Humming a tune and thinking about stuff.

Today marks the 8th birthday of my podcast, and I thought it’d be fitting to unveil this today: Introducing the podcast’s official mascot characters, Ret & Ro! Twin Computer A.I.s sent from the far-off future of 199X, their mission is to spread the love & knowledge of older anime & fandom history to the entire galaxy! 

I’d been wanting to make some mascot characters for the podcast for years, but I struggled with the concept (and having the time to just sit down and do it). But over the past year I put more time into it and finally got this prototype together! Eventually I want to do more art with them (maybe even design some stuff with them for the podcast’s Teepublic shop, even!), either by myself or commissioning other artists. But for now, here’s their basic looks!

Also, if you’d like to do fanart of Ret & Ro, please feel free to do so! And since they’re A.I. and can change their appearances to suit wherever they are, feel free to interpret them in your personal style; whatever race, body type, or gender expression you wish! Just be sure to tag or message me so I can see it! I’d be honored to see fanart of something I created.

I’ve been nerding out about this on twitter all day but I wanted to make a post here about it too - people often cite my work as reminding them of things like Lupin the 3rd and Cybersix, and honestly, I”m not surprised. 

But do you know why?

Its because both shows were animated by a little (and by little I mean one of the oldest animation studios in Japan) animation studio by the name of Tokyo Movie Shinsha (as they were known up until the 2000s, and are now known as TMS Entertainment).

TMS is responsible for a really large chunk of my favorite animated media growing up. They are my biggest inspiration both animation and art style wise. I’m honestly completely infatuated with the hybrid style that was created in the 80s and 90s as a result of Japanese animation studios being outsourced to do American cartoons in general, but TMS really stands out as being the masters of this.

Examples

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989)

This movie went through distributor hell, falling through the hands of WB, Disney and various others. But it had an American director and was animated by TMS studio under the instruction of using a western style. Its initial release was in Japan. To this day no one really knows who owns the film property. But its one of the most shining examples of Japanese > American hybrid animation to this day and is the most prolific in making kids SWEAR this movie was anime, only to watch it again as adults and be totally confused. lmao. It’s my favorite animated film of all time.

Galaxy High School (1986)

 This cartoon aired on the American CBS network in 1986, and was created and mostly written by Chris Columbus. It was also animated by TMS. This show sports some of the cutest animation I’ve ever seen out of TMS studio - they seemed to be given slightly more leeway on how “Japanese” it was allowed to look, despite being provided model sheets by the American character designers. This show has BIG BIG hints of Lupin throughout - mostly showcased in how the expressions, movement and especially the various running/chase scenes are animated. This show has the absolute /perfect/ blend of Japanese > American hybrid cartoon animation style, in my personal opinion. One of my absolute favorites.

Cybersix (1999)

Cybersix was a Canadian production, originally airing on the Teletoon Network in 1999. And what do you know, yet again animated by TMS studio! This show was an absolute staple of my teenhood. Not just for its gorgeous style and characters that would very clearly influence my work for years to come, but also its themes - its probably the only show I’ve ever seen to feature a truly genderfluid character, and handles gender identity with such care I’ve NEVER seen in a TV show since. This is a classy show. The animation is always breathtaking, and never skips a beat. Sadly though, due to some conflicts between production studios, the second 13 episode season never went into production, so the series is left on a bit of a cliffhanger. Still, I can not stress enough how this is a show NOT to be looked over. Its more than worth a watch.

The Real Ghostbusters (1986)

The production of this show is kind of a huge roller coaster ride that seasoned Ghostbusters fans have WAY more knowledge of and have covered it in way more detail already than I ever could ( @phelous has some great videos on his youtube channel that are worth a watch) - but it is worth noting that I had to do some slight sleuthing to discover that TMS is YET AGAIN responsible for the animation for the first 5 seasons of this show (with a Korean animation studio doing the last two) - as only DiC is credited with the production almost everywhere you look. But it’s not all that hard to see the CLEAR signs of this show being animated by a Japanese studio. The hybrid style is very prevalent here. Again, this is a show I REALLY enjoyed thoroughly as a kid due to its style and characters. I swear, I think I was just really hard wired to be drawn to TMS’ art style. lol.

These are my favorite examples. TMS is also responsible for some of my other favorite shows growing up such as Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Inspector Gadget (under the DiC label), Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, and Gargoyles (under the Disney label), and Animaniacs (under the WB label). Most of my absolute FAVORITE western TMS productions were done under the Telecom Animation Film label.

Some of my favorite anime productions of all time were done by TMS too, such as Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (yes, the animated film with the most frames per second of all time and some of the most gorgeous animation ever put on screen), MOST installments of Lupin the 3rd, Tetsujin 28-go, Ashita no Joe, Detective Conan, Space Adventure Cobra, Magic Knight Rayearth, and tons more.

(And trust me, I do understand the underlying negative implications of what it means to outsource animation in asian countries. I of course don’t EVER support the abysmal treatment and underpaying of animators in Japan.)

But I do want to pay my respects to these animators, because whether they know it or not, they created something really wonderful in this process that I admire and am extremely inspired by.

In my opinion, TMS deserves the same amount of respect and notoriety as the likes of studio Ghibli. 

So yes, whenever someone sends me an ask “hey, your style reminds me of (insert TMS show here) - and its always these shows they point out, lol - I’m just going to direct them to this post.

I can’t stress enough just how clearly this style has influenced my own. I hope you all can see it now. lol. 

Still in pursuit, we followed the ball toward a small lake in Motor World that had been earmarked for a fleet of tiny bumper boats for children. The area wasn’t open yet, but the empty boats were being tested and floated on the surface. The ball soared over the grass and smashed into several of them, scattering the others with rippling waves from the impact, which launched some of the boats several feet in the air.

Charlie and Ken waded into the water looking for the hatch. After some difficulty, they got it open. Charlie pulled Frank out by grabbing him under his armpits like a baby. Frank crawled up the bank, coughing and sputtering. He splayed across the grass as we all stared at the ball, which bobbed in the water like it was attached to a fishing lure.

We did not ask for the inspector’s report, nor did we ever hear of one being filed. Ken Bailey returned to Canada. The snow-makers cleared away the PVC. Told to dispose of the Bailey Ball, they rolled it into the woods, where it remained for many years."

🐯~Big Cats is getting its first plushie~ 🐯

I'm the first officer of a Federation starship, and your commander. And nobody crushes my team.