVA. If you picked up DVD movies early on, you may remember buying these cardboard and black clippy frames releases.

A photo of the two DVDs alongside on another one a shelf. Deedlit and Parn clinging together are on one and King Cashue is on the other

When he's not observing fiendish scheming of conquest from tall grass or staring into destiny in the setting sun, Metalder is not above delivering boxes of puppies. If you're familiar with VR Troopers, then you've seen bits of this. 📺: Chōjinki Metarudā/Super Android Metalder, 1987

A crt tv screenie from a Club Dorothee special of our toku hero, all shiny and chrome and red and blue, crouching in tall grassHe stares into the setting sun, seen from behind, knowing that his work at thwarting the Neros Empire is done for the day. But they will return for many more episodes yet.A box of small dogs is given to human ally, a camerawoman named 
Mai Ougi, who looks delighted with this canine companion delivery service.

Available for the princely sum of 16,000 yen but on the futuristic format of the 80s, LASERDISC: Daicon III and IV Opening Animations. Unofficially released in 1988 due to legal entanglements, this now rare release compiled the short movies created by animators who'd go on to form GAINAX.

A magazine ad for General Products with Daicon III and IV LD advertised by an enthusiastic bunny girl and chibi school girl giving a v sign, along with some other products including Five Star Stories and DragonQuest.

When Final Fantasy meets Anime. Well, at least by the way of its most famous illustrator: Yoshitaka Amano! More than a hint of Elric of Melniboné in the character design for the titular protag - and in the surreal nature of his world. Fitting stuff for Amano's dreamy art style.

The DVD release artwork for Amon Saga, with a long haired, cloaked swordsman with his sword drawn and extended, seemingly caught in a strong wind against an almost white background