The Obscurities in the Western Connection Catalogue: “Hummingbirds”

Release Date: 24 April 1995
Format: PAL VHS, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Runtime: 47 mins (OVA 1), 26 mins (OVA 2)
Catalogue Number: WEST037
Japanese Title: Idol Boueitai Hummingbird (Idol Defence Force Hummingbird), Idol Boueitai Hummingbird ’94 Natsu (Hummingbird '94 Summer)
Japanese Production Date: 1993 - 1994

Continuing on with the seventh part in my series on the utterly obscure 1990’s UK based video distributor Western Connection and weird and wonderful anime titles that they released in English that no one else bothered to re-release anywhere else. This time we’re looking at my favourite title they released; “Hummingbirds”

For some unknown reason the Japanese government decides to outsource the defence forces. The only people crazy enough to pick up the baton are the entertainment industry. This means that the air force is now entirely comprised of idols. Each week the TV programme “The Best Guy” ranks idols using pilot skills and even record sales. A new group of sisters collectively called Hummingbirds are trying to break into the scene. Mina, Uzuki, Satsuki, Yayoi and Kanna Torishi are trying their luck for the first time on the show, being “targets” for boy band SNAP (a thinly veiled parody of real boy band SMAP). But the SNAP boys aren't very good shots. Middle sister Satsuki is so frustrated she attempts to make her plane hover vertically, so that the SNAP boys can easily lock on to her and “shoot” her down. However this naturally puts a great deal of stress on the plane's engine and it begins to spiral out of control downward. Luckily Satsuki pulls out in time.

The show's producer, Kudo, is quite interested in the girls performance despite of, or perhaps because of Satsuki's brain explosion. He arranges a meeting with the Hummingbirds' manager, Hazuki, also the girl's mother, where the two of them nut out a deal to make a record and music video to make them into idol superstars. But Satsuki is a little uneasy at the idea that she will be the focus of the group. Her real goal is to win the best pilot award and follow in the footsteps of her pilot father who disappeared while on a mission some eight years ago. Still the dancing and singing lessons and training begin in earnest and soon they are ready to make their debut. Standing in their way is the manager of SNAP, Yajima. He deliberately attempts to sabotage their debut by forcing the girls to wear animal costumes and performing in old clapped out Phantom F-4 jets, while out on a mock sortie against SNAP. While the girls reluctantly comply, they take out their revenge on the SNAP boys by locking on to all four of them to “shoot” them down in less than a minute.

Taking a different tact, Yajima tries to wine and dine Hazuki into letting him manage the Hummingbirds, however she isn't having a bar of it. Meanwhile the girl's idol career is really taking off with concerts, music videos and strange Japanese TV programmes invading their hotel room and waking them from their sleep early in the morning. But the main job of the Hummingbirds is self-defence of Japan's skies. The girl's grandfather has completed their rather futuristic customised planes (which suspiciously look like the craft from “Thunderbirds”). They're now completely ready for their idol debut on “The Best Guy”. In fact they're featured in a special section of the show called “Spotlight Corner” and will be performing their new single. However when the girls reach the tarmac to board their planes for the show, they are shocked to discover that someone has attached bombs to the landing gear on their planes. The bomb squad will take 40 minutes to arrive, by which time the TV show will be over. About to pull out, Satsuki rallies the group saying she won't give into intimidation.

Kudo for some unknown reason knows how to dismantle bombs and radios instructions to the girls. Naturally they discover the bomb is a fake and the girls take off just in the nick of time to perform their single, much to the displeasure of Yajima who had the fake bombs planted. Later at home, the Hummingbirds are called out to defend Japan against invading aircraft above Tokyo Bay. But the girls have to deal with Kudo and his cameraman offsider who have taken off in a helicopter to obtain footage of the girls in action for a music video. One of the enemy aircraft shoots at Kudo and it's up to Satsuki to save him. In the second OVA on the tape, an idol swimming competition on the USS Enterprise is interrupted by an invading plane. The Hummingbirds take off to investigate only to find that the pilot in question is an invited guest. However the guest takes it on himself to challenge the Hummingbirds and in particular goes after an unwilling Satsuki. The second eldest sister, the tomboyish Yayoi, locks on to the guest and gleefully “shoots” him down.

When the guest lands on the USS Enterprise, he reveals himself to be the handsome Goro Kato, a top pilot once under the command of the girl's father. This causes a ruckus in the Hummingbirds camp and Hazuki even tries to recruit him, though the girls are decidedly unimpressed. Goro has in fact been recruited to train Yajima's new pilot duo Reiko Hosokawa and Hitomi Nakajo, who form the curvy and sexy pilot team the Fever Girls. Both are rather peeved off at the Hummingbirds closeness to Goro and decide to challenge them to a beach volleyball match. While the Fever Girls lose the match by a point to Yayoi and Satsuki, they do win the “Nice Body” competition. But the duo refuses to give up and train hard to beat the Hummingbirds. Unbeknown to everyone, Goro has some dastardly tricks up his sleeve, none of which impresses the Fever Girls, whom despite their highly competitive nature, want to fight fair and square.

