Yup, that little dude in the picture is me standing in front of the TOEI Animation Company in Tokyo, Japan in the early eighties. Like a lot of my peers at the time, I was completely strung out on Speed Racer, Force Five, Space Cruiser Yamato (Star Blazers), Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets), etc, etc. I was one of those kids who excelled in art throughout grade school and high school and would often be given special assignments to do, independent of the other students and regular curriculum. I got in a lot of trouble with my high school art professors because, in my opinion, Japanese animation was superior to American animation. And since every teenager thinks they know everything, I would express my opinion whenever I got the chance. They didn’t necessarily disagree with me. They just felt that I was overlooking popular American trailblazers like Disney, Max Fleisher, Chuck Jones and Warner Bros. So as a freshman, they enrolled me in a student exchange program, typically something most students didn’t do until their junior or senior year. I was studying Anime in high school, so it was a no-brainer as to where I chose to go. Needles to say, the experience at that young age changed my life and view point on all forms of art…for the better. And the best part about it was the host family I stayed with in Tokyo, literally lived right down the street from TOEI Animation. Hard to believe, but true. Several years later when I decided to pursue a career in comics, I tripped-out when I started seeing American comic book artists incorporating manga and anime styles into their sequential story-telling, like they were doing or inventing something new. Whatever. Been there, done that.
…and my original anime cell and toy collection is vintage now and NO joke. I must have brought back double my luggage 🙂
Peace,
R