The good ol’ days of animes

Revisit the anime juggernauts of the ’90s which remain watchable to this day

Hyderabad: The ’90s were the first time the world woke up to the dizzying world of animes. Perhaps, it was the time or the novelty of the medium, the ’90s was a golden period for anime franchises as they caught the imagination of the world. Although, viewers now have modern classics to pick from, courtesy so many digital platforms (hello Castlevania), something about the simple but humane stories keeps taking us back to the classics which deserve a visit, and perhaps a revisit.

Before Pokemon Go, the original series Pokemon, which spawned many seasons, introduced the world to the lovable and cuddly Pikachu and its master as they travelled together capturing different Pokemons along the way. It’s a bit dated now, and more suited to children’s taste, but when the anime came out, Pokemon’s likeness showed up in merchandise like soft toys, key chains, lunch boxes, stationary, etc.

Dragon Ball Z remains evergreen to this day, due in part to being sourced from a Japanese manga. However, some fans feel that the anime was bogged down by too many plot holes featuring character lines apart from the main hero Son Goku who defends the Earth against all sorts of aliens, androids and magical creatures. But, its theme song and action figures were very popular at the time.

Cowboy Bebop was ahead of every anime of the period. The adventures of bounty hunter Spike Spiegel and his crew remain Shinichiro Watanabe’s best work. Every episode takes Spike and his crew on a new adventure or misadventure revealing different parts of their personality along the way that made the series such a scintillating watch. The anime remains so popular that Netflix has decided to produce a live-action adaptation now.

Targeted towards the new adult, the anime Blood Plus was inspired by the animated movie Blood: The Last Vampire, the award-winning work by Hiroyuki Kitakubo. The storyline is the same, a schoolgirl in her teens named Saya is charged with hunting blood-eating monsters. She is joined in her quest by her faithful chevalier, Haji. As the name suggests, every encounter Saya has with such monsters is bloody to say the least and always leaves her guilt-ridden at her necessary but violent actions. Spread over 50 episodes, it didn’t romanticise vampire lore which later became a phenomenon in the 2000s.

Yu Yu Hakusho is a story that is timeless and those who watch it today will find it as compelling as the viewers in the ’90s era. The animated series, based on a well-loved manga, revolves around a boy Yusuke Urameshi who is granted a second chance after getting killed in a car accident to become a detective in the afterlife (underworld) and investigate demons and their ilk in the mortal world.

The animation and the story won the Animage Anime Grand Prix Prize for best anime two years running in 1994 and 1995. The characters and battle scenes are some of the best in the genre. Some would even go as far as to say, the modern animes are not a patch on them. So, the next time, nostalgia creeps in, you know which animes to start with.

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