Essentially this show is nothing more than the core part of a multimedia project for a five woman idol group, oddly enough like the anime also called Hummingbird. The group was made up of Kotono Mitsuishi (who played Satsuki), Sakiko Tamagawa (Kanna), Yuri Amano (Yayoi), Fumie Kusachi (Uzuki), and Hekiru Shiina (Mina). Of those five, Kotono would be the most famous in the west. She has played Excel in “Excel Saga”, Murrue Ramius in “Gundam Seed”, Misato Katsuragi in “Evangelion” and in her most famous role, Usagi Tsukino and her alter ego Sailor Moon in the series of the same name. Sakiko although not a well-known name in the west, would most recognisable to fans as the voice of the Tachikoma in “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex”, Pirotess in “Record of Lodoss War” and Natsumi Tsujimoto in “You're Under Arrest”. In four short years, the group pumped out a huge catalogue of items including 14 albums, four singles, two concert videos, four cassette dramas, two pocket novels, three CD-ROMs and of course four anime OVAs.

While some sources say that the OVA series was based off the novels by “Irresponsible Captain Tylor” author Hitoshi Yoshioka, the fact is there is less than a month's gap between the release of the first novel and the Hummingbird's first album (with the release of the first OVA was only two months after that). One can only assume that the idol/seiyu group, anime and novel were all planned at the same time. In fact my artbook contains pictures of a recording and photo session for the Hummingbird voice actresses with the dates of these sessions being December 1992, a whole six months before the release of the first novel.

The series itself is quite frankly totally inane. It's dumb, silly, quite superficial, mostly a cynical ploy to help the singing careers of five women and to sell a lot of merchandise. However it is quite fun like a lot of 1990's OVAs, and can be surprisingly clever and is very funny most of its length. Like Macross, we have a defence force and idol singers, but this time it's played for laughs. Everyone involved knows the show is silly and is having fun with the concept. Funnily enough “Macross 7”, released two years after this video series, was somewhat similar with a band that defended their Macross cruiser home against enemy attack by flying in Valkyries and singing. The “Hummingbird” anime's story focuses mainly on the middle sister Satsuki, but there are moments dedicated to all of the sisters. As the ages of the girls range from 12 to 19 and with a number of personalities between all five, there is probably a girl here to please anyone. And with all of the insert songs and concert scenes (as well as the merchandise tie-ins), of course the show is squarely aimed at the idol otaku. There are quite a few fan service shots but unlike a lot of modern anime it's relatively tame.

The addition of the Fever Girls in the second OVA does increase the amount of fan service substantively. Curiously, while the pair are idols, there musical career is never even hinted at. There are numerous parodies in the show and some are quite clever, but most are about as subtle as a brick through a window. As I previously noted, the boy band SNAP are of course based upon the popular band SMAP who recently broke up. The “Thunderbirds” planes the Hummingbirds fly don't even attempt to disguise their design origins. They even launch in a similar manner to the classic British “Supermarionation” show. Even the girl's family name, Toreishi, is a pun which sounds like “Tracy” in Japanese (Tracy is the name of the family which ran International Rescue in “Thunderbirds”). Hummingbird was latter parodied themselves in the TV series “Martian Successor Nadesico”. The Howmei Girls (the five female assistant chefs aboard the Nadesico) have more than a passing resemblance to the anime Hummingbirds.

Western Connection’s VHS tape contains only the first two OVAs. Frustratingly the tape has edits to the closing animation on the first OVA and both the opening and closing animations on the second. First they removed the end credits to the first OVA, but then also cut the opening to second OVA, removed the ending of episode two and stuck the opening of episode two on the end of the OVA. Seamless it ain't. There's a prologue before the opening credits on episode two, and the opening theme song begins before the opening animation starts. The sloppy editing with the music abruptly stopping is incredibly jarring. There were two reasons why this was done, both explained by translator and UK anime guru Jonathan Clements. In an article on music translation in Anime FX magazine from 1995, Clements explained the ending was cut because he had received a video tape from the company which had audio through one stereo channel only. As some of the solo singing of the girls was panned into left or right channels in end song on the second OVA, he couldn't hear the lyrics to the whole song, hence he couldn't translate the whole thing and therefore the ending was cut.

But several years later in the book “The Anime Encyclopaedia”, co-authored by Clements, the entry on “Hummingbirds” tells a different story. Western Connection had apparently decided to get a “discount” from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and thought that messing up the opening and closing credits in the process was a smaller price to pay. The BBFC would charge more to classify a title if there were two or more episodes on a tape. The second tape in Western Connection’s “Slow Step” release also suffers the same fate; however the result is virtually seamless. Not only do we suffer the opening and closing animation edit nonsense on this tape, but like all of Western Connection's releases, this one not only has the usual slightly mistimed subtitles, it also has some bizarre production credits. After the ubiquitous subtitling credit from company head Sahsa Cipkalo (for whom quality control wasn't a high priority) and the Jonathan Clements translating credit, two odd subtitles appear;

What the hell is up with that?! Am I watching some crappy little fan subtitled tape or a professional release? Honestly, what sort of professional video company does that? Oh that's right, I forgot I was watching a Western Connection tape. They aren't professionals. The packaging is the usual; slapped together artwork and the synopsis from Anime FX. The artwork isn't too bad, but the picture is stretched on the front and text covers Mina's face. In late 1995 in the news section of Anime FX magazine, it was stated that Western Connection had acquired the remaining two unreleased OVAs for “Hummingbirds” and were planning to release them in 1996. However by the time 1996 rolled around the company was dead and buried. I suspect they hadn’t even acquired the OVAs and Cipkalo was just stringing the public along.

