Party like it's Ninteen Ninty Nine

The previous post on this blog was about early 2000s Anime, but I technically mentioned a couple that are really from 1999, To Heart, Steel Angel Kurumi and the starts of Johto Era Pokemon and One Peice.  When you take stuff back to it's source material even more of what I mentioned there has it's roots in 1999, Comic Party's original Video Game and a lot of stuff based on weekly Shonen Manga that got animated in 2000.

At face value To Heart seems difficult to justify as relevant to the early 2000s at all, it's a single cour show that was done halfway through 99 and based on source material from 97, the others at least had active continuations.  But first of all it's directly relevant to Comic Party, I'd dare say it's almsot required viewing for Comic Party in the same way Haruhi is required viewing for Lucky Star.  But it's also simply that when I look at To Heart I kind of still see 90s style Animation but I more see how much of 2000s and even still 20tens and 2020s Anime is built on foundation that To Heart laid.  And it getting sequels in the mid 2000s proves it was at least in Japan consistently still popular all through the time in-between.

But those shows aren't the only examples of how much Anime in 1999 feels like the 2000s started early, Excel Saga, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Corrector Yui, Ojimajo Doremi, Hunter x Hunter, Digimon Adventure, The Big O, and Turn A Gundam are all interesting examples of shows that started airing in 99 and ended in 2000.  And then for Detecive Conan January of 1999 was the Anime introduction of Ai Hiabara in episode 129 (136-139 of the international numbering).  And on the subject of Source Material for future Anime, Kanon came out in 99 launching Key and adding the next layer to the foundations laid by To Heart.

For the sake of organizing our memories we like to try to define drastic changes in culture as correlating to decades of the Gregorian Calendar, but 1999 sticks out to me as an interesting case study in how culture isn't actually paying attention to calendars when it changes.

As someone who used to be more interested in following Music then I am now, I've always noticed how 1999 was the year Eminem, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson all became stars, all of them are now mostly more famous for stuff they did in the 2000s not to mention how much people who started their careers later were influenced by them.

In the world of Video Games the Sega Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure were released in late 98 but reached the U.S. in 99 thus starting the Sixth Generation of the Console wars.

Pro Wrestling at first glance doesn't seems like it fits what I'm talking but rather the opposite, the first year and a half of 2000s Wrestling feels like the end of 90s era Wrestling.  However I feel like mid 99 was a sever drop in quality for both WWF and WCW, I know I'm nearly alone in this, most pretend WCW stopped being good as soon as Sting vs Hogan was botched and the WWF stayed impeccable till the Invasion storyline was botched, but for me everything I dislike about post Attitude Era wrestling really did start happening in 99.  And of those that so amusingly both Anti Vince Russo people and Pro Vince Russo people will connect the quality drop  that happened in 99 to which company Russo worked for changing, but for me the problems on both sides started a couple months before that, it started in the Summer, October marked a noticeable change in WCW but not so much WWF.

In the world of Western Superhero Comics, the Batman No Man's Land storyline is definitely the beginning of what early 2000s Batman Comics were like, as well as The Titans run that started in 99.  And in the world of adaptations of Superhero Comics Batman Beyond and Spiderman Unlimited changed things.  Sonic Underground feels like it's of a similar zeitgeist to those shows.

When it comes to Theatrically released movies from 1999 there are three that I mainly recall, the first Star Wars Prequel, the first Stephen Sommers Mummy movie and the first Pokémon movie.  Again all three were first not lasts.

In Japan the first Pokémon movie was in 98, but in the U.S. the franchise as a whole made it's debut in late 98 and I'm pretty sure it didn't catch my attention till it was 99 already.

WCW's Halloween Havoc 95 is probably the best Halloween Havoc.

It may not contain the highest quality Wrastling of any Halloween Havoc.  But the point of Halloween Havoc was to be a the Pro-Wrestling version of a fun Halloween Special or Halloween appropriate film.  And I doubt any others (I have indeed not properly seen all of them) can compete with this one in that regard.

I've talked before about how I've never really been scared by any Horror movie so being genuinely scary isn't what I look for in a Horror film.  And much of what I enjoy watching when I get in a Halloween mood is a lot of Campy ridiculous Trashy "so bad it's good" type of horror content.

Halloween Havoc 95 being the peak of the Dungeon of Doom story-line is as good as any Halloween Havoc ever managed to be at that.  "THE YETI" is the perfect Halloween moment in my mind.  I didn't get to see this event live when it first happened since I became a Wrestling fan mostly in 97, but I'd rented it on VHS back in the day and it was a riot, I loved it and I'll always have fond Nostalgic memories of it.

I'd also rented the previous Halloween Havoc once, it's Main Event being Hogan vs Flair in a Steel Cage retirement match felt more like a Starcade Main Event to me.  They should have maybe done the first Hogan vs Vader here instead of putting it off (he was in Kayfabe already the Number One Contender) and had SuperBrawl be the rematch.

