1987: The Adolescence of Art Forms, Animated

2DT is a Video Girl Ai avatar living in cyberspace, but you can primarily find him on Twitter.  He enjoys talking through the night about ero-manga, love stories, and how to make the perfect tea.  2DT has never written anything serious before this, ever, and if asked, he will tell you that you were probably dreaming. These are not the bloggers you're looking for. These are not the bloggers you're looking for.

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I'm no archivist. My purpose isn't to recite to you every last detail of 1987—which wouldn't be much of a celebration—but to try and distill the character of the year into something coherent and compelling. I'm here to entertain, to deliver a story, and if you'll indulge me for a while, I hope it will be a good one.

In 1987, there was a Saint Seiya boom.

The television adaptation of Saint Seiya (also known as Knights of the Zodiac), based on the smash hit manga by Masami Kurumada, began airing in October 1986 and ran for 114 episodes, ending in April 1989. This technically places the show outside the scope of what I'm supposed to be telling you about, so I'll leave it to others to explain Saint Seiya in detail, because my objective isn't the show itself, nor its contents. Rather, what interests me is Saint Seiya's existence at this specific point in time, juxtaposed against the anime of the year.

1987 was a remarkable year for manga adaptations. Not remarkable in volume—manga adaptations were nothing special in themselves—but for the commonalities that emerged. This year, we would find anime reaching for a measure of subtlety.

1986: We are the Plastic Heroes

Patrick is a long time anime fan that loves robots and crazy action. He has written for a bunch of blogs in the past and currently he can be found blogging about his love for mecha over on www.the-cockpit.net and still occasionally shows up guest blogging other places. Whenever he isn't blogging though you can find him on twitter (@PatzPrime) where he will no doubt be going on about anime, video games, and pro wrestling.

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As we have already seen so far, the '80s were a very interesting time for anime. A whole new frontier began to grow as animators were given a chance to work on titles not just for television, but for direct video sales as well. This new market led to many new and unique titles that really stood the test of time. While this was happening, some of the biggest franchises in anime history were introduced to television viewers for the first time.

Really that is what drew me to 1986, a year that had quite a contrast. On television growing franchises like Gundam were continuing to gain a foothold while new kings of the industry like Dragon Ball had their television debut. Meanwhile on home video, shows like MD Geist just didn't seem to care what expectations were and just wanted to have fun. Interestingly enough, these titles that were so significant in Japan also ended up being very important internationally.

It was also the year that Transformers: The Movie hit theaters.

Transformers is a strange franchise as it is managed by two separate companies, Hasbro and Takara. For some reason, the decision was made not to release the film domestically in Japan in 1986. This is an interesting twist for the franchise, mainly because 1986 was when the continuity split between the US and Japanese cartoons got started. Comics were released to cover the hole between the two, but following the third season of the show, new seasons were produced in Japan that completely split the stories up. Honestly it is one of my personal favorite movies, so I would be remiss to not bring it up before diving into what made 1986 really special for anime.