Again this title is one that is hard to recommend to others. Some will find it hilarious, others will hate it. If you enjoyed the singing in “Macross” (especially “Macross 7”) and bishoujo aircraft titles like “Stratos 4” and “801 T.T.S. Airbats”, you're probably going to enjoy this title. I do love trash like this and enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately it was never picked up for distribution in the US, and I suspect it's highly unlikely to be in the future. Pioneer in Japan released a two DVD box set of all four OVAs in 2001 with single disc releases a year after (sadly without English subtitles and all versions now long out print). If you want to legally see this show in English, hunting down the increasingly rare UK release would be the only way you would be able to do so. But it doesn't seem to be available at all in the second hand market; Western Connection's VHS isn’t even listed on Amazon.co.uk any more and I haven’t seen for sale on eBay in quite a long time.

Note: This post is based on previously published versions posted on the defunct “Lost World of Anime” website and blog in 2004 and 2010.

Anime DVDs You May Have Missed: “Future GPX Cyber Formula”

Japanese Title: Shinseiki GPX Cyber Formula (New Century GPX Cyber Formula)
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 37 episodes x 24 mins
Production Date: 1991
English Version Release Date: 18 November 2003
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

Although not explicitly stated in the TV series, “Future GPX Cyber Formula” is set in the year 2015 where motor racing has changed substantially. In many classes of motor sport, heavily computerised cars are the norm. One such class is Cyber Formula. One of the smallest teams in  the competition, the Sugo Team, are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their new car, the Asurada GSX. Transporting it are the team’s boss, Tetsuichirou Kurumada, and 14 year old Hayato Kazami, the son of Hiroyuki Kazami who designed the car including the creation of its highly advanced artificial intelligence system. En route to the Fujioka circuit to order to qualify for the Japanese Cyber Formula season, they are suddenly swooped on by an unknown helicopter. It soon becomes apparent that the men inside the cockpit are trying to steal the Asurada GSX using a claw mechanism attached to the underbelly of the helicopter. Kurumada attempts to flee but ends up crashing the transporter. Injured, he tells Hayato to drive the Asurada GSX to the Fujioka circuit. What Hayato doesn’t realise is that in doing so the AI system has registered him as the sole driver of the vehicle.

Hayato manages to evade the Asurada GSX’s captors and arrives at the track, where the team make the discovery that they need 10 days to reset the system to allow the team’s driver, Akira Hiyoshi, to actually be able to drive the car, as the AI system currently rejects any other driver except Hayato. However the time trials to qualify for the race begin in less than a day’s time. Akira becomes so frustrated that they can’t bypass the Asurada GSX’s reset that he quits the team. In a real bind, the rest of the team mull over what they should do next and eventually come to the decision to run the time trial with Hayato as the driver rather than pulling out altogether and waiting until the next season, a year away. Although Hayato does have some limited experience in motorbike racing, he is naturally unprepared for Cyber Formula racing. The G-forces the car generates are initially too much for Haytato to take. However with the assistance of the Asurada’s AI, Hayato almost manages to qualify for the race. Unfortunately he places one position behind the cut-off point. But lady luck soon shines on the team when another team is disqualified. They have barely scraped in to end up on the starting line of the Fujioka circuit.

Hayato still has difficulty competing in the race, even with the constant mentoring by the team and the AI system in the race car. However an adaptation of his skills he uses in motor bike racing improves his abilities as does his constant practicing. Hayato does exceptionally well in his first race despite being a complete amateur at the sport and also being 14 years old, the youngest competitor in the race. Late night training for the next race in Hokkaido attracts the attention of the group that previously attempted to steal the car via a helicopter. A number of cars try to force him off the road, however a fellow racer Hayato recently befriended, Johji Otomo, saves him from his attackers. On the race day we learn that if Hayato places within the first three places in the Hokkaido race, the team will earn a super licence which means they’ll be able to complete in the world grand prix. Following the lead of Otomo who grew up in the area and can sense changes in the weather, Hayato goes into the pit to change to wet weather tyres just as it rains and manages to secure a third place win and the super licence due to fact the other drivers are unprepared for the unforecasted wet weather conditions.

