Sunday, 30 March 2014
January 1990 Pt4.
The Trip to London also cemented a relationship with a Jpanese bookshop, at the side of Saint Paul's cathedral (Books Nippon).
We still had a few
on-going Manga comic-books and Anime based comic-books “On the racks”
in January of 1990, such as:-
#4 of 'Cyber 7 Book Two', and
#2 of
'Dominion' from Eclipse comics;
#4 of 'Leiji
Matsumoto's Captain Harlock', and
#14 of 'Robotech II – The
Sentinals Book One' from Eternity Comics;
#31 of 'Lone Wolf and
Cub' from First comics;
#17 of 'AKIRA' from Epic
Comics.
#2
of 'Baoh'
from Viz Comics.
[Note: AKIRA number #17 (not #14), and BAOH number #2 are the corect issues for January. 1990]
[Note: All publication
dates are taken from published Comic-books and their adverts from my
own collection, as well as doing the maths for the issues that I'm
missing.]
January 1990 Pt3. or Can't play Anime on my TV.
What Anime Hasshin was
also doing though The Rose (its Newsletter) was supporting a
fledgling company in its endeavours to release Anime in the America
and Canada 'AnimEigo' presented their VHS Cassette Tape of a
Subtitled Anime 'Metal Skin Panic Madox-01' (45 minutes) at $39.95 +
p&p.
It was about this time that for me that I needed to address
the unbalanced situation of Anime that was released on the Japanese &
American television system (NTSC). and how to overcome being able
watch Japanese animation on VHS video tape when Japan & America
share a different television format than that of the UK.
So I hope you will
indulge me in this semi-technical (not all the boring details) about
the old days of Analog television systems, and their respective
players and machines for recording.
By the mid to late
1980's the VHS Cassette Tape (that used Magnetic tape to record Audio
and video) was the standard (being the most popular) format for
recording and playback World wide, but different Countries had
developed other standards of transmitting and receiving television
signals, thus televisions and VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders) had
basic electronic components to handle receiving and transmitting
television signals in that Country alone!
[Note: the main
alternative systems were; NTSC mainly used in Japan, the United
States of America, and some South America countries; SECAM mainly
used in France, most of the former USSR, and some African countries;
and the PAL system mainly used in Australia, the United Kingdom, most
of Europe, about 2\3 of African countries, China, and Asia a few
South America countries.... the list goes on.]
[Note: If you were
lucky to have a VCR or TV that had an infra-red remote control, NO
amount of typing in a coded set of numbers would make a machine
multi-region, and NO internet to search for technical details.]
[Note: VHS Cassette tapes of Anime (from1992) the top one is PAL and the bottom one is NTSC.]
Televisions that are
now considered to be old-fashioned now, used to run on a system based
on a device called a cathode-ray tube (CRT), had a square aspect
ratio in general, and built to receive and decode Analog signals.
Now back then in the
World of Analog signals and the not at all intelligent VCR, with its
mechanical mechanism running magnetic tape (VHS tape) at speed, to be
picked-up by 2 or more heads that read the audio and video encoded
tape, could not tell if the VHS tape was PAL, SECAM, or NTSC, so what
your TV tried to decode came out as speeded-up video, with high
pitched voices Pal viewed by NTSC), or a chopped-up slanted picture
with very poor colour or a Black and White images and distorted sound
NTSC viewed by PAL).
Those good people at
Panasonic where able to do some
fancy Transcoding with some electronics in a few new Pal VCRs
(in1989\1990) that now had “NTSC Playback” a hybrid
signal that the TV could understand, but other Pal VCRs could not
record from.
This
“NTSC Playback” feature was very hard to find, as tens of
companies had many models of VCRs trying to sell you one feature or
and other, and “NTSC Playback” was for a very small market for
those that could import, or get imported VHS tapes. I lived in a
village and none of my local electronic shops or stores stock or even
knew about “NTSC Playback” (much like today's multi- region
Blue-ray players!), not even my two nearest cities within 20 miles
had shops that stocked VCRs with this feature.
There
was NO alternative but to take a 100 mile and 2 hours or so trip to
the big capital city of London, and find Tottenham Court Road, the
nexus of consumer electronics shops in the Country!
