10 Anime that Inspired Far Out There

Quite a while back I did a blog about how I got into anime in the first place, and ever since then I’ve had the idea to do a sort of sequel dedicated to the stuff that specifically influenced Far Out There. I mean, anyone with eyes can see that Far Out There has a heavy Japanese influence on its art, so there’s obviously something to talk about there. Better yet, since it’s about anime, I can count this as a blog post for Conventional Wisdom readers too, so they won’t feel so neglected! Unfortunately, because this is ME we’re talking about, the intended blog spiraled out of control once I realized there were WAY more influences on Far Out There than just anime. I kept squeezing in more stuff until it was clear this was waaaay more than just one blog post, so I wound up scrapping that version and starting over. This time there’s going to be SEVERAL “______ That Inspired Far Out There” blogs, with the anime one just being the first. So, if nothing else, now you know you’ve got at LEAST two more blog posts to look forward two that aren’t YouTube playlist related! Can you even imagine? I should point out, before anyone asks, that “inspired” in this sense doesn’t necessarily mean I saw a specific thing and decided to do my own version of it. There’s times where that’s applicable, to be sure, but in many cases “inspired” is more a case of motivation. Like, the work of inspiration sets a precedent, and the knowledge that somebody else out there did something even SLIGHTLY like what I want is enough to drive me to do it. Or, other times, somebody does something I HATE, and so I want to make a version that’s better, but we’re not gonna see that stuff on this list. This’ll focus on the stuff I won’t feel guilty about if people go check out afterwards.  So, let’s see what sort of ingredients went into the brain stew that is this webcomic… 

1. The Flying House

Anyone whose read that earlier blog or anything else I’ve ever written on the subject of my early anime influences is probably groaning right now, because I’ve gone into detail MORE than once about how the very first anime I ever saw were the Bible story shows Superbook and The Flying House, the later being my favorite. I won’t rehash how it sowed the seeds of my liking this particular art style, but the more I think about it, there IS something interesting about the basic premise of The Flying House. It’s all about a bunch of kids who get swept into a whole strange adventure thanks to a weird, eccentric older guy who causes problems as a result of him not being as smart as he thinks he is. Where have we seen that before? …or later, seeing as how Far Out There came decades after The Flying House. Also, I do believe this is one of my first, if not THE first introduction to the idea of a goofy mad scientist. Seeing as how at least a third of Far Out There’s cast is either a mad scientist or at least connected to one, clearly ol’ Professor Bumble made a deep impression on my young psyche. And he’s not even the only one, just read on…

2. Lensman

Another thing I’ve gone on and on about over the years was the fateful weekend in ’93 when the SciFi Channel aired their first "Adventures in Japanese Animation" festival, expanding my nine year old brain in ways I’m still struggling with to this day. But while I usually focus on singing the praises of Robot Carnival, and do still think it’s absurdly good, I don’t think it really had much of an influence on how Far Out There turned out. Lensman, on the other hand, may just be a few episodes of a TV show with some really out of place CGI shots cut in (not to mention being an unrecognizably Star Wars’d up adaptation of a very different source material) but in some ways I think it may have had the more profound effect on me, creatively. I’d loved science fiction from pretty much the moment I was conscious enough to love stuff, and I’d loved cartoons for even longer, but Lensman was the first time it really occurred to me that they could be put together. I mean, sure, Robot Carnival is scifi too, but that’s mainly due to the, ya know, robots. It didn’t exactly have spaceships and aliens or anything like that. But Lensman had LOTS of spaceships! AND aliens! And not, like, as a joke like Duck Dodgers or whatever, but totally taken seriously! That’s just a soundtrack by The Beatles away from being EVERYTHING I like! You can do that? AWESOME! As much as I liked Robot Carnival, I never had much ambition to create artsy short films afterwards, but I’ve DEFINITELY had the urge to create my own scifi epics, so in that respect I’d say Lensman had the deeper impact. Obviously, there’s plenty of other animated scifi works out there that probably would have sparked this little realization, but Lensman got there first.