The Sugo Team compete in their first global race on the Grand Canyon circuit. While Hayato does quite well in this race, by the second he becomes a little conceited, pushes the car beyond its limits and is forced to retire. Along with him snubbing the fans after the race in a fit of anger, this leads fellow racers and public alike to believe that his success is all down to luck and he is unskilled as a racer. Hayato relises what he has done, changes his attitude and makes his way through the rankings over the course of the next few races and even manages to accumulate several points on the drivers’ championship leader board. Later a skilled racer from England named Knight Schumacher, warns Hayato to watch out for Missing Link Team racer Edelhi Bootsvorz, a half cyborg racer who was mechanised after a crash which almost killed him. During the next race, Bootsvorz tries to run Hayato off the road. It is revealed to the audience that the shadowy group behind the attempted theft of the Asurada GSX is a mysterious man named Mr Smith who manages and owns the Missing Link Team. In later races Schumacher ignores the race to intervene and save Hayato from Bootsvorz’s underhanded tactics. Hayato is curious as to why Schumacher is looking out for him. Sometime after team member Asuka Sugo makes contact with Schumacher and afterwards comes to the conclusion that he is her older brother Osamu Sugo whom her family lost contact with more than a year ago.

Due to the basic setting of the series and also the physical attributes and personalities of some characters, it’s really hard not to make comparisons between this show and “Mach GoGoGo (Speed Racer)”. Sugo team manager Tetsuichirou Kurumada is pretty much a dead ringer for Daisuke Mifune (Pops Racer), Hayato Kazami substitutes for Go Mifune (Speed Racer), Asuka Sugo is similar to Michi Shimura (Trixe) and of course Knight Schumacher doubles for the Masked Racer (Racer X). The mechanic in “Mach GoGoGo”, Sabu (Sparky), is replaced by three characters; mechanics Ryouhei Sumi and Miki Jounouchi as well as computer expert Shinsuke Maki. The monkey Sanpei (Chim-Chim) makes way for a more realistic pet; a dog called V-8. In the initial episodes several gadgets in the Asurada GSX are introduced, which are much like the seven mechanisms in the Mach 5. But most of these gadgets are used sparingly in subsequent episodes and aren’t key features of the Asurada as they are in the Mach 5 in “Mach GoGoGo”.

However the big difference in the two series is that while “Mach GoGoGo” soon ditched the focus on racing and became far more interested in Go’s adventures off the track, “Future GPX Cyber Formula” focuses purely on racing. Initially conceived as a sports anime where the racers go through a “motor sports triathlon” (where the cars raced on three types of circuit in one race), the increasing popularity of Formula 1 motor sport made studio Sunrise rethink the direction of the series. This is also reflected in the names of some of the drivers which are obviously inspired by Formula 1 drivers of the time. From what I understand the series was conceived by Sunrise and Red Entertainment after their successful collaboration on the TV series “Mashin Hero Wataru” Several big names worked on the series including Shoji Kawamori who designed the Asurada and other cars, and director Mitsuo Fukuda who would later go onto direct “Gear Fighter Dendoh” and “Gundam Seed”.

A 50 episode series was initially planned, but by the midway point the main sponsor, Takara, pulled out of the show due to poor sales of “Cyber Formula” toys which it was the exclusive manufacturer of. Due to the fact Sunrise had to shorten the storylines in order to wrap up the show by episode 37, the action and story became more intense and the series captured the interest of many high school aged kids. This resulted in good home video sales after the series ended. Interestingly most of these fans were female, perhaps high as 80% according to some demographics based on the video format sales (in which VHS sales were surprisingly dominant. Apparently most female Japanese anime fans preferred VHS tapes while laserdisc was the domain of mostly male anime fans). The show became so popular that it won the Animage magazine Grand Prix in 1991, surprisingly beating out fan favourite “Nadia of the Mysterious Seas”. Due to the belated rise in popularity, Sunrise produced a further four OVA series from 1992 to 2000 which followed Hayato Kazami’s progress as a driver right up to his early 20’s. Naturally none of these series ever had commercial English language releases of any kind.

The first half of the series mostly focuses on Hayato’s struggles with becoming a diver, Missing Link’s underhanded tactics to get the Asurada so they can use the AI for militaristic purposes and the mystery behind Knight Schumacher. The second half changes focus to Hayato’s rivalry with two new drivers; Bleed Kaga, a veteran from the brutal but lucrative “crash race” motor sport series and Karl Lichter von Randoll, a spoilt rich boy the same age as Hayato, who conquers and dominates any professional sport competition he enters. A sub plot is also introduced with formerly dominant racer Naoki Shinjyo finding himself in a slump with newer and more talented drivers, including Hayato whom he initially mocked, overshadowing him. Adding to Naoki’s woes is ruthless team owner, Kyoko Aoi, who tires of Naoki’s underperformance and creates a new rival team with Bleed Kaga as the driver who also acquires his mechanic team. But despite all of this, Naoki rises to the top of the field once more.

While at its core the series is a shonen sports drama, it mostly manages to avoid the usual clichés seen in the genre. The character designs are also quite good and are similar to others of that era. Most of the male characters with their spiky hair seem to be influenced somewhat from “Dragon Ball”, as you’d expect. The cars themselves seem to be partly influenced by Tamiya’s Mini 4WD miniature racing kits which were quite popular in Japan, as well as Le Mans race cars. The animation is bog standard TV series quality of the era, though in a couple of episodes the character animation can go off model quite badly. Also of note is Hayato’s burgeoning relationship with Asuka Sugo, which doesn’t really take off until the follow up OVA series. In the team Asuka doesn’t have much of a role, except as a timekeeper (she is the daughter of the Sugo family who own the race team), which seems an odd fit. In terms of plot I think she is just there as potential love interest for Hayato. While supposedly the vast majority of fans of the series were female, unsurprisingly the only modern merchandise I can find in terms of figures is of Asuka, usually in revealing Race Queen outfits.

