Old School Anime That Ages Well and Why

[Gundamium Alloy]

I remember back in elementary school getting hooked on Star Blazers. I didn't know what anime was at this point. What I did know was that the show was like nothing else I had ever scene except more like Hollywood sci-fi films. It had a great story and a wide range of interesting characters. Then of course there was the Argo space battleship. Very cool. After Star Blazers I soon became interested in Robotech. And again with this show, great characters and a very engrossing story. Plus cool mechs. Both of these anime I believe have aged very well. Animation quality aside. I only recently became interested in Gundam and I strongly feel that even MSG has aged very well. Sure, again, the animation is not as strong, but I love the "old school" more sketchy feel to these old shows. The animation industry is employing new technologies today which make shows visually more appealing than shows like Star Blazers and Robotech. What are your thoughts on shows that still today have aged well?

[Hyakushiki]

I think a good measure of how a show ages is the story, if it can speak to people of any generation regardless of when it was made then you got yourself a classic. Leiji Matsumoto has definitely got that, with Space Battleship Yamato he created an epic story with iconic characters people could relate to or aspire to become. Hayao Miyazaki's work to me still looks fresh though most of it is nearly thirty years old, he knows how to reach his audience, he doesn't talk down to kids or insult your intelligence as a adult. His work also has warmth and heart which I think is missing in a lot modern works that concentrate solely on selling a product to a certain demographic.

[MrMarch]

Good stories don't really age. Budget, acting, and visuals can age poorly, but a good story is a good story. This is why so many remakes and reimaginings get made, because good stories are good regardless of age, they just need that veneer of modern "style" to appeal to younger audiences.

IMO, Macross, Gundam, Nausicaa, Akira, Ghost In The Shell and the like are good stories that have remained good after all these years.

[Recon 5]

We can't really call GITS aged, though. Every new GITS series/ movie has used the cutting edge of whatever is available when it was made, so you'd expect the shows to look fresh.

[Gundamium Alloy]

I still to this day want to collect Starblazers or Yamato. I saw the movie dvd box set (which includes all the movies) for $75. Is this a decent price. I've read some reviews saying the boxset is awful. Can anyone offer opinions and recommendations. Thanks again?

[Kavik Ryx]

I would say that VOTOMS has aged pretty well. I have seen so far Roots of Ambition and Merowlik. Though VOTOMS imo will always at least visually look good because of how appropriately animated it was.

[wing zero alpha]

Slayers is a series that particularly comes to mind for this thread. The animation may have gone down in terms of value, but the storyline is still one of a kind even with the abundance of Fantasy anime lately. Just can't beat the antics of Lina Inverse and her gang or the manipulations of Xelloss the Trickster Priest.

[flamingtroll]

Even in terms of animation quality, a number of "old school" anime can still hold quite well against new animation, most notably Miyazaki ones. I am also still quite amazed by how they hand drawn every single flake of ice falling off the rocket in Royal Space Force, that would probably still be one of the best animated scene I have ever seen. I think one of the distinguishing feature of older animation is the attention to details. While they may have lower frame rate and are not as shiny as new animation due to the associated cost, they often pay attention to things like realistic movements of objects and various subtle details.

EDIT: I just noticed I missed some words.

[pozdniakov]

Most old school anime has much better attention to detail than many of the new series. Gundam Seed and Destiny, were very lazily done and i disliked the character designer. Everyone looked the same, all you needed to do was change the hair and eyes. Gunbuster has fantastic animation and attention to detail and that thing is over 20 years old i think. The Zeta gundam series at times, looks down at GSD and Fafner in terms of animation. Whilst the staff for Zeta could be very lazy, at times they did wonders with what they had and they made the mobile suits look nice and sparkly and shiny at those times. Diebuster whilst new, is probably the most beautiful anime i've ever seen, the framrate is almost cinematic, the cacophony of colours and you can tell they put serious amounts of painstaking effort into it. Never dissapointed with Gainax.

[OpMegs]

I'd say Magic Knight Rayearth is still pretty good. The first season suffers from monster of the week, but the ending is still a rather shocking twist, and the second season is pure gold from start to finish. Which given it's a CLAMP title, surprised me. I usually can't stand their stuff.

