Monday, December 1, 2014

What the Heck, '80s?

These cartoons were made in the same decade, technically by the same industry, ostensibly for the same purpose (advertising products). (I'm well aware that this isn't a remotely fair comparison. Like it matters.)



The above show is apparently about an alien who... either appears when you solve a Rubik's Cube, or simply is a Rubik's cube that sprouts a face and legs when solved.

Contrast it with the following show.



Spiral Zone* is about a futuristic military commando team that goes on expeditions into an artificially induced atmosphere that causes people to become mind-controlled zombies under the villains' control. (I've only seen a few episodes and it was a long darned time ago, but my memories of it suggest it was comparable or superior in quality to the '80s GIJoe cartoon.)

The '80s was kind of a weird time for cartoons, yo.

*It's interesting to note that Spiral Zone was a derivation of a toyline from Japan that amazingly had the same name.

However, I've never seen any indication that there was a Spiral Zone anime, and I know that the cartoon wasn't a dub, because I've looked into Japanese Spiral Zone just enough to know that the toyline had its own distinct storyline over there: Instead of the artificial zombie-creating field of the cartoon, the titular Spiral Zone was an alien ecosystem or something that had invaded Earth (probably heavily inspired by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind's toxic jungle/sea of decay, though without the twist at the end), at least as far as I can tell from the few available snippets.


-Signing off.

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