3. Tenchi Universe

ANOTHER tale I’ve told more than a few times (look, I don’t have many stories to tell, so the ones I DO have get rehashed a lot) is how I largely missed out on the golden age of Toonami. We didn’t have Cartoon Network during those years, and while I did get TASTES of the shows that were getting the rest of my generation hooked on anime, that’s all it was: a taste. I’d grab an episode or two every month or so when we’d visit a relative’s house, and that was enough to keep my fascination with the style running strong, but not great for following shows with on-going stories. So while I THOUGHT I likes Sailor Moon or DragonBall Z or Gundam, I could never get enough of a handle on the plot to be sure. Tenchi Muyo was the big exception. I mean, sure, there is A larger plot going on throughout the Tenchi shows, but for the most part it takes a backseat to the one-and-done comedy, which made it a lot easier for me to follow in those isolated doses. Personally, I’ve always liked Universe best out of all the Tenchi incarnations. Even as a kid, I preferred the stronger scifi emphasis to the fantasy-ish vibe of the original Tenchi Muyo, or the soap opera aspects of Tenchi in Tokyo (also, I just think Tokyo is an ugly show to look at). There’s that Lensman influence at work, right? Specifically, I really loved what a unique design style Tenchi has. It just looks so… Japanese. Nestled in between episodes of Robotech and Voltron, that distinct style really stood out. And the ships, good LORD the spaceships in this show. Early-to-mid 90s anime and manga really broke out on their own in envisioning weird looks for technology. Where most of the shows I was seeing were content to make their ships just look like planes or boats or submarines only in space, Tenchi’s ships looked more like plants or bugs or some kind of art deco Christmas ornaments. Heck, one of them was even a cat bunny! THAT’S the kind of visionary creative thinking I aspire to in my own work. I mean, not actually, I’m nowhere near good enough at drawing technology to reliably copy all those weird swoops and curve and spikes and other details, but that base reaction of “Wait, what am I looking at right now?” is pretty much the ultimate goal of just about everything I draw

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t revisit ANOTHER thing I’ve brought up before: one of the first ideas I worked on before Far Out There was a thing called "Rancho de Kantner" that was a straight up rip-off of Tenchi Universe. A number of characters from Rancho wound up getting recycled for Far Out There, most notably Stilez, who was pretty blatantly based on Ryoko at one point. So, that a much more literal example of Tenchi influence. Oh, and the best character in the Tenchi franchise is Washu (FIGHT ME), so there’s another mad scientist to add to the pile!

4. Urusei Yatsura

I’m bending the rules a bit here, as this is more a case of a MANGA that influenced Far Out There rather than an anime, since I read Urusei Yatsura years and years before I ever saw any of it. In ANOTHER tale I’ve told before, this was one of the first things I read when the local B. Dalton added a shiny new manga section (it was about 50% Rumiko Takahashi stuff), and I wrote my own blatant knock-off comic "Geek Boy" immediately after devouring the giant omnibus in a single sitting. Geek Boy’s bikini-clad Lum expy, Neeva, has shown up in Far Out There as an in-universe fictional character, so that’s a pretty direct influence right there. More than that, though, I see a lot of the foundations for Far Out There’s basic framework evident in Urusei Yatsura. While I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Far Out There’s structure was inspired by Doctor Who –one guy and some sidekicks travel from one weird situation to another having adventures– that’s more of a goal than a result. In practice, Far Out There has turned out to be as much if not MORE focused on a gaggle of unwelcome houseguests wreaking zany havoc and making a mess of things, and in that sense it definitely owes a lot to Urusei Yatsura. And even in the formative days, Lum’s shadow loomed large over Far Out There’s conception, just by being a sci-fi comedy. I praised Lensman earlier for being animated scifi that took itself seriously rather than being a parody, but by this point the idea of comedic science fiction was becoming much more attractive to me, and Urusei Yatsura absolutely fed that hunger. And geez, just look at the way both series rapidly expanded over time! Urusei Yatsura debuted as being all about a love triangle, three main characters and a limited supporting cast, but BOY did the roster swell as the series continued. Far Out There’s massive, unwieldy roster most DEFINITELY took some inspiration there, whether I meant it to or not. Okay, enough of stuff I’ve already talked about before, let’s move on to a topic I haven’t beaten into the ground…

