The Decade in Review : The English Language Adaptation Industry and Fandom Part 1

With the Japanese side of things out of the way, I thought it might be fun to look at the English adaptation side of things. It’s taken me a while, but I have pretty much finished it. However, it is pretty lengthy, so much so I have decided to split it up into two parts. For the most part I am of course concentrating on the US, but important developments happened in the UK as well as Australia during this time. With part one, I am looking at the physical and streaming home video industry, cinema releases, Hollywood adaptations, crowdfunding, the explosion of popularity in figures and movements in the UK industry;

Anime companies in the very early 2010’s were, to a degree, still reeling from the busting of the US anime bubble of the late 2000’s. Most US companies had scaled down releases substantially. With the exception of Funimation’s titles, the vast majority of physical home video releases were subtitled only. The situation became more dire with the head office of Bandai announcing that they were pulling out of the US home video market and that they would be winding up operations of Bandai Entertainment in March 2013. It soon became apparent that this new strategy was a worldwide one as Bandai also shut down their European video label, Beez, soon after. The company announced they would be now taking a more international approach to home video, with many of their top tier titles receiving English subtitles, and sometimes English dubs, on the Japanese blu-ray releases. However, in the end, most of these titles eventually received western releases anyway.

Aniplex of America's Garden of Sinners Box Set 

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for anime on home video formats. The 2010’s saw the rise of the blu-ray format and whole slew of new companies taking advantage of a collector’s market. An early entrant was game maker NIS America who released a slew of titles including “Toradora!”, “Love Live!”, “Anohana”, “Natsume's Book of Friends” and “Cardcaptor Sakura” for the first time on blu-ray. Though the oversized long boxes did irk some fans, they soon released their titles in more standardised boxes. But by the middle of the decade they decided to pull out of the US anime market. The other big entrant was Aniplex of America. While they used a similar marketing and release strategy to the ill-fated Bandai Visual USA of the previous decade, somehow, they managed to survive and even flourish in the market. This was mainly due to mega hits they actually owned the rights to including “Puella Magi Madoka Magica”, “Sword Art Online” and the sprawling “Fate” franchise. Rightly fans rightly criticised the company for their overly expensive releases, most of which could be argued aren’t value for money compared to similar US releases, especially when quality of packaging, actual content and extras are taken into consideration.

One of the biggest surprises of the decade was Disney relinquishing theatrical and home video rights to almost all of the Studio Ghibli catalogue to independent studio GKIDS. I’ll talk more about GKIDS in the theatrical releases section of this post, but will mention that the studio teamed up with independent DVD/blu-ray producer Shout! Factory to release their titles, which not only comprised the Ghibli catalogue but other anime fare, both otaku-type titles and family films. But the most unlikely hero in terms of physical releases this decade was Discotek. Though initially releasing niche and cult Asian cinema in the previous decade and a few older anime films from the 1960’s and 1970’s, they soon switched gears and aimed directly for the sector of the market which enjoyed older anime with a whole slew of new and “rescued” licenses. This included series and films saved from oblivion and painstakingly restored such as the 2001 “Cyborg 009” series, “Robot Carnival” and “Kimagure Orange Road”.

Viz Media's Sailor Moon Box Set

Licence rescues or releases of fan favourites that never previously saw the light of home video continued through the decade including the “Dirty Pair” TV series, almost every piece of “Gundam” animation, “Rose of Versailles” and most amazingly all of “The Legend of Galactic Heroes”, albeit in an absurdly expensive blu-ray set which retailed for an astronomical US$800. Viz also had a massive scoop with the acquisition of the entire “Sailor Moon” franchise, including “Sailor Moon Crystal”. But the material they received for the 1990’s TV series wasn’t exactly high definition (old analogue composite master tapes in reality) and made the terrible decision to “enhance” the series by running through a filter that made the video look splotchy and smeary. Fans were rightly livid, but amazingly Viz ignored the criticism and did the same thing for the first three series. By the fourth series, “Sailor Moon S”, they had received better masters, but did not go back and redo the first three series. Release of the series was glacial as well; a total of five years for all five series and three films.

Funimation made some odd moves in the decade; sold off by Navarre to a group of investors that included original owner Gen Fukunaga, partnering with Crunchyroll only to nullify that deal several years later after Sony bought a 95% stake in the company. However, the weirdest thing was that Funimation briefly shared offices with Christian media company EchoLight Studios, a Texas-based Christian television production company run by Rick Santorum, the former conservative politician. Fukunaga was also the co-founder and manager of EchoLight Studios. The internal machinations of the company came under scrutiny when fans noticed incredibly negative reviews from employees on recruitment website Glassdoor with titles such as “Cannibalistic, Orwellian Nightmare”.

