The Obscurities in the Western Connection Catalogue: “Slow Step”

Release Date: 24 March 1995 – 26 May 1995
Format: PAL VHS, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Runtime: 5 episodes x 45 mins
Catalogue Numbers: WEST033, WEST036, WEST040
Japanese Title: Slow Step
Japanese Production Date: 1991

This is the sixth part in a series of nine articles on the somewhat obscure 1990’s UK based video distributor Western Connection and the anime titles they released in English, titles that no one else bothered to re-released anywhere else. For a run down on what I thought made the company so special, see here.  As I said in the last part of this series, 1995 was a very productive year for the company with a whole slew of releases. With Manga Entertainment being the dominant force in the UK market, anime on home video at the time was filled to the brim with violent OVAs and action films. This title was a romantic comedy. First up, let’s talk about the show itself;

Minatsu Nakazato is a teenage girl in high school who's a bit of a tomboy with a no-nonsense kind of attitude. Her childhood friend Shu Akiba is making subtle hints that they should become girlfriend and boyfriend and the coach on her softball team, Satoru Yamazakura, is a lecherous creature always making lewd comments at the girls or perving at them. As she heads off to school one day Minatsu meets a young man her age in the elevator of her apartment building. He starts reciting a trite pick up line about seeing her everyday on the train and that is the only joy he gets in his life. However he seems to fumble his lines, curses himself and leaves before he can ask Minatsu out. Minatsu is later disgusted to find out he tries the same lines on nearly every girl he meets. However if the girl is overjoyed and immediately says yes to a date, the young man seems to have not factored this response into his plans, clams up, tells her that he’ll have to think about it, backs off and walks away. Minatsu can’t figure him out at all.

One morning Minatsu witnesses a hit and run from the bathroom window. She reports the distinctive car to the police and later that evening sees it parked on the street. She runs into a café to report the car but doesn't realise that the occupants, who are gang members, are listening to her every word in the café. They dash out of the cafe, but later follow her home and try to silence her on the rooftop of the apartment building she lives in. Luckily she is saved by the young man who chats up girls, Naoto Kadomatsu, a highly ranked high school boxer, who beats them senseless. A few days later Minatsu decides to go out but spots the gang members waiting outside believing they are still after her. Not wanting to give up she disguises herself with a wig and glasses. Unfortunately Naoto spots her and tries his clichéd lines on her, not realising its Minatsu. She rejects him, but he eventually falls in love with her and asks Minatsu (out of disguise) if she can organise a date with her. Minatsu decides to go on the date disguised in an attempt to end the matter, but makes things worse and ends up giving him a fake name to go with the disguise, Maria Sudo, as well as a convoluted backstory.

Complicating matters is Minatsu's belief that Kadomatsu is dying after misinterpreting his fainting spells and his comments about him having limited time. Meanwhile Yamazakura is trying to get juvenile delinquent Ayako Sawamura to join the softball team. She's smitten with the coach, but doesn't want to play softball, despite her obvious talents. Shu notices this and decides to make up a contract with Yamazakura and Ayako. If she joins the team, he has to go out on dates with her. Minatsu somehow ends up going on double dates with Naoto and Shu and always switches between herself and the Maria persona so that she doesn't get caught out. Unfortunately Coach Yamazakura's young niece, Chika, discovers her changing and decides to blackmail her. Chika is has been under the care of Yamazakura since her mother died. Since Yamazakura isn't very good with the housework or cleaning, she has to do it herself. She decides she wants a break and forces Minatsu to cook a meal. Bemused by the attention, Yamazakura drives her home afterwards, but Ayako accidentally sees them driving home together, which enrages her. In response she makes the softball team lose an important match and later quits.

Even worse is to come. Minatsu’s dual life is soon over when Chika accidentally lets slip that Maria and Minatsu are the same person, and the two boys Shu and Naoto, decide to make another contract and fight for her in the boxing ring. The loser will give up Minatsu. Unfortunately for the boys Minatsu doesn't like the idea of two men fighting over her. In fact it horrifies her. She decides to run away from it all, however Ayako forces her to confront the mess she has caused head on.

Based on the manga by Mitsuru Adachi (of “Short Program”, “Touch” and “H2” fame), like a lot of his other works, “Slow Step” is a mix of romance, comedy and sports. The OVA series was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama who previously directed “Minky Momo”, “Windaria” and “Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko” and would later go on to direct “Wedding Peach”, “Brave Story” and most of the “Pokemon” anime of the last two decades. The other name of note in the staff is character designer Norihiro Matsubara who cleaned up Adachi’s original designs for the animators. He has provided the character designs for the 1990’s anime versions of “Berserk” and “Ushio & Tora” as well as “Gunsmith Cats” and “Pokemon”.

