At various times over the past couple of years, a 1999 Wall Street Journal article titled “Violent Japanese Cartoon Show Draws Kids’ Eyes, Parents’ Scorn” by Sally Beatty has popped back up on social media, finding a new audience almost 25 years after it was originally written. Users have had fun poking at the piece, which some have noted feeds into the anime (or specifically Pokémon) scare from around that time—but is it worthy of the scorn it’s now receiving?
A couple of our old-timers who were watching those series back in 1999, KhakiBlueSocks and Twwk, decided to dive into the article themselves and relive the late ’90s with the perspectives of 2024 anibloggers. And what they found was an article full of nostalgic goodness (if not from a “what is anime?” perspective) and one that now reminds us how far anime has come in the U.S. during the past two decades.
Twwk: What an article, right? A throwback to the past for those that were kids like us, while giving that parent and adult perspective from the time, too.
KhakiBlueSocks: Yeah, throwback for real! This is why I love looking at old anime magazines like NewType USA and seeing old articles like this. It’s like a time capsule of what people thought about “those funny Japanese cartoons” back in the day, little knowing that in the next few years, those “funny Japanese cartoons” would become something that would be a prodigious influence on pop culture in the U.S.
Twwk: I think considering it a “time capsule” is a great way to approach this article. It’s actually pretty incredible, if you think about it, that The Wall Street Journal published something about anime in 1999! The medium was just starting to have its coming-out party at the time. In fact, the only series I was watching at the time—during my senior year in high school—gets mentioned in the article: Digimon Adventure.
KhackiBlueSocks: Oh, you mean the show about “mechanized monsters”…and nothing else?
Twwk: Possibly the worst description of Digimon ever. Maybe the author was looking at a screencap of MetalGreymon?
KhakiBlueSocks: Maybe! Or maybe they just caught a sign of Tentomon and said “Ah-Ha! Mechanical Monster! That’s what the show is about!” Which is really how a lot of other people approached anime. Think about it, boss: prior to anime’s explosion on the scene, cartoons were these self-contained blurbs. Just about five or so minutes with no long-running stories. Once Bugs Bunny said, “Ain’t I a stinker?” and the credits rolled, that was it. Cartoons were simple. The problem is that you can’t apply that same viewing style with anime—especially with Digimon, which is serialized to heck. You have to come back every week or every day in order to grasp the story, which is something that some Western cartoons just didn’t do.
Twwk: Well, there were exceptions: The ’90s saw some amazing Western cartoons with longer storylines, like X-Men: The Animated Series, Batman: The Animated Series, and Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Wars. But I think for the audience of this article back then—parents of kids watching Toonami and other readers of the WSJ—they were watching exclusively Hanna-Barbera, Disney, and the like. It might have been a stretch to explain to them that Digimon Adventure is really a coming-of-age story about maturation and friendship when they’re thinking Bugs Bunny, like you said. In fact, the author is kind of exposing them to a new world and grasping at ways to explain it, as seen by her writing that Dragon Ball Z is “Pokémon Meets Pulp Fiction.”
KhakiBlueSocks: “Pokémon Meets Pulp Fiction”…I now have the mental image of Ash quoting Ezekiel 25:17 before catching Bulbasaur. That would be awesome.
Twwk: Someone make that meme, now! But yes, it’s an interesting comparison! I bet Tarantino would hate it. I guess, though, the idea is that DBZ is supposed to be cute like Pokémon (cause all ’toons are for kids) but is instead graphically violent.
KhakiBlueSocks: Oh yeah. You have to make the monster seem bigger than it really is…especially if you don’t have much information to go on about it. This whole part about DBZ reminds me of something that happened in the early ’90s when The Simpsons was seen as being the big, bad boogeyman that was going to bring about the destruction of the family unit. In fact, in 1992, George H. W. Bush once said during a campaign rally that his campaign was going to make the American family “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.” Which is ironic considering that, at the time of this printing, The Simpsons has been on the air for 34 seasons…and counting.
Twwk: TV has changed so much. Fox series like The Simpsons were considered inappropriate for prime-time broadcast television. And I think parents took issue with Dragon Ball Z because they were still expecting family content on TV to be G-rated, and Toonami was assumed to be family content because it was animation. Twenty-five years later, the standards have changed, but looking back, I can somewhat understand the worries.
But honestly, Tenchi Muyo, also mentioned in the article, is maybe even less family-friendly; it features blood and violence, too, along with the introduction of the harem series to young American audiences. Imagine how parents would have reacted, though, if CN hadn’t hidden Ayeka and Ryoko behind digitally added swimsuits!