I suspect that Bandai Entertainment received some quite worn out masters to create their English language version. Occasionally the music in the next episode previews can sound rather wonky like a damaged or warped analogue magnetic audio tape. The artwork used for the box set is sourced from earlier Japanese DVD rental releases which look really nice. But the eight disc set is really bare bones with no extras whatsoever. Being an early DVD release, the set comes in two massive DVD cases which only hold four DVDs each. They’re pretty thick, with each case the thickness of two and half regular sized DVD cases. The two cases are held together with a thin cardboard sleeve. Bandai Entertainment went cheap for this set and couldn’t even be bothered making a proper box for the two DVD cases. The subtitles are fine for the most part, but have some glaring grammatical errors, the most blatant one; using “break” instead of “brake”.

In conclusion, this is a really interesting anime series from a genre that rarely gets made, let alone released in English. Sometimes Hayato can act like an annoying brat, but the action and the sub plots and stories of the other drivers make up for any shortcomings. The franchise does have its fans outside of Japan, however most of them reside in Asia. There seems to be very few fans of “Cyber Formula” in the west, hence this rather low key release from Bandai Entertainment. Though it has been out of print for more than a decade, there are still a few copies available to buy in the second hand market. Most copies are rather inexpensive and cost around US$45, about a half of the original retail price.

Anime On the Big Screen: “Penguin Highway”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Saturday 10 November 2018
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 119 minutes
Production Date: 2018
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

Three weeks after the last anime film in cinemas, another one pops up. It was a fairly nice spring day out with a fair bit of cloud cover but lots of sun poking through. But I had to battle through quite a lot of road works from home into civic which surprised me. Madman did a little more promotional than usual (which normally consists of a few social media posts and a website) and had a poster up in the cinema foyer, the first time they had done so since “Mirai” in August. Dendy was playing this film in the new section of the cinema which can be found via a walk way behind the box office. Despite usual poor promotion Madman does for these films, 14 people showed up including two families who had brought young kids. Yes, they brought kids to a subtitled film. And the families weren’t Japanese as you’d expect. Both were Anglo. Also of note was that a whole chunk of the adverts before the main feature were in Mandarin, some without English subtitles. I think it’s obvious, especially for the Sydney and Melbourne markets, Madman to a large degree is promoting these films to the Chinese demographic in this country. With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the film;

Fourth grader Aoyama lives in suburbia with his family. Highly intellectual for this age, he is constantly jotting down notes and is continually interested in the world around him and learning everything about it. He often wonders what he will be like when he is an adult and has even calculated how many days it will be until he is one. With his best friend at school, the somewhat dim-witted Uchida, the pair conducts experiments and explore the area around their suburb. Most recently they have embarked on a project to discover the source of a local stream which they have dubbed the Amazon project. Aoyama has taken a liking to a female dental assistant at a local dental clinic he goes to. She has been teaching him how to play chess at a local coffee shop, however a girl at school, Hamamoto, always seems to beat him despite his continual progress in learning the tactics of the game. Regardless Aoyama has decided that the young dental assistant is the one whom he will marry when he becomes an adult.

One morning at the bus stop, Aoyama spots several penguins in the field across the road. He runs over to confirm this bizarre sight and can’t believe what he is seeing. At school everyone is talking about the strange appearance of the penguins. Aoyama hatches a plan with Uchida to investigate where the birds came from. Aoyama already has several theories as to why they have appeared and if indeed if they are penguins at all. Class bully Suzuki arrives putting down Aoyama and anyone else who is interested in the penguin invasion of the town. He knocks over Uchida which annoys Aoyama. Later in the waiting room at the dental clinic, Aoyama spots Suzuki and tells him that his appointment for removing his wisdom teeth is really code for a terrible disease he has in which he’ll have to have all his teeth pulled. Suzuki goes into the dental chair absolutely terrified and in hysterics and Aoyama is reprimanded by the young dental assistant.

Later doing research on penguins, he comes across the term “penguin highway” in a text book. This is the path the penguins take from feeding in the ocean going back to their rookery (i.e. colony). Liking the name so much, he decides to title his new research project on the penguin phenomena by that name. Aoyama and Uchida begin their research by quizzing several locals who had seen the penguins. This includes a lady who hit one with her car which left a penguin shaped dent in her grill and the truck driver who was taking the rounded up penguins to a zoo. On the journey he heard a bump in back of the truck and was amazed to discover household implements in the truck in place of all the penguins who had vanished. The pair continues their investigations in the forest behind the water tower. After a fruitless search, the pair hear something in the bushes and find a line of penguins following the stream. However they soon lose track of them. It’s as if they have disappeared into thin air.

