The Mike Toole Show

The Anniversary Special

This column marks a year since I climbed aboard the Anime News Network intergalactic choo-choo train on a more or less permanent basis. Amazingly, I've only slipped my deadline once, and that was a pretty long time ago [editor's note: some statements in this introduction have been exaggerated for comedic effect]. Some might ascribe this to discipline and time management, but if you've actually worked with me you'll understand two things: First of all, I have a gigantic list of potential topics that I can write about more or less at the drop of a hat. Second, I'm pretty damn good at pulling stories out of my bum at the absolute last second. As proof of that, as I write these words, it is 11:57 PM EDT on Saturday the 22nd. Plenty of time, guys - am I right?

Anyway, this time around, I'm not going to dredge up the name of some half-forgotten technical animation luminary, or drone on at length about robot cartoons, or ramble about how great things were for anime fans when I was eighteen, full of energy, and not yet aware that I was dooming myself to a life full of weird cartoons from Japan that would... er, actually allow me to travel around the world, meet lots of cool people, and make some money! Instead, I'll do two things - first up, I'll talk about a few of the things I've learned from writing this column over the past year. Second, since it's my one year anniversary, I'm going to talk about some of the more interesting and amusing anniversary celebrations in the world of anime.

I'm a pretty experienced writer, but as with all things, I constantly learn new stuff about the craft and about how people react to my borderline obsessive-compulsive chatter. When I started The Galaxy Angel Rune for $1.00 each! Yeah, that's about the right price...), or Tiger & Bunny on the internet, the medium remains as fascinating as ever to me. Every time I think I'm starting to get worn out, something new and amazing comes down the pike, or something old and beloved gets re-issued, or I stumble across a cheap set of something I never got around to watching. I'm looking forward to enjoying more of these stories, and spinning my experiences into stories for all you jerks.

Okay! Let's talk anniversaries. You can start just by looking at my last column, because all of the stuff mentioned there is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any celebrated tie-ins for Discotek last year; I'm kinda hoping that we'll get this (or maybe The Return of Pycal) from them somewhere down the road.

I really want to know what the deal with the "ALL THAT..." phrase is. We got All That Gundam in 1989, and in 2007, we got All That VF, a brief celebration of all things Valkyrie, the iconic transforming jet fighters from the franchise. This short is ittedly a really neat idea, pitching the showcase of every VF from every version of Macross as a special air-show performance. It's a tantalizing little merger of the entire ouvre into a few minutes, and it's altogether too brief. There were other goodies to celebrate Macross's 25th, as well - if you like toys, a whole bevy of new plastic and die-cast Valkyries hit the market. You might've been too young or too dumb to grab that Takatoku Valkyrie way back in the day, but thanks to this, you can get one that's not so different.

We all like to think of Dragon Ball cartoon in more than ten years. The company made these neat little movies available subtitled via a special online player, but when are we gonna see some DVDs? I have an anniversary to celebrate here!

I think the king of the anime anniversary hill has to be Space Battleship Yamato, and I think you can chalk that up entirely to the business acumen of the late Yoshinobu Nishizaki. Nish really introduced the whole idea of anime soundtrack albums as marketable products with the first Yamato LPs, and new music collections seem to come out in various configurations every few years. There's anniversary Yamato toys, movie sets, books, and even luxury goods, like wristwatches. After all, why tell time like a regular person when you can flash your stylish Yamato Cosmo Master watch instead? I think the best Yamato anniversary product has to be the wine, though.

Yep. It's wine. It's Desslok-themed. And it even comes with its own Gamilon wine glass! It's even better than the Yamato anniversary soft drink toys.

So, there you have it - year one. What anime anniversary are you celebrating this year?