Reception of Sojitz's main office

Early in the decade Funimation sued Sentai Filmworks and the remnants of the company they were rebirthed out of; ADV Films. Just before the anime bubble burst in the previous decade, ADV Films needed an injection of cash and gained a new Japanese partner who would invest in them; Sojitz Corporation. What actually happened is that Sojitz bought up anime properties for them at absurd prices and got them into incredible debt. When ADV couldn’t pay back the money they sold everything off to Funimation, who became the debt collector. ADV owed US$8 million. I still am utterly baffled as to why anyone at ADV thought it was a great idea to take up such a shitty deal to stay afloat. Three years later the lawsuit was dropped after both companies came to an agreement.

Although I’m not covering manga, it would be odd if I didn’t cover the demise of Tokyopop. Originally beginning in 1997, the company single-handedly changed how manga was released in the western world; from single issue comics sold in comic book stores to “tankobon” sized, “unflipped” (i.e. read right to left and printed the same way as Japanese managa) and sold in bookstores. However, the company flooded the market with hundreds of titles and several large chain stores carrying their titles went bankrupt, owing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. Somehow the company managed to limp into the 2010’s. But the death knell for them was Kodansha entering the US market and taking back their licences. The company ceased manga distribution in April 2011. A dreadful reality web series called “America's Greatest Otaku” followed as well as a documentary on the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami called “Pray for Japan”. However, the company still continues to exploit young comic book artists with some of the worst contracts in the industry.

Shiori Kawana

Voyager Entertainment who had previously released the English adaptations of “Space Battleship Yamato” in the US (mostly under their broadcast names of “Star Blazers”), unceremoniously sacked the only man on their team who knew how to market their stuff in the west, Tim Eldred, and tried their hand at releasing the newest entry in the Yamato universe; “Yamato 2199”. While the vast majority of anime fandom is in their early twenties or far much younger, Voyager incomprehensibly renamed the series “Star Blazers 2199” and attempted to sell it to US anime fans. This did not go down well. First there was no streaming, it was released as single discs (four episodes for an insane US$45) instead of half or a full season, and there was no English dub. Promotion was almost entirely limited to a series of utterly baffling videos featuring cosplayer and gravure model Shiori Kawana (dressed as series character Yuki Mori), who to be utterly fair, wasn’t completely well versed in English. Coupled with this was low production values of the videos including the obvious logo of the freebie software in the top left-hand corner. English speaking fans, who were not used to this uniquely Japanese promotion, were equally horrified and amused by the whole thing. Fandom sent in some rather demeaning questions for Shiori asking why it treats it audience like kindergarteners and if she was a nude model. Fandom wasn’t going for US$45 blu-rays sold by gravure models and ended up mocking Voyager. The series releases came to grinding halt with Funimation eventually licencing the series the latter part of the decade.

I’ll have a look at Australian companies separately, but I just want to mention one non US company; All the Anime. Founded by ex-Beez staff and based in Scotland and France, over the course of the last seven years have released some of best anime box sets in the English speaking world. They also released a number of titles in English (subtitled only of course) which hadn’t been released elsewhere such as “Princess Arte”, “Tokyo Marble Chocolate”, “Amanchu!” and a collection of Production I.G short films.

Despite the downturn in physical home video sales, companies were still willing to enter the market. One of more interesting outfits was Anime Midstream. Their first title was the little known early 1990’s robot show “Raijin-Oh”, which they not only had dubbed but initially released in single DVD format with five or four episodes on each disc, while other companies where releasing titles in half season sets. After a wonky start and delays between releases, the company relented and released the latter half of the series as one set. In the later part of the decade they released all of the “BT’X” franchise.

Lastly, the weird story of Crimson Star Media. A brand-new company, they licenced the anime “Looking Up at the Half-Moon Anime”, but disaster struck when owner, Corey Maddox, was gaoled for a year on charges of violating probation. The original charge? Nine counts of sexual exploitation of children. In the end Crimson Star Media didn’t release a single disc. Nozomi Entertainment (video company for the Right Stuf) released the series instead.

Chris Beveridge

Even though there was a lot of movement in the physical home video industry, things were changing. Fandom’s go to source for everything DVD releases, AnimeOnDVD.com, had already been sold to a company called Mania.com back in 2008. The company rebranded the site and to be frank, it was never as good as the old AnimeOnDVD.com. Eventually the site’s former owner, Chris Beveridge, jumped ship in 2011 and created his own site, The Fandom Post, which covered much more than anime, but was still heavily focused on anime releases. Mania disappeared a couple of years later. However, the lack of posts on The Fandom Post’s message boards compared to the heyday of AnimeOnDVD.com was indicative of shift in the way fandom watched and consumed anime.

Of course, the biggest change this decade with fandom was the move from owning physical copies to streaming anime from legitimate companies. This had already begun in the late 2000’s when pirate anime site Crunchyroll went legit and began licensing titles directly from Japanese companies. This soon morphed into “simulcasts”, where anime would be translated and released to fans several hours after broadcast. In many cases western fans had access to most broadcast anime before most Japanese fans who did not reside within the metropolitan Tokyo region. This is because stations in other prefectures don’t broadcast episodes for up to a week later. Other companies soon realised there was money to be made in streaming. Funimation initially had a streaming deal with Crunchyroll, but broke it off in the latter part of the decade and created their own streaming platform. Funimation also pioneered “simuldubs”, which as it sounds involved the English dubbing of titles being broadcast several weeks after the initial broadcast. Other established companies got into the streaming game as well, such as Sentai Filmworks who created the Hidive website.