[Note:
As I was a village lad not use to the ways of big cities, let alone
the Capital City of London, with no map (and at a time before mobile
phones, Smart phones, and the World Wide Web), and clueless about
transport in London, my mum came along with me, and we took the train
down to London for the day.]
In finding Tottenham Court Road and a shop that had a VCR with “NTSC
Playback”, the Panasonic VCR NV-L28, costing me about month's wage
at £450, (in the year 1990\1, that's about £870 in today's money as of
2014), my window to Anime was soon to be opened!!
Only
about a month later I was able to find that in a nearby town the TV
and Audio shop of 'Stuart Westmoreland' that indeed had a compatible
Panasonic TV of the grand size of 24”, this square CRT TV the
Panasonic TX-24T1, was also £449.99 back in July of 1991 (about £870 in
today's money as of 2014, sadly now about £20 to£30 to off-load it,
as it is very heavy and big!). This TV was smart enough to
understand different signals with different frame rates and colour
encodings being sent to it.
[NOTE: I still use the television today to show and play PC Engine 8-bit games, in their proper Retro Aspect ratio 5:4 (24 inches), and colours, and that feel of the right scan rates.]
I
hope you the reader have come to the same conclusion upon reading
this Blog-page, that of in the late1980's to mid 1990's just getting
the equipment to watch Anime was a Herculean task, and one of some
considerable expense which did much to hinder the growth of the UK
Anime Fandom in the early years, wear-as it was just a trip to your
local consumer electronics shop for the Anime Fandom of America and
Canada!
[Note:
from 1990 to 1996 the Panasonic VCR NV-L28 was my VHS player, and
that of my Anime club's showings, a damn fine workhorse.]
Just to show you the scale of the cases, a DVD next to a VHS cassette case on your left, and to your right an NTSC VHS cassette tape and below that a PAL DVD.
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
January 1990 Pt2.
What an exciting time
it was, when the letter-box could be heard and that gentle thud of
mail when it hits the carpeted floor in the morning (that's right the
Royal mail delivered on time at 07:30!), especially when it was a
thick A4 or A5 sized envelope!
What arrived was “The
Rose” the Newsletter of Anime Hasshin number 19, was the 3rd.
Anniversary issue (January 1990). This Bi-monthly Newsletter\magazine
was the voice of the Anime club that had decided to be more
mail-order oriented, to quote the founder Lorraine Savage “We're a
family of Anime fans sharing what we love.”, and what you got was
news on Manga and Anime in the U.S.A. & Canada and some
translated news from Japan too.
With what was to become
an average page count of 20 pages, this bumper issue had 24 pages of
hand-typed two column style though-out the issue, and lots of “Black
& White” artwork by fans that complimented the 'Editorial',
Anime reviews, manga reviews, OVA reviews, mini synopses, and
Japanese vocabulary lessons, and other Special features were all done
in a strong Black ink
Information on other
Clubs, Fanzines, Computer Bulletin Boards, APAs, Classifieds Adds,
Conventions, Businesses, and a Members list, made such a ravenous
read that you could not wait the 6 to 8 weeks for the next News
Letter to come.
There was a Review on
the popular TV show 'Kamagure Orange Road', a Manga review on Leiji
Matsumoto's story telling and art style, as well as an OVA review on
'Cosmo Police Justy'. I also found the two page over-view of the 1966
TV show 'Prince Planet' very informative, and the Recommended Anime
by Lynn & Lorraine Savage spot-lighted 'Super Gal' by Rumiko
Takahashi, 'Famous Detective Holmes' by Hayao Miyazaki, and 'Sherlock
Hound' the English version (in 2010 the chain of British high street
stores 'HMV' released an exclusive DVD box set, that I gladly
picked-up).
Many like myself would
scrutinised all the information we could glean from each issue, and
start an investigation and write off for answers on our own.
[Note: At the time of
publication (January 1990) Anime Hasshin had 177 members Worldwide,
three of whom were from England: Jay Felton, Mr. Horseman; Mr.
Willett.]
[Note: This Anniversary
issue had all 177 members printed, 95% had full details so you could
contact them via post – it was a family of Pen-Pals.]
[Note: A synopsis
is a brief summary or a condensed statement of the major points of a
subject (be it Anime or Manga in our case) giving a general overall
view, without opinion or review.]
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