KhakiBlueSocks: I hate to think what my cousin would say if she ever saw Tenchi Muyo…or DBZ for that matter. She was the kind of person who believed that Pokémon was “demonic”…Yes, I know…
In any case, I love how Gen Fukunaga, the president of Funimation, came through and rebuffed the notion that kids, especially young boys, wouldn’t have the attention span to sit through an ongoing series!
Twwk: Making a show exciting, fun, and different from normal fare will keep boys’ attention? Who woulda thunk it?
And the hate against Pokémon in the church was real back then. As has often been unfortunately the case too often throughout history, the church attacks what it does not understand. But the overreaction kind of hides a legitimate concern for parents who don’t want their children to see such violent content. The article mentioned that nearly one million kids in the 6–11 age group watched DBZ. I can see how parents would find that concerning, then and now.
KhakiBlueSocks: Yeah, that could throw up flags. It reminds me of something I heard—“If the kids like it then there must be something wrong with it!” As we’ve seen throughout the years (Being the old fogeys that we are) there’s a segment of people that are terrified of things that get real popular real fast and stuff that they may not understand, and anime, specifically stuff like DBZ, fits perfectly. I think the large amount of viewership of DBZ is owed, in a very large way, to Toonami. The time slot aired at just the right time in more ways than one. Right after school and right when anime was starting to get in its stride. Toonami introduced loads of people not just to DBZ but to anime in general. Toonami also did a great job, even as the article pointed out, of including some inspirational homilies as “teachable moments” for kiddos that touched on subjects like following your dreams, being your own person, respect, friends, equality…something that continues even to this day with the current Adult Swim iteration.
Twwk: Toonami was integral to the growth of anime in the U.S.! And to this blog, too. I don’t think I would have become an anime fan had not been for that block. It was also vital for our collective maturation as animation viewers. The article does a nice job of mentioning how in Japan, DBZ isn’t considered very graphic, and that anime features nuances for older viewers that most of the animation that kids were watching didn’t. I don’t have any support for this, but I do believe you can probably draw a direct line between much of the best Western animation being made today and not just anime, but Toonami specifically.
KhakiBlueSocks: You sure can. It says a lot that some 20+ years after this article was published, Toonami is still going strong, and at the time of this article going to press, it’ll be rebroadcasting Dragon Ball Z: Kai on the time slot. Not only that, the show with the “mechanized monsters” is STILL going and just recently enjoyed a very nice theatrical release! I guess this proves the old adage: everything old is new again! And this whole notion that anime is just a passing fad for young kids? Well at the time of this writing, the guest list for Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards has been announced and there are quite a few BIG names, including noted anime fan Megan Thee Stallion!
Twwk: I guess that’s the biggest takeaway here. It’s easy to laugh at the article—and yes, there is plenty to laugh at—but it’s worth applauding how far anime has come! In addition to DBZ‘s mainstream success, other anime has also found broad acclaim. This year, Miyazaki’s latest was a box office success (and will likely be an Oscar winner). Conventions are popping up all over the place, anime is huge in the social media landscape, and those of us talking about anime are multiplying daily. Despite some noted toxicity, it’s a really good time to be an anime fan! Hats off to Toonami and others, including the recently officially closed Funimation, for being such pioneers in bringing the medium before American audiences!
KhakiBlueSocks: “The Recently Officially Closed Funimation”…that feels so wild to say, boss…I mean…WOW…And you know what’s crazier? Aside from that Usher Super Bowl Halftime show, which was INSANE…I mean, roller skates? Really?
Twwk: What’s that?
KhakiBlueSocks: There’s going to be a generation of anime fans who won’t know what Funimation is! Just like there’s a group that doesn’t know what ADV Films is! That blows my mind. That’s why I love articles like this that are throwbacks! They show a time back when anime wasn’t ANIME and how some saw it as a passing fad, but a rare few who were blessed with an uncanny insight into what is popular, saw anime becoming the juggernaut that it is now.
Twwk: Indeed. Fun for us old-timers to revisit, and a little bit of history for those unaware. And hey, maybe someone will read this “article about the article” 25 years from now and reflect on Beneath the Tangles, too! I guess we can only hope!
KhakiBlueSocks: And the most prodigious thing, boss? I’m willing to bet Luffy will still be trying to find the One Piece.
Twwk: I don’t gamble, but if I did, that’s a bet I’d take!
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