April 1st 1997 was the day the Pokemon Anime premiered on Japanese TV. The following day, April 2nd, was the premier of Revolutionary Girl Utena. April 3rd was the premiere of Maze, a show not nearly as influential or culturally important as those two shows but when I first learned of it I was indeed surprised to learn that stuff like that already existed in the 90s.
Another Anime to debut on April 1st was Shin Tenchi Muyo aka Tenchi in Tokyo, the 3rd TV Anime of the Tenchi Franchise, but it seems it's not one of it's more well regarded installments. Another Anime to debut on April 3rd was Hyper Police, which shows Monster Girls in Anime are nothing new either.
April 4th saw the premier of the third season of Slayers. Another Anime to debut in April of 97 was a Space Opera re-imagining of Moby Dick called Hakugei Densetu. And that's less then half of what debuted that Spring.
I suppose to some people this justifies their complaints about the state of modern Anime, today we don't even always get one game changer a season, while this season had two back to back. The thing is not every season of the late 90s looked like this one, Summer of 97 premiered nothing we still care about, and the Winter of 97 is most notable for two installments of much older franchises, neither of which is at the forefront of that franchise's legacy today. A Speed Racer Reboot and Cutey Honey F which Toei had put in Sailor Moon's old time-slot after it ended.
What was going on in Western Entertainment media at this time? Well on the WB the premier of Buffy The Vampire Slayer about three weeks earlier. The fact that Buffy's feminist credentials have been called into question so much lately is not helped by the fact Utena had finished airing before Buffy was half way through it's second season. Wrestlemania 13 was on March 23rd, arguably the beginning of the Attitude Era. The Star Wars Special Editions were playing in American movie Theaters. And sadly also Biggie Smalls passed away, Pac and Big never lived to see Pokemon, that is truly tragic.
So on both sides of the Pacific times were changing.
I'd made a post earlier this year about The Dark Age of Anime, this season can be argued to be the beginning of that age, or you could say it began when Sailor Moon ended a few weeks before, but I'm now willing to consider Pretty Sammy equally a part of the Golden Age of the Magical Girl Warrior.
I do not consider Utena properly a part of the Magical Girl Warrior genre, it definitely makes itself a relative of the genre, Ikuhara' Sailor Moon work was very much his training ground for Utena. But the Magical Girl Genre is most certainly NOT what the show is deconstructing.
I suspect a ReDub of Utena may be inevitable. There are many reasons for Netflix to consider Utena the logical follow up to ReDubbing Neon Genesis Evangelion, even though I personally would prefer they focus on making Dubs for stuff that got passed over originally. Like Rose of Versailles which it would benefit people to see alongside Utena, or Gunbuster which should be a necessary companion to Eva. But in the context of my drawing attention to Magical Girl stuff this month I'd say please finally Dub the Pretty Sammy TV Anime, even though it is sad we can no longer do it with the Classic Tenchi Dub Cast.
I am perfectly fine with the Utena Dub and can't understand why it's so often trashed even by other Dub defenders, nothing seems to have been censored out of it? You certainly can't improve on Crispin Freeman as Touga, Lisa Ortiz as Shiori is one of the best vocal performances in the history of mankind, and the way Saionji's voice sounds to me like a Vincent Price impression yet I'm unsure it was intentional is endlessly captivating. I get that on a Meta level some people might have trouble with Utena sounding so obviously like Misty, but I love it. I'm very much not a fan of Misty but it was never the Actress's fault, so I enjoy hearing Rachael Lillis as a character I can respect. The only voice in the existing Utena Dub I can kind of understand not liking is Juri, and I guess sometimes one being weak is enough to drag the whole thing down, but Juri is only important in like four episodes, the same episodes where Lisa is killing it as Shiori.
Still I can accept a New Dub, but please at least try to keep Freeman and Ortiz, they're still working and cannot be outdone.
If a ReDub happens, I feel the need to recommend Cherami Leigh for Utena Tenjou. In Digibro's recent Utena Video he talked about how Light Novel Heroines are often very powerful but always second to the male lead, and how Touga views Utena as that but she isn't. So that creates a pretty strong Meta Value to Utena sharing a voice with Asuna Yuki of SAO. And then Leigh has also done Magical Girl stuff including the OG Minako Aino.
If I had to cast someone new for Saionji it'd have to be the current Aniplex voice of Shinji Matou from their Dubs of UFOtable's Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel, Nasu has admitted in interviews that character was partly based on Saionji. And speaking of Fate/ Voices maybe Kari Walgren could be the one to finally do Juri justice?
Wasn't this post supposed to also be about Pokemon? Speaking of Dub voices, how come Crispin Freeman was never in Pokemon? He was clearly working in the same circles as some of the Pokemon voices in the late 90s, Utena being not even the only time he worked with Lillis, and he also worked with Ortiz in Record of Lodoss War. The first roles that pop into my mind as ones that could have been Freeman roles were the ones done pretty darn well by Dan Green, but it's still something I notice. [Update: Apparently he helped write some of the Pokemon Dub Scripts, that's interesting].
In completely different ways Utena and Pokemon both revolutionized Anime for decades to come. So it's fascinating how just the month of April 97 became so important. Now nearing the end of the Spring Season of 22 years later their impact is still being felt.
And the more obscure stuff that aired at the same time is also interesting, mostly stuff I haven't watched yet but I'm thinking of trying them out.
Update January 2020: The Eva ReDub was a trainwreck, but it's not the fault of Netflix or anyone else on our side of the Pond. It was Ano's own people micromanaging it obsessively like they did the 3.33 Dub.
Looking at how the 20tens Ikuhara shows were dubbed I think it's safe to say Ikuhara wouldn't be like that. Of course those 20tens Dubs seem to be Texas based which wouldn't make my proposed Utena ReDub cast likely, they're all in LA as far as I can tell.
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