I was not watching Wrestling yet in 93, but from what I know about the Black Scorpion story-line I feel like it was probably originally conceived of with the idea of the blow off being at Halloween Havoc, the angle seems to have started back in August and it could have been a very fitting angle for the Halloween themed PPV.  I don't know if the delay till Starcade was because of Executives wanting to milk it more or because of everything that went wrong behind the scenes with who it was gonna be, but my theory is it was originally for Halloween Havoc, and would have felt more fitting for it then just Sting vs Sid.

During the NWO era this mostly just became one of the few events Hogan would actually work at.  The Warrior was doing some cool stuff in 98, I loved the build up to that match I don't care what anyone says, but the match itself was a dud.

My Birthday happens to be Halloween, because of that and when my brother was born, Halloween Havoc and Wrestlmania happened to be the only PPVs we had a chance of getting our parents to actually order.  I wish I'd pulled the trigger on that sooner for 97 which is probably a more highly regarded event the two I did get to see.

I do overall still love Halloween Havoc 98 however. Bret vs Sting and Hall vs Nash did not disappoint, the Steiner stuff was a fun train-wreck and Goldberg vs DDP was probably the best actual match WCW put on in 98 as a Main Event (we were not one of the houses for whom it was cut off, we got the whole match).

But then I had the unfortunate luck to waste my last birthday of the 20th Century on the WCW debut of Vince Russo.  I understand a lot of the arguments Russo apologists make, WCW was already on a downward spiral before this, but I was excited for Heel Sting vs Hulkamania, it was the main thing I wanted to get that PPV for, and Ruso ruined it.

My unique Nostalgia for Halloween Havoc makes me annoyed it's not one of the WCW PPVs Vince has ever brought back. Clearly what to do for the October PPV is something they struggle with, making it the stupid annual Hell in a Cell PPV.

It's kind of too late now since The Undertaker has it seems truly retired for good, and he should.  What would have made a WWE Halloween Havoc in the Ruthless Aggression era great is seeing it headlined by the Wrestling Icon who most compliments it's premise.  It could have been home to a Taker vs Kane match, or some new rival for The Taker.

Who knows maybe in the future some new Halloween fitting gimmick will get over.

I decided not to wait for October to post this since I don't know if I'll still be in the Wrestling mood I am now.  If I am I'll remind people of it.

Wrestlmania XXX was the greatest Worked Shoot in wrestling history.

Everyone just accepts the official story that the main event was supposed to be Orton vs Batista and Daniel Bryan was only added because the fans demanded it.

I feel like to any Savy viewer of Wrestling Tropes, it should be obvious that they were building to Bryan becoming champ at WM30 all along.  Yet everyone including the WhatCulture people have been dupped.

First of all if it had simply been Daniel Bryan winning the Royal Rumble, that would have given us just Bryan vs Orton, a match we'd seen several times already in the previous year.

If they really wanted to give Batista a title reign to correspond with Guardians of The Galaxy, they would have saved that for Summer Slam, much closer to when that movie came out.

Triple H knew this story-line had a Meta Quality to it, and so he pushed that aspect of it hard.

Part of why people still buy it, is that WWE apparently made the same mistake again the following year and this time didn't back down.  But that's the key difference, they didn't back down.  Vince is very stubborn.

P.S. I have some advice for WWE if they want it, on how to get people behind Roman Reigns.  Reform The Shield, the fans love for The Shield would be strong enough to override their hate of Roman.

Nostalgia Goggles

When I criticize someone for being blinded by Nostalgia, it's never to criticize them for liking something.  I completely disagree with the whole "people only like it because their Nostalgic for it" attitude.  Any movie or TV show or song or Cartoon or Game has to do something right in order to become something people will be nostalgic for.

There seems to be an attitude that kids will just enjoy anything, and then Nostalgia will make some unwilling to see it's flaws as an adult.  Well I can tell you that is false.  I have Anti-Nostalgia for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I was made to watch that in school (I still don't see how a movie about a magical chocolate factory was educational) and I hated every minute of it.  Now I am willing to acknowledge it must have done something right if lots of other people like it, but whatever it did right is not something I can relate to at all.

There are other things I failed to enjoy as a kid that I can appreciate now.  Like ironically enough The Lion King, I was a hater of that movie when I was little.

If you're Nostalgic for something, that is proof it was good.  Your inability to enjoy it now that you're older doesn't invalidate it, it just means what you enjoy has changed, and that's fine.  I personally however think it's a good thing that I can still enjoy just about everything I liked as a kid, and that maturity has only increased and never decreased what I can enjoy.

So when Digibro says something like "I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 as a kid, but I know it's a bad game now".  I just laugh at him.  If anything, when it comes to media made for kids, you should perhaps consider that a kid's opinion on it is more valid then an adult's.  I however still like the Sonic Adventure games.

The Nostalgia Filter is a bad thing only when it causes people to constantly trash what's new in comparison to the equivalents they grew up with.  Constantly being annoyed at tolerance of weaknesses in modern media that absolutely existed in what they grew up with, but are selectively ignoring.  We see this with Star Wars Prequel haters, and with lots of other nerdy media.