Although “Slow Step” seems to have a rather convoluted plot, it's really easy to follow and is quite funny. Rather than going for a typical high school romance, Adachi flips the entire scenario around and comes up with something quite unique. I particularly like the way he gets Minatsu into deeper and deeper trouble with seemingly no way out of the situation. I also liked the additional elements of the lecherous teacher (played by Akira Kamiya who previously played Ryo Saeba in “City Hunter”, perfectly cast for this part) and the sukeban (juvenile delinquent or girl gang member) Ayako Sawamura, who add a lot of interest to what could have been a really standard love triangle set up. The ending and Minatsu’s final choice are really not what you’d expect from this type of show. On the initial viewing of the OVA, I felt everything was a little too rushed and too neat. But having seen the show again recently, I can now see the subtle hints of how Minatsu came to her decision. However I feel to a degree it’s a little too hard to swallow the concept that a high school girl would make that choice.

In modern fandom, the idea that you could have a school girl under contract to date a teacher is a bridge too far for many, even if the show is a comedy. And I have to admit there are several sequences in the show which have not aged too well; Yamazakura is seen touching school girl’s breasts and bottoms, and in another sequence he comes to Minatsu’s home and orders her around, demanding tea and ordering her to bring the washing in. The casual sexism and male chauvinism in this OVA is pretty blatant and a bit shocking. Even when taking into account that 1980’s Japan (when the original manga was originally published) was a terribly patriarchal and sexist place, the OVA really comes off as quite sexist and completely out of touch with modern sensibilities regarding women’s place in society.

Putting that aside for the moment, the fact this OVA series was actually released in English is quite amazing. Right in the middle of the 1990's in UK, at the very highest peak of the “Manga Videos” era, where hyper violent OVAs and movies such as “Guyver”, “Mad Bull 34” and “Fist of the North Star” were racing up the video chart, our beloved Western Connection decided to release this title. Subtitled as well, when dubbed tapes were the dominant force. In this climate how do you think a romantic sports comedy would have gone down with the video tape buying public? One word; awful. According to Jonathan Clements it was the worst selling anime title in the UK until the “Kimagure Orange Road” OVAs were released a year or two later. The saving grace was the fact that supposedly Western Connection didn't make many copies of “Slow Step”.

Because the series flopped quite badly, I suspect “Slow Step” played at least a part in Western Connection's downfall. With the public weaned on Manga Entertainment's near monopoly on anime in that market, which was mostly of the exploitative kind, this show’s mix of romance, softball and boxing turned a lot of UK anime fans off. Western Connection's usual poor handling of their product was also to blame. Apart from their ubiquitous mistimed subtitles, they also cut out the ending animation of episode 3 and the opening animation of episode 4 to make it look as if there was only one episode. The reason why? The British Board of Film Classification would charge them more if there were two episodes on the tape, a lesson learned from the first volume. The synopses on the slicks of the three VHS volumes were mostly taken from an Anime UK (later called Anime FX) magazine article by Julia Sertori, which they falsely credited to Helen McCarthy.

Possibly the most extraordinary thing about this release is that it's a Mitsuru Adachi anime. So very little of his work has ever made it commercially into English. Apart from this rather rare three VHS tape release, the only other works of his to be released in English are his manga "Short Program", released by Viz in 1999 and the anime series “Cross Game”, streamed for a limited time, also by Viz, back in 2010. As Adachi's work is beloved in Japan and has a small but quite dedicated following in the west, you really have to wonder why western anime and manga publishers have generally ignored his work. Perhaps the length and age of titles like “Touch” and “H2” are off-putting. But then again during the frenzy of licensing in the early to mid 2000's which sometimes saw the release of long, odd and plainly “unsellable” titles (like all of “City Hunter” and “Marmalade Boy” for instance), you have to wonder why so very few of his titles made the leap into English.

Despite practically not receiving any recognition at all during its initial release, “Slow Step” is quite a good comedy/romance/sports OVA series. It's mostly a romance/drama but there's tons of comedy in the show to break it up so it never comes anywhere near being melodramatic. The sports part of it stays in the background and only becomes the focal point of the show in a few sequences. The longer than normal length of the OVAs let a lot of story to be packed into a very short time frame comfortably, but some may feel the conclusion is a bit too rushed and not entirely realistic. The other problem is the show really hasn’t aged well at all. If the blatant sexism and male chauvinism aren’t enough to turn most modern day viewers off, the fact that two of the lead 17 year old female characters have relationships with older male teachers will probably do the trick.

But if you can get past all of that, the characters and a lot of the situations are generally charming and humorous and might just win you over. And Adachi's distinctive jug-eared character designs are so delightful. Jonathan Clements, at every opportunity he gets to talk about this title, states that the VHS tapes were practically impossible to find only a few months after Western Connection released them. However I managed to snap up all three volumes online fairly easily around a decade after they were first released. Now days it’s pretty much impossible to find copies of this show. It was never reissued on DVD in Japan either. However I did recently spot the first UK VHS volume on eBay going for £15, so with a bit of searching you may be lucky. Honestly the chance of “Slow Step” seeing a re-release in English is highly doubtful. While “Slow Step” is a rather funny comedy/romance OVA, I can really only recommend it to die hard Mitsuru Adachi fans.

Note: This post is based on previously published versions posted on the defunct “Lost World of Anime” website and blog in 2004 and 2009.