[Quiddity]

Even in terms of animation quality, a number of "old school" anime can still hold quite well against new animation, most notably Miyazaki ones. I am also still quite amazed by how they hand drawn every single flake of ice falling off the rocket in Royal Space Force, that would probably still be one of the best animated scene I have ever seen. I think one of the distinguishing feature of older animation is the attention to details. While they may have lower frame rate and not as shiny as new animation due to the associated, they often pay attention in things like realistic movements of objects and various subtle details.

Even Zeta Gundam, as old as it is, has better animation than Gundam Seed if you ask me (well the Kitazume/Kobayashi drawn episodes at least). Give me old school stuff compared to the current animation any day!

Gundam and Galaxy Express 999 are examples of animes that I feel hold up very well, even today.

[Yuusha Tokkyu Might Gaine]

Hades Project Zeorymer, that anime looked pretty good considering the year it was released

And I Would have to agree: Zeta Gundam looks better then SEED did. Which is sort of ironic if you ask me.

[Commissar Bright Noa]

I'm going to go with Zeta Gundam, the UC OVAs and (this isn't all that old though) Turn A Gundam.

[Chang_Blu]

Hey ^_^ newbie here, Anyways I think an anime that aged well although not gundam is GTO, Why? Because theres not an anime that's like it and works as well as it. That and GTO himself, his character is just fun to watch and it doesn't get old for me. For example there a lot of characters that try to push a more "real" fell into their characters and I'm kind of getting tired of that, but when I go back and watch GTO and see his random antics it just makes me like it more.

[MrMarch]

Just going off visuals alone, Akira and Macross: Do You Remember Love? stand out as two of the greatest anime films of the 80's and hold up extremely well even to this day.

[Kavik Ryx]

While the Ideon series animation pretty low quality by most standards, visually, the movies still hold up, in both story and visuals.

[Recon 5]

Most old school anime has much better attention to detail than many of the new series. Gundam Seed and Destiny, were very lazily done and i disliked the character designer. Everyone looked the same, all you needed to do was change the hair and eyes.

You'll have to look at Hirai's other works as well. He designed for much better shows like Heroic Age and Fafner- I personally think that Fafner and Right of Left will age VERY well- and they're full of his clone characters too.

About shows that have aged well, I think that the Patlabor movies (dunno about WXIII though) have aged very well, for those who are into serious mystery stories. I also can't believe that no one has mentioned Evangelion yet (although I've never seen the show itself, as one of the titles that made anime 'cool' its got to be good, right?).

Zeorymer was really good, but I'd like to see them make a full series out of it. As it stands, the story is really rushed, like a videogame boss run. I mean, we didn't even get to see the Proton Thunder or Burrstone's nukes...

[flamingtroll]

You'll have to look at Hirai's other works as well. He designed for much better shows like Heroic Age and Fafner- I personally think that Fafner and Right of Left will age VERY well- and they're full of his clone characters too.

Actually, I think it is everything he did after SEED that has the horrible clone problem, including Fafner and Heroic Age. The Fafner designs are pretty much SEED without the colourful hair. Even the uniform looks like ORB uniforms. His latest Linebarrels is no different. I honestly think he just got lazy after he got a style that "works" and he or whoever hired him just decided to stick to it, since it is a "safe" design.

[Randall Miyashiro]

Just going off visuals alone, Akira and Macross: Do You Remember Love? stand out as two of the greatest anime films of the 80's and hold up extremely well even to this day.

In general movies tend to stand the test of time better than television or OAVs. I can't believe that Akira has two decades behind it. I recently watched it again on Comcast HD and it still looks amazing. I also can't believe that the Macross film turns 24 years old this summer. I really am doing my best in not buying the recently remastered edition since I hope a Blu-ray version will come out soon, but the wait is hard. I believe that either this film or Gundam III hold my record for most times watched.

The only film that I can think of from the 70s that still impresses me is Lupin Cagliostro's Castle which I watched once again recently. I'm glad the newer anamorphic transfer looks nice and it is hard to believe that the film is that old.

[MrMarch]

Actually, the inherent limitations of animation makes it very easy for old films like Akira and Macross: Do You Remember Love? to stand up well against new animation. The cel count is ultimately what determines the visual sophistication of hand drawn animation, a factor modern animation still struggles with to this day (excluding the newest forms of CG animation). The number of cels are still very low in modern character animation and films like the two examples above appear far more detailed and fluid in their animation thanks to high budgets and a very high cel count. In this one respect, old animation films can age much better than their live action counterparts (arguements of style and composition aside).