Suzuki later spots the pair and with his two henchmen friends ties Aoyama up to a soft drink vending machine as Uchida flees in terror. As revenge for being humiliated at the dentist, Suzuki destroys some of Aoyama’s research notes and leaves him roped to the vending machine. A while later the young woman from the dental clinic walks past and eventually frees him and helps remove a loose baby tooth that has been annoying him for several days. To get his mind off the pain of the tooth removal, she retrieves a can from the vending machine and says shes going to show him something really special. She throws the can high in the air and it falls to the ground, turning into a penguin. Baffled at what he has seen, a day or so later he asks her to repeat the same phenomena this time with a number of household items. Nothing seems to work and she can’t understand why. She tells him that just sometimes she has the desire to create a penguin. Uchida later reveals he has captured one the penguins that was hiding in his parent’s garage. Oddly it refuses to eat or drink. They decide to take it to a local aquarium, however after the train passes only a few stops, the penguin becomes sick. They get off at the next station where the penguin metamorphoses back into a soft drink can. Days later, Hamamoto pulls Aoyama aside in class and asks him to come to the forest after school. Both he and Uchida decide to go with her. Deep in the forest in a clearing she shows the pair something she has kept secret from everyone; a large floating globe that seems to made from water. Are all the phenomena plaguing the town related?

This is the first full length feature film from Studio Colorido. It’s reasonable to say that most anime fans would have not heard of this fairly new studio which was founded in 2011. The only other major anime of theirs to get an English language release is the short film “Typhoon Noruda” which was released by Sentai Filmworks earlier this year. The director of that short film as well as this one is Hiroyasu Ishida who again is relatively unknown to most anime fans. He first gained recognition with his hilarious action filled student anime film “Fumiko’s Confession” back in 2009. After joining Studio Colorido he directed the short films “Fastening Days”, “Sonny Boy & Dewdrop Girl” and the much loved “Paulette's Chair” which was created as a 10th anniversary project for Fuji Television’s noitaminA programming block. This film is based upon a novel by Tomihiko Morimi who also wrote the novel “The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl” which was recently adapted into an anime film by Masaaki Yuasa. He also wrote the original novel which the TV anime series “The Eccentric Family” was based on. Makoto Ueda of Kyoto based theatrical troupe Europe Kikaku was the screenwriter. He previously wrote the script for “The Night is Short, Walk On Girl” and several scripts for “The Tatami Galaxy”. Rounding out the talented staff is former Studio Ghibli key animator Yojiro Arai who provided the character designs.

So far this year, I really think this is the best anime film that has come to cinemas. Though a Japanese film through and through, the film does at times feel like a 1980’s kid's adventure film, dare I say it, a bit like “The Goonies”, except with more of a sci-fi bent and perhaps a fantasy twist, somewhat like the recent retro Netflix show “Stranger Things”, but made for a family audience. With the core trio of Aoyama, Uchida and Hamamoto, their adventures really made me feel quite nostalgic for my childhood. Though unlike Hollywood films and indeed a lot of anime and Japanese films, this family film celebrates intellectualism rather than pushing those types of characters to the sideline. It is quite unusual to have to lead characters, Aoyama and Hamamoto, who are intelligent beyond their years in a film like this. But other characters like Suzuki are much more typical, verging on cliché, which I thought was a bit out of place considering how well written Aoyama was.

Having said that, I think Aoyama could be seen as a bit polarising for audiences. His opening monologue about the town and himself could be seen as him being terribly conceited. However his other personality traits such as his fondness for Uchida and the fact he has no harsh feelings towards Hamamoto every time she beats him at chess, show that he isn’t really some stuck up little kid. I also really liked the way Aoyama’s budding puberty was depicted. Like everything else he encounters, puberty and his feelings for women are something that Aoyama must study and solve as if was some kind of mystery. Luckily the way this is explored is quite well written. The unnamed dental assistant in her 20’s is not some object for Aoyama to ogle at. Much like him she has an intellectual side but is also quite playful. Possibly to some degree she is presented as an ideal woman as such, however in terms of story and plot she is much more than that to the film. I think the screenwriter, Ueda, has managed to fairly successfully portray her as fully fleshed character as well as an object of desire and fascination for Aoyama. That’s a pretty tough balancing act for a screenwriter I think.

The mystery behind the penguins, the large floating globe in the forest and the unnamed lady is fairly well done. Having read some reviews, some seem perplexed that the original novel won the Nihon SF Taisho Award in 2010. While there are some fantastical elements to the story, the core of the plot is purely science fiction based. It sort of baffles me that people can’t understand that. I think for the vast majority of its run time, the science seems to make sense. Of course not all of it is explained, especially how some parts of it fit together and if it is all the work of nature or was crafted by some being or alien force. However to a large degree none of this really matters. With the humour in the film, well written and likable characters and the action sequences there to distract you, it doesn’t matter all that much. Though perhaps at some points, some of the action is a little too silly to be believed.