Popcorn action films have always been ridiculous.  Mainstream Hip Hop has always included a lot of songs that don't hold up well under lyrical scrutiny.  SciFi has always tended to be more Fi then Sci.  And Anime has always been pretty formulaic.

Pro-Wrestling is the one form of entertainment media where I fear that I have or will become what I hate on this issue.

I'm Nostalgic for plenty of other stuff.  But no where else do I fail to see the value in what's new.  With Music I feel I have definitely become less harsh of a critic.  My preferences with Anime are very much post 2000, I am perhaps the Anti-thesis of ThatAnimeSnob even more so then Digibro.  My favorite Live Action Western TV show is one that just ended, Pretty Little Liars.  And Superhero movies have definitely only gotten better.  And I think Frozen is the absolute best Disney film.

Now with Video Games, I'm definitely a Retro-Gamer, I like 8 and 16 bit the best. But it's never with a lack of ability with get why people would enjoy newer fully 3D stuff.

But Pro-Wrestling, especially the WWE, is something where I can rarely get why anyone still tolerates it.  Now there are lots of things you can point to as objective evidence that the quality has gone down, Raw's Ratings have been consistently low.  And I've seen on YouTube lots of Wrestling fans younger then me who wouldn't have grown up on the Attitude Era in the same way I did expressing similar frustrations.  And the Crowds in the arenas mostly seem apathetic to what is going on.

The thing is, to some extent I've been feeling this way since 2000, since we were still in the Attitude Era, a year many people think was the WWF's best.  But it's gone up and down.  The last time I was truly excited about Wrestling was in 2013 and early 2014, the year of Daniel Bryan.  So it's definitely at it's worst now, I feel like I was being a stupid picky douche for not getting the Ruthless Aggression era when I compare it to what's going on now.

And meanwhile the Pre-Atitude area periods of WWF where they weren't doing that well financially, from 92-96, are periods where I enjoy most of what I've watched from it.  So I still fear my Nostalgia Goggles are a major factor in why I can't enjoy it now.

But at least I'm self aware about it. 

WWE's GImmick PPVs

This is the first Wrestling post on this blog.  My interest in Pro Wrestling tends to fluctuate.  The last time I was following it even close to regularly was the year of Daniel Bryan, the build up to Wrestlemania 30 and the month or so after it.  Because my Wrestling memories are often the most compartmentalized from the rest, I was kinda surprised when I did the math today and noticed that was before I started this blog.  Shouldn't have been, as I obviously would have blogged about it if I was blogging back then, in fact this very subject was on my mind then.

Since then I've checked in here and there, but didn't feel compelled to stick around.  The last week or so however I've been getting into it again.  Yet not too able to get into actually watching any WWE programing.

Many have been complaining about WWE doing almsot only Gimmick PPVs, but my take is a little different.

On the issue of the Gimmick PPVs cheapening the match itself, I'd say that applies mainly to Hell in a Cell.  Hell in a Cell should be a feud ender, not something that happens just because it happens to be October, and so we sometimes wind up with HiaC matches between people who barely met before.

If they want to happen to write the story-lines so that most of the time a Feud reaches HiaC capacity in October, that's fine, I can suspend my disbelief for that, in 2003 and 2004 we had HiaC in the same month two years in a row and I didn't complain.  But actually calling the PPV Hell in a Cell means they don't need to justify the match in the writing at all, some happen to have it fit, but most don't.  And doing more then one in the same event is overkill.  Call the October PPV Bad Blood, like the event that introduced Hell in a Cell.  Or revive Halloween Havoc, Vince owns that now.

Other matches simply don't feel interesting or Epic enough to carry a PPV.  Like Ladder matches, as awesome as they are, none of the great Ladder matches were the actual Main Event of their PPV and there was a reason for that, those matches are best when done by mid carders still proving themselves.  So that there have been two PPVs based on a variation of the Ladder match just shows how much that kind of match has become a crutch, especially in the PG era with it being the most exciting gimmick match where a lack of Blood doesn't feel like a disappointment.

However I am perfectly fine with Elimination Chamber having a PPV built around it.  See any Gimmick match where the Gimmick requires more then two competitors I feel can have a PPV built around it.  Feuds may be developed in the match but don't need to be the reason the match happens. Remember, two of WWE's big four PPVs were built around gimmick matches.  Though one sadly often ignores it's founding gimmick.

My problem with Elimination Chamber is when in the year they're currently doing it.  I hate it being between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.  I would like to go back to no PPVs between those two at all.  But I especially hate having it almost guaranteed the Title will change hands (rarely does a defending Champion retain in an Elimination Chamber match).  I want the Title Match of WM to be set in stone as soon as Royal Rumble ends, if a PPV has to happen in-between let it be something that puts WM opponents on opposing tag teams or something like No Way Out 98 did.

Maybe put Elimination Chamber a month and a half before SummerSlam, and make it not for the Title anymore but for the Title Shot at SummerSlam.  Or put it in September, where WCW wound up settling on putting War Games for 93-99.  Or make it the October PPV if they really want a guaranteed horrifying Cage match for the Halloween season.