5. Digimon

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I WILL NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT DIGIMON. You all know the tale by now: Digimon was one of the first anime I could actually watch on a regular basis, and was THE first that seriously sucked me into its fandom. Aside from a smattering of old Mega Man sprite art, Digimon fanart was the first stuff I ever put on the internet, and the first people to ever see Far Out There’s earliest prototype pages were members of a Digimon fan forum. But aside from just existing, how did Digimon specifically inspire Far Out There? Well, for one thing, there’s the whopping size of the cast again. Most of the shows to hit TV in the post-Pokemon boom tended to have two or three main characters, Digimon had SEVEN KIDS in every episode and each of them had their own talking sidekick. That’s a BIG cast to juggle, but I think that’s the kind of thing I’ve been conditioned to appreciate. I’ll dig into it more in one of the sequel blogs, but a LOT of my favorite shows have tended to be built around large ensembles rather than just two or three leads, and I think Digimon help cement that preference even further. It’d certainly explain how easily Far Out There drifted from a core group of four characters to… how many characters are even on board the ship as I write this? Thirteen? Sixteen? Well, it’s a lot, that’s for sure. Probably comparable to the number of Digidestined and their partners, which says a lot. Also, the wacky art style of the Digimon franchise always struck a chord with me on an ideological level. Digimon has always been one of the weirder of the Japanese collectible monster franchises, not exactly a calm and sedate genre even at the best of times, and I suppose a lot of the weirder ideas in Far Out There have been encouraged by the precedent it set. Want to have a gerbil with bat wings on its head? Sure why not? Feel like filling a desert scene with a forest full of telephone poles for no reason? Go for it! That explains a LOT about the creative choices I’ve made over the past decade. 

But you know what the single greatest influence Digimon has ever had on Far Out There is? Two words: Giant. Heads. Just look at the character designs of the first four seasons of Digimon. Like, really look at those kids. Those heads are GINORMOUS. Depending on who’s drawing what scenes, they can been THREE TIMES wider than their torsos. Even at a “more reasonable” twice as big, there’s still no way their spindly little necks should be able to support the weight, never mind the question of how their shirts fit over their heads. What’s more, their other extremities have to be drawn equally out of whack to balance out those bulbous craniums. Those hands are HORRIBLE FREAK HANDS drawn to match horrible freak heads. There is NO WAY my current inability to draw characters with anything less than a fully inflated beach ball atop their shoulders wasn’t at least partially influenced by all those hours watching Digimon. I mean, I’m sure stuff like Calvin & Hobbes didn’t help my Children With Medically Impossible Skulls obsession, but Digimon was probably the trope codifier in that regard.

6. Twin Signal

Technically, this is another anime I’ve brought up in previous blogs, but this time I don’t have to worry about anyone being annoyed because there is NO way anyone remembers Twin Signal. I don’t even know for sure if it's officially in print in North America anymore, Lord knows I had a hard enough time finding a picture to use up there.  I just saw it during a festival hosted by the anime club at my aunt’s college. It was one of several anime that, collectively, were the first time I’d seen anime that wasn’t dubbed and on TV. What I saw of the lineup that day also included Birdy the Mighty, Flames of Recca, and some Space Battleship Yamato and Ranma ½ movies, all generally better than Twin Signal, yet that’s the one that’s stuck with me over the years. Why? Well, it could be that this show’s slapsticky tone made it my first introduction to a lot of the more exaggerated anime art tropes that didn’t tend to appear in the shows I was finding on TV. In fact, I think this may have been the first time I ever saw an actual chibi See, the bishie android main character turns into a tiny, big-headed version of himself whenever his creator’s grandson sneezes. That’s a sentence I just wrote. But then, everything I might have seen first here I wound up seeing again in other, better shows (Slayers immediately comes to mind). Oh wait, I know why this OVA immediately came to mind when I started putting this lost together! THERE’S ANOTHER MAD SCIENTIST IN IT! Technically speaking, there’s multiple mad scientists, since half the main characters are android, and SOMEBODY had to build them, right? Yes, the guy who built the main character robots is in the show, and he’s clearly enough of a ditz to include “turn into midget when a specific child sneezes” in one of his creations, but he’s not the main attraction as far as I’m concerned. There’s a second aspiring scientist named Chris, an exuberant loudmouth who causes all sorts of messes by trying to prove her own wildly-faulty inventions are superior to everything else we’re seeing, and this one character is probably the source of three-fourths of Far Out There’s mad scientists. A delusional overgrown child constantly unprepared for the numerous ways in which everything she thinks she’s good at will go wrong? Heck, that most of the Far Out There universe in general. No wonder I couldn’t shake the urge to include Twin Signal here. Also, Chris’ main robot is basically a bunch of balls stacked in a vaguely humanoid shape, and I’m clearly all about designs with lots of curves and spherical shapes and not-straight lines. That had to have made an impact as well.

