Twinkee

Twinkee

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Mostly ttrpg stuff and a lil art.

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robinandcat
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robinandcat
@robinandcat

Have you ever tried to fall down a rabbit hole of information but you just can’t find the hole?

I was watching Dominion Tank Police and complaining about the flashing lights in it. And it got me thinking about why flashing lights are so prevalent in anime. Like, what’s the history of it? Why did it latch on in Japanese cartoons and not in American or European cartoons? Is it a cultural thing or a technological thing?

It’s easy to find info on the Porygon episode of Pokemon that changed how strobe and flashing lights could be presented on Japanese TV in the late 90’s. But how do we get to that episode in the first place?

I’d research this stuff more in-depth myself, but those flashing lights give me migraines.

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mrencyclopedia
@mrencyclopedia

This is a really good question. I remember the first episode of Macross had a jarring flashing lights sequence right at the beginning when the ship crashes on earth, and has other instances when it fires its main gun. That makes me wonder if Space Battleship Yamato, the original giant spaceship with an even more giant gun, uses the effect as well.

Whatever the case, you're right about this being a thing in Anime up until the Porygon episode. For some reason they thought it was a cool effect to use despite it being really harsh and abrasive for viewers. Why did they ever think it was a useful technique?

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robinandcat
@robinandcat

The only thing I could sort of find to explain why the flashing light effect was used was from TV Tropes of all places. Just a sentence saying it’s an easy effect to produce. And they were talking about video games specifically, but that could be true of TV anime and OVAs that were trying to make anime as cool as possible on a tight budget.

It’s weird once you start thinking about it, because it’s still used today! But because of the Porygon incident, any scenes with flashing light effects are dimmed. My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen do it all the time still! Is it just a “thing anime does” at this point? I think it’s interesting.

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