10 WESTERN Songs I Wish Were Anime Themes - part 9 (Patreon)

Okay, before I do anything else, let’s shut down the most obvious joke before anybody has a chance to event think it: The band Super Furry Animals are not furries. Learn to tell jokes that weren’t born on The Internet, guys.

Anyway, I’ve already told the story of how my childhood full of Oldies radio morphed into teen years getting way into Psychedelic music, and how probing the depths of THAT led to discovering all the modern Indie bands drawing from the style around the turn of the millennium. Super Furry Animals were one of the first bands of that ilk I got into, and while I never fell as hard for them as I did the likes of The Apples (in stereo) and of Montreal, they still featured heavily in my personal rotation until well after I was out of college. But honestly, while this Welsh outfit does clearly draw a heavy influence from classic British Psychedelia, they also draw just as much from contemporary Britpop and Indie Rock and even Ambient and Techno. That is to say, they’re definitely weird (I mean, they released an EP titled “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (In Space)” for crying out loud), but not as whimsical as a deliberate flower power throwback would have been. Having said that, “The International Language Of Screaming” is very much one of their more 60s sounding compositions, drawing heavily from the Mod/Freakbeat template established by The Who. Granted, fuzzy Punk Pop of the song itself is often buried beneath a heavy layer of synthesizer noise, but even that sounds less like contemporary Techno and more like the early Moog demos of the late 60s. So, basically, exactly the kind of song I’d latch onto in my late teens. I’m fairly sure this wasn’t the first Super Furry song I ever heard (I have a feeling that was either “Rings Around The World” or “Hometown Unicorn”), I do feel like it was probably the first of their music videos I ever saw… because that house full of severed heads is definitely the kind of thing that sticks with you. The important thing is, with its driving Rock beat and singalong “La La La” chorus, I can absolutely see “The International Language Of Screaming” being the opening song to SOMETHING. And since the song first came across my radar right around the same time that I was making my full decent into Otakudom, why not an anime?

…well, honestly, there’s a few good reason, especially now that you see I’ve obviously picked a Mecha series as my show of choice. The Japanese creators of a futuristic Giant Robots In Space show would almost certainly go with either a trendy J-Pop song by some artist on their parent company’s label, if not a throwback theme song by one of those classic Anison guys. Why go through all the trouble of licensing a song by a weird Welsh Indie band that wasn’t even an especially big hit at home?

To answer that, I must first direct your attention to some of the design choices I made in that picture up there. I mean, let’s not mince words, there are some… stereotypes on display here. I’m playing at something with this, though, and it does eventually tie in to the theme choice, so bear with me a bit. On the basic, surface level, I’m pitching a show set in a future where the nations of Earth have spread out across the solar system to claim various planets for themselves, and they settle disputes amongst each other via competitions between national mecha teams themed after their cultural hallmarks. And yes, I’m fully aware I have just given you the basic premise of G Gundam, only with even more insensitive mecha designs. Again, bear with me, because that’s only half the idea. What I’m REALLY pitching here is more of a genre parody OF a genre parody, one that I find a lot of people these days have largely forgotten about.

Cast your minds back to the initial gold rush of post-Pokemon anime licensing, when just about ANYTHING coming out of Japan was getting lapped up by an army of ravenous weebs. While a lot of that wave of content was fairly obvious, from merchandize-driven kids shows to the dying days of old school Otaku SciFi to the new dawn on Shonen Jump action, there was also some… weird stuff that got slipped into the mix. Who out there remembers Super Milk Chan? Or Tamala 2010? Or what about Vermilion Pleasure Night and The Fuccons? A lot of younger Anime fans are probably drawing a blank at most of those names, but weebs of a very specific vintage are getting a VERY weird flash of nostalgia right now. Basically, there was this whole other scene of ironic, artsy, indie comedy and art that, at times, borrowed from the tropes of anime and manga but very much was NOT a product of the Otaku echo chamber. At best, it was a bunch of hipster art kids repurposing other styles for their own deeply ironic ends. But it WAS from Japan, so for a few years there it got released by all the same companies who were putting out everything else, and I have no doubt these pretentious art school weirdos were more than happy to ride the wave to greater international exposure. Thus, for the purpose of this blog, I propose a bit of a thought experiment: What if, in the midst of this Anime Boom, some wannabe culturejammers watched a few episodes of G Gundam and got it into their heads to use that formula as a platform for a work of satire?