7. Cowboy Bebop

Well, here’s one that DEFINITELY needs no introduction. I started watching anime twenty years ago, of COURSE Cowboy Bebop had an impact on me. Sure, a comic as cutsey-looking as Far Out There probably isn’t the most OBVIOUS  thing to draw inspiration from a gritty, pulpy action series, but we’re not just talking about visual style here. Cowboy Bebop’s main impact on Far Out There is its general setting: a generally run-down and dysfunctional trash heap full of sketchy characters up to sketchy things. Again, someone who hasn’t read too much of Far Out There might scratch their heads at that. Isn’t this the webcomic with that cute little girl with the big floppy robe and that adorable catgirl and all the smiling and hugs? But again, that’s more of a difference of style and presentation, not fundamental world building. One of the best descriptions of Far Out There I’ve ever heard was “a whimsical dystopia;” most of the characters might have been able to find isolated bits of happiness to latch onto, but the universe surrounding them is still a dangerous, scary place full dangerous, scary people and conspicuously lacking in effective authority figures. That bad stuff may not appear onscreen as often here, but what hinted at is probably even WORSE than the Pulp Fiction In Space problems of the Cowboy Bebop universe. Once you strip away all the adorable zombie twins and all that other cute stuff, the only real difference between the settings of Far Out There and Cowboy Bebop is how fanciful the technology is and how far the universe is spread out. And even there, the crew of the Bebop spend so much time sitting around in transit between planets, even that might have wound up influencing how much of Far Out There is spent screwing around on the ship. And clearly, all these character playlists mean that Far Out There will be as warmly remembered for its soundtrack as Cowboy Bebop is… just, just humor me for a bit, please?

8. Outlaw Star

I kind of surprised myself on this one, because truth be told, I didn't watch Outlaw Star as much as the other shows that hit Cartoon Network around that era… and I actually COULD watch it on a regular basis by that point, so I couldn’t use that excuse anymore. In fact, to this day, I’ve actually NEVER done a single, complete watch-through of Outlaw Star the way I have all its contemporaries. I really ought to do something about that, because I HAVE see all of it at one point or another, and do like it. I mean, it’s on this list, right? If anything, that’s a real testament to the show’s impact. I’ve seen Cowboy Bebop straight through in chronological order at least a dozen times, of COURSE it’s had a chance to squirm its way into my subconscious and influence my creative process in subtle little ways. But somehow Outlaw Star, despite me only catching some of these episodes once or twice, in who knows what order, managed to make a sizable mark on me as well. I could point to the similarly sketchy and lawless setting and try to lump it in with Bebop, but in this case I think it’s actually the opposite. I just love the way Outlaw Star looks, it’s a really cool looking show. I like the character designs, I like the environments, and I REALLY like the spaceships. Seriously, the Outlaw Star ships might not be QUITE as abstract as the ones in Tenchi Muyo, but some of them really do still look like giant flying Christmas ornaments. And even the ones that still looks like ships still tend to look like WEIRD ships. I mean, just look at the titular Outlaw Star: IT HAS ARMS. This is an futuristic space opera in which the cast flying around in a ship whose primary means of inter-ship combat IS ARM WRESTLING. That is some next level out-of-the-box creative thinking, right there. My brother used to have a model of that ship, and there were times I’d just be walking by, see that thing sitting on the shelf with its grabby arms outstretched, and just stop in my tracks in amazement that this was a thing that somebody designed. At the end of the day, that’s the kind of reaction I want my work to evoke in others: slackjawed befuddlement.

9. FLCL

…and speaking of slackjawed befuddlement, I’ve only recently become fully aware of just how deeply FLCL left its mark on my brain. Oh, I’ve always been aware of it to some degree, the show did debut right as I was ascending/descending to peak weeb, after all. Those soundtrack albums were technically the first J-Rock I ever owned, and are second only to the Cowboy Bebop soundtracks as the first Japanese music I owned period. To this day, watching FLCL brings up weird, warm fuzzies the likes of which few things other than Digimon can still reliably evoke.  And before you ask, no, I haven’t gotten around to seeing the sequel stuff. Not because of some purist outrage or anything, I just can’t work up the interest to care. See, adolescent nostalgia aside, I don’t actually think FLCL is all that GOOD. Well, no, scratch that, I think it’s excellent in terms of pure technical execution. I just think that the flash and noise and sheer density is a smokescreen to hide an utter lack of meaningful substance. And you know what? I think that’s fine if you can actually pull it off. Honestly, I think MOST of Gainax’s best works are elaborate stunts to trick the viewer into believing a flurry of imagery and references add up to something more than they really do. Nothing I’ve seen of the new FLCL suggests it’s pulling of that same level of finely-crafted sensory overload, and since that’s all I think it ever had going for it, I’m sure as heck not going to check out a sequel because of the story.