Summing up, this is a really nice debut feature film from Studio Colorido and director Hiroyasu Ishida. Like with Shinichiro Ushijima who directed “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas”, I think he’ll be yet another young director I’ll be looking out for in the future. I recall seeing a fair few advertisements for the film when I was in Tokyo in summer this year, however Mamoru Hosoda’s “Mirai” got all of the press that summer. That’s a real shame as I think “Penguin Highway” is a far better film than “Mirai”. Maybe some of the scientific concepts are a bit too much for a movie with kids in mind and some of the sequences may scare young children (in regards to a penguin’s metamorphosing back into a soft drink can and some minor animal deaths), but overall it’s a really fun family film that is well animated, doesn’t talk down to kids, isn’t anti-intellectual and has an intriguing mystery at its core. Plus it’s got lots of hilariously cute penguins. You can’t ask for more than that. 8 out of 10.

Forgotten Anime: “Voltus 5”

Distributor: Hi-Tops Video (USA)
Original Year of Release: 1977
English Video Release: 1983, NTSC VHS, English Dubbed
Japanese Title: Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V (Chodenji Machine Voltes V)
Runtime: 72 mins

 An alien invasion force from the planet Boazainia prepares its attack on planet Earth. Although every single nation on Earth in conjunction with the Space Defence Force bravely tries to fight the invaders off, they are soundly defeated by superior Boazainian weaponry. However at a secret earth base, five young people, Steve, Bert, Little John, Jaime and Mark are in engaged in training using various combat techniques such as shooting from moving motorbikes, martial arts, horse riding, ninja techniques and battle with sharks (very useful when fighting an alien invasion). The leader of the project, Dr Smith along with Mrs Armstrong, Steve, Bert and Little John’s mother, suddenly order them to cease all training. A little miffed at how no one has actually explained what this training was for, nor why it was suddenly cancelled, the five teenagers demand to know what is going on. They are soon taken to an island, which opens up to reveal a secret base. Inside they are shown the Earth’s ultimate weapon; Voltus 5, a huge humanoid robot built in secret from plans by Steve, Bert and Little John’s father, Dr Armstrong, to stop the Boazainian invasion. Much to their surprise, the five teens are quickly ordered on board the giant robot which separates into five separate ships. Though they initially have difficulty pilot their separate craft, they soon are instinctively able to control them as they have apparently had flight simulation training.

The Voltus 5 team’s very first mission is to destroy the Boazainian saucers that are devastating the planet. However the leader of the Boazainian invasion, Prince Zardos, has taken note of the Earth’s fight back with a giant robot, and sends out one of his beast fighter robots to attack Space Defence Force headquarters. The Voltus 5 team responds and after a long fight transforms into their robot form and destroys the beast fighter with their laser sword. This enrages Prince Zardos who vows to search for Voltus 5’s base and attack them. Later as Mrs Armstrong visit’s her husband’s grave site, she recalls back to a time many years ago when her husband took off to contact the planet Boazainia in an attempt to persuade them to not to invade. If he didn’t return, he asked that Dr Smith initiate the Voltus 5 plan. He also told his wife to consider him to be dead. However on the planet Boazainia, Dr Armstrong is actually alive and well. Along with a sympathetic Boazainian general who is against the Emperor’s regime, a resistance force has been formed amongst the slaves on the planet and is gaining momentum. Finally the rebellion is about to take place. At midnight a large group of slaves including Dr Armstrong forcibly take two dozen Boazainian fighter saucers and begin to navigate their way back to Earth.

On Earth, Prince Zardos is ropable with underlings lack of progress at defeating Voltus 5. He sends out a new beast fighter robot, the Super Hornet. Once again the Voltus 5 team fights off the new menace. And although it seems impervious to all attacks, Voltus 5 takes it out with its laser sword. Prince Zardos’s next plan is to take Commander Robinson of the Space Defence Force hostage and to destroy the Voltus 5 base with the Space Defence Force missiles. Cleverly disguised as delivery men, a platoon of Boazainian soldiers manages to infiltrate the headquarters of the Space Defence force telling the guards on duty they have a present for Commander Robinson from his daughter Jamie of the Voltus 5 team. The commander thanks his daughter via telephone for the present just before the Boazainian soldiers begin their attack. However as Commander Robinson is a ninja, just like his daughter, he throws shurikens at his attackers and escapes to an underground floor below via a secret passage under his desk. After the base is under their control, the Boazainian soldiers fire wave after wave of missiles at the Voltus 5 base, only to have Voltus 5 destroy them all. But the attack doesn't stop there. Another beast fighter robot, a falcon, attacks Voltus 5. Knowing that her father is in danger, Jamie takes off to save him leaving her team mates in the lurch. She eventually saves him, but he is angry that she left the battlefield. However he gives her new orders to capture the leader of the Boazainian soldiers who have invaded the base. But the leader escapes and Jamie returns to her team to finish off the Falcon beast robot with an injured leg. She has learned her lesson about teamwork.

