This is surfacing a lot of late though perhaps it is because of the fact that I'm "old school" and notice it more. First though, the definitions. These are generalizations mind you...as there are exceptions to any definition, especially when it is termed with human personality. To be an "old school" anime fan, you are typically older than age 25 and your BIG anime faves tend to be older/classic titles such as Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato, Robotech/Macross, Speed Racer/Mach Go Go Go, Battle of the Planets/Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and Voltron/Go Lion to name a few of the larger series. You remember the times when anime could not be found in stores or outside of USA for that matter except for the dubbed versions that were airing on tv. You may not have even realized that these cartoons were anime/Japanese at all until later in life. All you noticed was that the characters all seemed to have larger than life eyeballs compared to other cartoons of the era. Old School Anime is typically at least a decade old and uses the old style of creation...hand drawn/painted cels. They have no computer or digital animation in them, unless they have been 'updated' to re-release in current times. Many old school fans, such as myself, are very traditional and don't take kindly to the new school, or newer anime titles and styles of production. To be a "new school" anime fan, you are typically direct opposite of an old schooler. You're younger than age 25, didn't know there was a time when anime didn't exist in stores, and could care less about the 'old stuff. ' You simply enjoy gobbling up anything and everything that is recently released or within a genre of interest to you. You love the animation/production styles of the new titles and balk at the 'primitiveness' of any title that is otherwise.

The life of an "old schooler"...

We're not really old...though we are probably among the very first anime fans. Most of us are now in our 30's & 40's...hardly old by today's longetivity standards. We started everything the new schoolers enjoy today. It was us who wrote all those snail mail letters (before the age of email) to production companies,etc. asking for them to release our beloved anime shows onto VHS/Beta or also show us the original versions once we discovered that they were made in Japan and 'censored' once translated or dubbed into english or whatever non-Japanese language spoken in a particular country. We also started up the whole convention thing...taking a page from our parents' fannish Star Trek book since Star Trek fandom was among the most organized at the time. During our teenage years and early 20's there were less than 10 anime conventions in the entire USA. Now there seems to be one every weekend! For us, the easiest way to acquire anime titles once anime became mainstream was to find a VHS rental place that had the category and rent the heck out of it. Now, you can download, buy a dvd, find it on the cable anime channels, and so forth. It's all rather too fast and convenient to us 'old schoolers.' We're not fighting the modern ways, simply thinking that true respect for a series requires effort to obtain it as well. Afterall, it's all we've known. We are also the ones who purchased and supported anything that was released so that it would continue for years to come. We don't bash or nitpick series or shows since we know the entire process and effort it took just to get anime out of Japan and into our hands. We respect all anime though we are highly selective in what we choose to watch and buy now. So in a nutshell, if it wasn't for us, anime probably wouldn't be where it is today. Respect that and thank us 'oldies' when you do see us now and again. Support the classic or older titles as well as the new ones and don't berate or bash them. They are what got anime where it is today. Be thankful of it.

So, when you "new schoolers" see us at anime conventions...don't think we're too 'old' for fandom. Granted new schoolers now make up the majority of convention attendees, but we're still around...just more subtle or now also hanging out in the hotel bar or casinos. Many of us also share our anime fandom/hobby with others such as sci-fi, car collecting, and so on. So we're not entirely devouted to our anime hobby as loyally as some are these days. We may dress up in costume...but to modern anime fans, you might not recognize the series or character. Though for a fellow old schooler...it's a way for us to find each other amonst the swarms of teens and 20 somethings. But don't get me wrong, we do like some of the new stuff from time to time. It's just we are HIGHLY selective and don't follow any given pattern for liking one title and not another, even if they are in the same genre. Often we can't explain what draws us to or away from a given title or series...since our fandom developed from a passion of the heart, not techo or animation styles, or cool plots or characters, and so on. We saw a series in a general or big picture sense since most of our anime series were long and episodic...easily spanning 100 episodes at least. We grew to love and feel for the characters...an emotional bond of sorts as if we were drawn into the show ourselves and were merely watching from a side hallway or something. With today's anime shows...it's difficult to be drawn in like that. So few are making it beyond the 100 episode mark or if they are, they are broken up into mini- sagas. This wasn't the case with older anime titles. Sure they still had sagas, but rather than each saga being 60 episodes or less, a saga was over 100 episodes a piece. In other words, an anime series wasn't split by seasons (which are usually 2-3 a year), but rather encompased an entire year or beyond. Some sagas spanned longer than a year. You have to remember that it took much longer to produce episodes when they were hand-drawn, painted, etc. than they are today with computers and digitilizing. So, sagas couldn't always be broken into set timeframes though often they were sometimes patterned to the Japanese tv season which averaged around 52 episodes a 'season.' But often, we were left hanging at the end of a season with the story not even partially complete and no hints of what was to come meaning that a saga was spanning well beyond the Japanese tv season itself. Also, many older anime series contain their own movies that were splits off the tv season plotlines. Two more modern series did this as well that come to mind...Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon, both of which managed to reach the 100 episode mark and beyond. But, these two series will likely be categorized as 'old school' since they did indeed follow a traditional format in episodes/movies and production style. But I must digress, even some of the 'old school' titles were short-lived. So in this respect, maybe old and new school anime is not so different afterall.

Another difference though that I do see between old and new schoolers is how we make our fan music videos. New school vids tend to be fast paced with lots of scenes spliced in. Old school vids tend to contain less scenes, but the scenes very closely match the lyrics to the music and tell a story that combines the two. This difference is also seen in regular music videos for music where the older music videos were often mini-stories or movies that turned the music lyrics into a visual tale. Newer music videos seem to just show a live version of the song in concert form with little to no story or tale told. It's another obvious way to tell whether the video producer is a new or old school fan. I showed a few of my friends the few music vids I once made and one of the typical comments I got was "didn't you have enough clips or scenes to add?" or "could use more scenes." This is how a new schooler typically responds to an old schoolers vid production. It just reaffirms the differences. Old schoolers who watch will comment "nice match with the lyrics" or "followed the music beats and lyrics nicely." New schoolers miss this entirely. And on the flipside, when us old schoolers watch the new school stuff we're like, "where's the plot?", "that doesn't match the music or lyrics at all" or "all these clips are moving so fast and are so many that you can't tell what's going on." To us, new stuff is merely a collage of an entire series with as many scenes packed in as the length of the music will allow. And to new schoolers, our older stuff is too slow and dull. Interesting eh? But again, sometimes there are exceptions to these generalizations in both types of fandoms. I'm merely pointing out the majority or obvious differences.

It remains to be seen whether or not any newer titles are or will follow the 'classics' and become classics themselves as time goes by. I don't really keep up with too many newer titles, but a few potential classics come to mind...Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Naruto, and Inu-Yasha are a few that are likely to become 'classics' and with their growing lengths due to popularity...spin into traditional formats with lots of episodes and spin-off movies. Some already have.

The main point I wish to get across though is that it doesn't really matter if we are old or new school anime fans or have different approaches to the hobby. The keyword here is that we are all ANIME fans. So let's share and enjoy this wonderful fandom together regardless of age or background. :)

Pics:
(1) Speed Racer (2) Star Blazers (3) Ronin Warriors