But I digress. FLCL was always an influence on my creative output from the start, as seen in an aborted early project "Middle Eight" which was basically just a rip-off set in the American suburbs and is otherwise notable only for being the origin of Scribbles. In more Far Out There-specific terms, Stilez owes about as much to Haruko as she does Ryoko, and I do see an awful lot of Layla in Eri, but more than anything I find myself drawing inspiration from that sensory overload aspect these days. In its own way, watching FLCL is like watching Evil Dead II; it just sort of bludgeons you over the head with a constant stream of STUFF until you stop asking questions and allow the madness to happen. More and more, I find myself admiring anything that can trigger that kind of bewildered fascination, and part of me really wants Far Out There to do the same, even if I know the limitations of the medium and my own technical shortcomings are sure to get in the way. I suppose there’s a strange comfort to be found the thought that, even if I completely and utterly botch all the character development and plot lines, a sufficiently bugnut crazy torrent of mad spectacle might still be enough to hold onto an audience. There’s always hope in madness, right?

10. Kino’s Journey

Man, it’s hard to think of a greater case of tonal whiplash than going from FLCL to Kino’s Journey, but that’s where we’re ending this. In a strange way, Kino’s Journey is right up there next to Doctor Who in establishing the original conceptual structure of Far Out There. A wandering character drifts into an unfamiliar place, either observes or gets wrapped up in some strange goings on, then moves on. Back when the idea was for Ichabod to be the central character of Far Out There, that was pretty much the intended formula, and even now that’s more or less how I envision the average Nitpicker’s daily life going. “Average” in this sense meaning “less disaster prone and accompanied by less of an entourage.”  The story structure was going to be much shorter, with more self-contained episodes beginning and ending with Ichabod’s latest assignments, with far less of a recurring cast to tie things together. Again, I still think this is the norm for most traveling Nitpickers, and it’s almost certainly what Ichabod would PREFER as his basic working mode… if only he were responsible enough to actually buy his own ship instead of riding around on someone else’s.

More than that, though, I think Kino’s Journey was a significant influence in setting the tone of Far Out There’s universe. That probably sounds a bit ridiculous, seeing as how Kino’s Journey is quiet and subdued and rather artsy, whereas Far Out There has all the atmospheric subtlety of a five year old on a sugar high in the middle of a Loony Tunes marathon. Understand that I’m not talking about the tone of the WRITING, though, but the actual setting itself. As I alluded to earlier, the Far Out There universe in NOT a happy place, no matter how nice our happy go lucky cast of characters may make their specific corner of it. And that’s the best they can ever really hope to do. Nobody really saves the day and makes the world(s) a better place at the end of a Far Out There plot arc. Sure, sometimes a bad guy might get an individual bit of comeuppance, but the fundamentally bleak nature of this universe never shows any signs of getting better. While there are certainly exceptions, the most popular template of Doctor Who story is for the day to at least SOMEWHAT be saved thanks to The Doctor wandering through. Kino, though? Again, there are exceptions, but Kino is much more prone to moving on without even trying to change the situations she observes. I think that sums up the existence of a wandering Nitpicker pretty well. At the end of the day, it’s not REALLY their job to have fixed anything, just to point out what needs fixing. In fact, we’ve seen more than a few suggestions that going above and beyond to actively improve things just end up making them worse, at least so far as for the Nitpicker’s we’ve actually seen. Even with the rest of the cast, this pattern holds true. No matter what zany adventures everyone gets up to, no matter what schemes are put into motion or goals are pursued, eventually everybody winds up back on the ship just like they started, leaving behind a place that’s either worse or at least no better than it was before they got there. Obviously, this is as much of an attempt to restore the status quo before the next plot arc as it is any deep artistic choice or philosophical message, but it IS something that brings me back to Kino's Journey every time I think about it. And that’s enough to round this out to an even ten, so it’s good enough for me!