Sometime later, Dr Armstrong and their remaining group of rebels from the planet Boazainia arrive in the solar system, headed for Earth. However the Space Defence Force mistakenly identifies the saucers as another Boazainian attack and send out Voltus 5 to deal with them. In the meantime Dr Armstrong and his band of rebels have to deal with a Boazainian fleet that has just arrived. Many of the saucers that escaped are destroyed taking the rebels lives with them. Soon Dr Armstrong is eventually captured by the Boazainians. When Voltus 5 finally arrives on the scene, they are confused to find a beast fighter and a Boazainian mobile base instead of an invasion fleet. While they take down the beast fighter in their usual fashion with the laser sword, the Boazainian mobile base commander throws up more confusion when he uses Dr Armstrong as a hostage. Naturally Dr Armstrong’s sons, Steve, Bert and Little John are quite surprised at the fact their father seems to have survived. However they have doubts as if it just a plot by the Boazainian commander to trick them into surrendering and that the Dr Armstrong is just a robot made to look like their father. They may end up killing their long lost father just to defeat the Boazainian mobile base.

 “Voltus 5”, more commonly known as “Voltes V”, has had a number of adaptations in English and quite a large and faithful following amongst English speaking fans, though mostly those in the Philippines. The original version of “Voltes V” was broadcast during 1977 and into 1978 in Japan and is the second series in the “Robot Romance Trilogy” which also included “Combattler V” and “Daimos”. Like the previous entry in the series, “Combattler V”, its core cast was made up of a five person team. By this point in the 1970’s, the five person team (pioneered by "Gatchaman" in the early 1970's) had become a staple in Japanese pop culture, both in anime and tokusatsu such as Toei’s long running Super Sentai series which began in 1975 with “Gorenger”. Tadao Nagahama, who would go on to direct the first half of “Rose of Versailles”, was the director of “Voltes V”. Supposedly Nagahama’s research into the French revolution for “Versailles” led him to work in elements of revolution into the final few episodes of “Voltes V”. While the TV show never made it in a syndicated format in the US in the 1970’s, its toys did in the form of Mattel's Shogun Warriors toy line.

The show’s first English adaptation was in the very late 1970’s in the Philippines of all places. An incredibly popular show in the Philippines, it spawned a huge array of merchandise exclusive to the region such as comic books and even covers of the show’s main theme song. However its success was also its downfall. President Ferdinand Marcos personally ordered the show off the air in 1978 with the official reason being due to its violent content. However a rumour circulated within the country and fandom of the show that the real reason was the fact the ending had the people of the Boazainian Empire revolting and overthrowing their dictator. Hey, you don’t want to give the public any ideas now! However I’ve read that there is a more realistic reason why it was taken off air. Ferdinand Marcos’ two government owned TV stations were being whipped in the ratings by the privately owned TV station that aired “Voltes V”. This lead Marcos to ban several top rating TV shows such as “Voltes V” and “Charlie’s Angels” with the excuse that he believed that the violent content in the shows had a negative effect on children (a nonsense argument still used by conservative groups today). Well, I suppose you can do whatever you like when you’re a dictator.

The Philippines English dub of this TV show eventually made its way out of the country via tape trading and led to it being viciously flogged as bootleg fodder for a the best part of two decades in the USA. As a result of nostalgia, the show made a return in the 1990’s in the Philippines with a legit VCD release and a follow up compilation movie called “Voltes V: The Liberation” in 1999, which was made up of the final five episodes cut from the original broadcast. “Voltus 5”, the version being reviewed here, is a different kettle of fish altogether. Although it uses exactly the same character names as the Philippines English dub, it is a completely brand new dub seemingly recorded in the US. I suspect that the US production company, 3B Productions (best known for “Tranzor Z”, the 1985 English adaptation of “Mazinger Z”), either sublicensed the dub from the Philippines and weren’t happy with it, and decided to re dub it, or Toei considered the names from the Philippines dub to be the official English names for the cast. This compilation, which runs a short 72 minutes, is edited from four episodes, 1, 2, 9 and 18, of the original 40 episode series. Like a lot of compilation movies this makes the flow of the story a little bit jerky. Also with that many episodes cut, there is a whole lot of story missing which leads to some gaps in logic. For example in a latter part of the tape, Little John suddenly appears with a robot octopus sitting on top of his helmet. It is never explained in this tape the whole back story of the robot Octo-1 (Takko in the Japanese version) which makes his appearance rather perplexing to an audience who have only seen this compilation.

“Adequate” is probably the best way to describe the dub. I've certainly heard a lot worse, though not much worse. Obviously professional actors were used, but I think they were watching the clock a bit rather than concentrating on giving a stellar performance. Let's face really, is some two bit actor going to really put that much effort into dubbing “some Asian kid's cartoon”? Plus this was the early 1980's, not the early 2000's anime boom. The dialogue and scripting isn’t all that great either. In short the dub is functional and listenable. You really can't expect much more than that. The release of this tape was only limited to a VHS release in the US and a highly obscure release by Video Classics in Australia. As a child I do recall seeing a lot of Video Classics releases in my local video store, but I never saw this tape. I have the US tape. Although “Super Robot” shows from the 1970's are deliberately over the top and melodramatic, they sure are a lot of fun. But the editing, while professionally done and mostly seamless, really doesn't help the flow of the story and the acting is only so-so. Though I enjoyed this tape, Discotek Media have recently announced they will be releasing the series as a subtitled only Blu-ray, which I think I will enjoy much more than this badly dubbed and edited compilation.