Yeah, those mecha up there are kinda offensive in how obviously stereotypical they are, but that’s just the kind of thing I can easily see some late 90s/early 00s edgelord saying is on purpose. “You just don’t get it, man! We’re making FUN of stereotypes!” The national mecha for Planet America is a gun-wielding football player riding in a rocket truck piloted by burly muscle-bound jocks to MOCK the idea of actually doing that… even as they actually do it. (And yes, I know. I’m adding that little zinger in despite being the one who actually drew this in the first place) Besides, they’d probably try to direct just as much satire towards the protagonists of Planet Japan as anybody else. The show would deliberately borrow from the over-the-top style of old school Mecha anime to facilitate any number of jabs at otaku culture, from the merchandising to the fan service to just the clichéd tropes in all the shows, since the creators wouldn’t actually count themselves as coming from the anime fandom in the first place. Like, the main pilot of Team Japan would be the most stereotypically lame Japanese salaryman imaginable, but they’d have this brash, spiky-haired idiot PRETEND to be the main pilot because he’s more marketable to the public. And then there’d be the team manager, a pretty lady that nerdy guy pines for even though she’s only interested in spiky-haired guy, who’s to thickheaded to notice. And she’d definitely wind up in lots of skimpy outfits that are TOTALLY JUST A SATIRE OF FANSERVICE, GUYS.

And as for the actual plot of individual episodes… they really don't matter. Like, the show would probably get meta about it and specifically make episodes about nothing as that parody of grandiose space opera plots. Instead, each episode would probably just be a barrage of contemporary pop culture references and crude slapstick and probably a whole lot of swearing because cartoons swearing is like so totally subversive. Heck, these “episodes” probably wouldn’t even be a whole half hour. I feel like this is the sort of idea that would probably get greenlit as just a series of shorts to air in between some other show, then MAYBE get complied into full shows for release abroad. All the better to not have to actually be about anything other than gags. Oh, and it’d probably be an early experiment at Flash animation, too, just to be as early 00s as possible.

Okay, we’ve got a satirical parody of giant robot anime with ironic depictions of Japan’s perception of the rest of the world. How does Super Furry Animals fit into all this? Well, for one thing, I think this is another case where a song in English by a Western band could be used to feed into the “foreign” aesthetic of all the other planets. Heck, there could even be some added irony in using an “English” song by a band from Wales. But I’ve used that excuse several times already, and I think I can spin an explanation here that’s more specifically suitable for this idea. See, the thing about those postmodern pop art guys is that a lot of them actually already HAD a following in the West years before Anime blew the doors open, it just wasn’t very mainstream. Sort of like how a lot of Japanese musicians in the Electronic and Shibuya-kei genres were already modestly known abroad well before anybody “discovered” J-Rock and J-Pop, you just had to know where to look. So what if the brains behind our mecha anime parody were already known to a select group of hipsters in The West, doing pretentious art instillations in really grungy-looking galleries and contributing art to fashionable clothing lines normal people could never afford or, best of all, doing cover art for albums? If our imaginary artists already had some connections with Western companies, that could give them both a knowledge of bands not as big in Japan and, more importantly, a means of getting access to songs other Japanese studios would never be able to score. So let’s pretend that chain of industry connections leads to somebody in the Super Furry Animals camp! I mean, why not? Weirder stuff has happened! Fill the whole soundtrack with quirky European Indie acts! Throw in some Gorky's Zygotic Mynci while were talking about weird Welsh bands! Of course, I’ve no doubt that any series that DID try that would wind up out of print forever as soon as the licensing agreements expired. There’s NO way it’d ever make it to streaming. But then, I doubt there’d be much demand anyway. I mean, who still talks about Milk Chan anymore?

Yes, I know I’ve taken a bit of a different approach with this one, what with the whole “what if” alternate history element, and the fact that I rather obviously wouldn’t be very interested in WATCHING the very show I just pitched. But as always, I found it interesting to write, and that’s all the excuse I ever need. And to everyone who finds this self indulgence tiresome, good news! The series is almost over! There’s only one more left! You’re almost free!