Anyway, while rummaging through the clips for one that didn't sound like the audio was recorded from across a busy city street during rush hour I came across the following video, which had me wide-eyed and mouth agape in disbelief:
Okay, first of all, how fucking awesome is that animation?! I think I may be in the process of shitting myself right this moment. Has everyone else seen this but me somehow, or is this seriously the discovery of a lifetime? When I saw that clip for the first time a little while ago my mind was racing a mile a minute with questions like, "There's an X-Men anime out there?!" and, "How have I not heard of this, much less never seen it before?!" Before I knew what hit me, I'd discovered this equally impressive and mind-blowing clip:
At this point I was wondering where the hell I could find full episodes of this show and debating whether or not I could sit through it without dubbing or sub-titles if it came down to it, because there was surely no way an X-Men show like this could have made it state-side without me knowing about it. As it were, this shouldn't have been able to pass below my radar regardless of where it was available.
As a quick aside, I found it funny that in this clip the sound effect used when Cyclops shoots his optic beams is the same sound you hear in Ghostbusters when they turn on their proton packs.
Alas, what I quickly discovered is that those last two videos are just the new intros that were added to the show when the American X-Men cartoon was aired in Japan. My question now, though I love the 90's X-Men cartoon, would have to be, "Who would sit through that show after it was preceded by one of those two amazing intro segments?" I would sure as hell feel cheated if I was flipping through the channels and came across one of those clips only to have it abruptly end and segue into the same show that I watched as a kid. Seriously. Why didn't that animation studio just make their own X-Men cartoon? I would kill my parents if it meant I could watch an X-Men cartoon with that animation!
Okay...maybe not my parents, but someone else's for sure.
Still awe-inspiring (especially the second one, with the close-up of Wolverine's claws), but much shorter are these following four videos which are quick bumpers that were made to bring the show back from commercial breaks when aired in Japan. To my knowledge, these, combined with the two longer clips I posted above, are all that exist of this anime-style X-Men animation. If anyone out there knows of any more footage like this, please, for the love of god, let me know about it.
These ARE awesome. I remember seeing these back in the day and being amazed. When Fox re-ran the cartoon they added the Japanese intro and bumpers to the American version but kept the original theme song ofcourse.
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