12 Days 2014 Day 1 – Experiencing the Ghost Stories Dub with Others


It’s the middle of December again, which means it’s time to begin reflecting on my anime-watching experiences from 2014 as part of the multi-blogger 12 Days project, spearheaded by The Cart Driver this year.

I think this will be my 8th year I’m participating in such a thing (you can see the titles of previous-year posts from 2007 to 2012 via Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine – 2013’s list wasn’t captured unfortunately) so I should be experienced in writing posts for it but I still seem to run out of topics more than halfway through the process, mainly due to the declining amount of series I manage to finish during a calendar year. I tried to plan ahead this time around so I’m more confident that I’ll cross the figurative finish line than I might have otherwise.

One series that I watched with the SCCSAV Classics group this year was Ghost Stories. Of course, we watched the English dub done by ADV in the mid-2000’s for more humor than the Japanese track could have offered.

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Old Magazine Articles: Fred Patten on Anime for Starlog (April & May 1986)

While exploring the Internet Archive’s magazine collection earlier this month, I happened across a two-part article by Fred Patten in consecutive issues of Starlog (April 1986 #105, May 1986 #106).

The feature focused on science-fiction anime that had been translated into English as well as, in part two, mentioning “some of the most popular SF cartoons with American fans” that were only available in Japanese at the time. Notable black-and-white series from the 1960s – Astro Boy, 8th Man and Gigantor – led off part one while part two began with then-more-recent offerings like Robotech and TranZor Z (aka Mazinger Z).

The last page in part two highlighted six anime series that would all eventually get released on DVD in the US: Fist of the North Star (Discotek), Space Adventure Cobra (Nozomi), Mobile Suit Gundam (Bandai; Sunrise announced it would re-release Gundam in spring 2015 through a partnership with RightStuf), Urusei Yatsura (AnimEigo), Lupin III (Discotek) and Dirty Pair (Nozomi).

Both articles can also be found without pictures in Patten’s 2004 collection of his writings, Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews.