It's so fucking good, dude. You know it. I know it. You found my niche-ass blog so I assume you know ball. If not let me give you the oversimplified rundown.
Hideaki Anno's career in anime is the kind of mythical fluke you read about in books. It's easy from our perspective to praise the man as one of the singular visionaries of anime if ever there were one; but to work backwards from today does his talent a great disservice. While studying at the Osaka University of Arts he found an ad in the magazine Animage seeking key animators for the climactic battle of a little-known adventure film, based on a manga by the films' director, who had previously directed a few episodes of Lupin III part 2 as well as the film "Castle of Cagliostro" for the series. Yeah, if that director weren't Hayao Miyazaki, and that film weren't Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and if Anno hadn't been hired for the God Warrior vs Ohmu sequence...
Well, I'd still be here writing this today. That's the thing. Daicon IV dropped the same year as animation began on the Nausicaa film, 1983. Daicon III, two years before that, in 1981. They were passion projects made with unlicensed copyrighted tunes, AMVs crafted made-to-order, made for portfolio as a statement of intent. Hell, Hideaki Anno "only" has the animation director credit on either Daicon project but that's all he needs. It's an opening, truly. Every frame is a shot heard round the world, depsite the best efforts of copyright holders. Like the Lance of Longinus in Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion it is a two pronged attack designed to tear down absolute terror of judgement and bring its target to revelry.
That sounds more sinister than it is. I reiterate, the Daicon animations are as close to perfect emotional transfers as exsist and in that there is some degree of signifigance beyond the personal or artistic. It is good that these exist, so that I can be a wretched scumbug and submit them as "my essay" of humanity to my friends who otherwise wouldn't understand. It's good, actually, to be able to point to things taking otaku media from all over (mostly just both the US and Japan) on the same level playing field I am kind of forced to percieve it all through. I read cape comics and like Star Wars too, through the otaku lens, the same one I learned from obsessing over Gunbuster and Nadia and Evangelion. The same one that led me to track down the influences on those shows, and find James Bond cited next to Devilman and Ideon. At the end of the day, it's the same feeling, and that's something that can kind of only be recognized by feeling it, y'know?
Maybe I'm dancing about architecture a little bit here. This article is not a replacement for watching it. Daicon IV especially is required viewing.
(here, it's even on youtube :3 )
Wasn't that cool? I'm watching it again right now, too. So many images from this are just stuck in my head forever. I'm not the biggest fan of Electric Light Orchestra, nothing against them, just not the kind of thing I ever really find myself listening to on my own. That said the song choice here is fucking immaculate. "Prologue" sets the tone perfectly, in a blue-text-on-starry-bcakground reminiscent of Star Wars. It will not be the last reference to the trilogy (which concluded the same year as Daicon IV's release) we will see; but more importantly, the words from ELO are recontextualized to be about the act of imagination.
There's one segment that always sticks with me. When I think "Daicon IV" I think of the boss rush of Toho kaiju into the fight against Darth Vader finishing with the Xenomorph battle synching to "Am I awake or do I dream?". I feel like the song almost narrates our thoughts as viewers, no where more so than here. This line echoes throughout my head as I watch. And of course the similar line, the iconic hook "It's either real or it's a dream there's nothing that is in between" combined with this wave motion fantasy cannon just does wonders for my burne-out neuroreceptors.
I've long held to the importance of "dreaming" in the otaku sense. Yes, I mentioned Anno earlier despite his direction on Daicon being limited to animation, and it's in no small part because Evangelion, his defining work whether he or I like that fact, is largely about confronting the end of a dream. Here we begin that journey on the other edge of the same dream. It is not just the dream of two dimensions, but a dream of rubber suits and model cities, of fake spaceships and chromakey. We follow a bunny girl as she fights the xenomorph with a lightsaber. "You feel so glad to be unable to go beyond."
In an era of mindless pop culture mashups, its refreshing to see something so purely joyful. Cyncicism feels like a dirty word to even bring into the temple of Daicon. Gainax-then-Daicon-Film couldn't've made a single yen off this film if they wanted to, at least not legally, between the copyrighted characters and unlicensed music. Its purpose is something different. It's an opening to an ouvre, a manifesto unto itself–and most importantly, a dream in physical form. Imagination made visible and displayable decades before a button-push could approximate the picture in your head. It's rewording, painstaking effort of conveyance; it says "I can only show you this dream," and so it gives its all to that. For my money there is nothing more.
Thank you very much as always for reading my rambling dream. I have so much love for anime and for all of you, love and peace always.