Unsurprisingly mainstream companies got back into the anime game after an absence of many years. Netflix became a mainstream steaming service giant during the decade and cast its eye over anime. They managed to licence and even commission some big shows including “Devilman Crybaby”, a CG adaptation of the recent “Ultraman” manga, “Violet Evergarden” and “Little Witch Academia”. But their biggest title was the original “Evangelion” TV series. This acquisition wasn’t without its issues; a new dub was commissioned for its release, and the series’ iconic end theme had to be replaced due to licencing issues. Streaming in general also wasn’t without its issues though. Crunchyroll in particular was criticised for poor quality video, and worse, underpaying translators. The timing of its issues with translator’s pay unfortunately happened at the same time Crunchyroll management had spent a fortune on creating a rather gaudy new office for the company. Fandom rightly criticised them for it. As home video rights are often tied to streaming rights, this meant in some cases a physical home video release did not eventuate, especially for Netflix titles, which did irk a section of fandom.

So, we know anime fandom mostly dumped physical releases when the bubble finally burst in the 2000’s and never really went back to buying them. So, the question is; where was that money going? The answer of course was merchandise, mostly towards highly detailed figures. Thanks to an overabundance of anime comprised mostly (or entirely in some cases) of female characters, there was never going to a be a shortage of inspiration for these figures. If we’re being totally honest, the vast majority of these figures are aimed young men. And naturally, even if the character didn’t act that way in the anime, a fair wack of these figures had a sexual aspect to them. It did amuse me that western fandom would baulk at paying a single cent to watch anime, yet seemingly have no qualms about plonking down US$150, minimum, for one of these figures, and usually would have a harem of dozens of these figures. Other merchandise that tickled a mostly young, male western fandom included body pillow covers, which again, were even more sexualised than the figures.

The other big change this decade in terms of how fans viewed anime was the increased presence of anime in cinemas. There were a couple of reasons why this took place. First there was the change in how film was distributed to cinemas; from 35mm film prints to digital which made things a lot cheaper for distributors. Especially so for distributors of foreign language films, they no longer had to source 35mm prints and “burn” subtitles onto that existing print. Secondly there was an increase in cinema for niche audiences such as simulcasts or rebroadcasts of opera, theatrical plays or concerts. This included anime as well. In the US two film distributors lead the way in theatrical anime. The first one was Gkids. Founded in 2008, their focus was in foreign language animation. Apart from their acquisition of the entire Studio Ghibli catalogue, they also theatrically released some of the biggest hits of the decade including “Promare”, “The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl” and “Weathering with You” All of their titles also received physical home video releases as well. The other main distributor was Eleven Arts. This company is a US branch of a larger Japanese one. Much like Gkids, this company focused mostly on foreign language material, notably Japanese cinema, but also distributed some US/Japanese co-productions, mostly of the exploitation and genre variety. The company distributed some big anime hits of the decade as well, including “Penguin Highway”, “Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms”, “Liz and the Blue Bird”, “Sound! Euphonium the Movie - Our Promise: A Brand New Day” and “A Silent Voice”. Oddities they distributed included “Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection” (which never got a physical home video release in the US) and most bafflingly “The Laws of the Universe: Part 1”, an anime film from right wing religious cult Happy Science.

Crowdfunding saw the promise of creators sourcing funding directly from fans. However, the reality wasn’t what some in the industry hoped for. Many US and UK companies used online companies like Kickstarter in order to help source and collate the funds. However, the projects put up for crowdfunding were sometimes rather curious. For example, was there a need to crowdfund for English dubs of “Escaflowne” and “Aria”? Surely there was no need to crowd fund a blu-ray box set of the original “Bubblegum Crisis” OVA? While companies like All the Anime, Funimation and the Right Stuf dabbled in crowdfunding, AnimEigo used it for every release they issued in the decade. For them it was a guarantee of shipping a set number of units for a predetermined price. Japanese companies also used it as a way to gain funding directly from English speaking fans. This was used mostly for pressing up English language blu-ray sets and creating one off OVAs. While it worked well for the former, there was mixed results for the latter, with the vast majority of projects failing to meet the required funding goal. Projects which did succeed included “Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade” and “Nekopara”.

After licencing numerous anime and manga for adaptation in English, Hollywood actually came through this decade with several decent adaptations actually hitting the big screen. Easily the best and most successful would be “All You Need is Kill”, which was adapted from its light novel origins into “Edge of Tomorrow” and stared Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. For a big budgeted action flick, it was highly entertaining and well written. It made an astounding US$370.5 million at the box office. Hollywood had another crack at “Godzilla” and managed to turn out a decent film. Directed by Gareth Edwards, who had only made the low budget but special effects filled sci-fi horror film “Monsters” previously, it was a pretty good film for what it was. A sequel, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” was released at the end of the decade, but the box office wasn’t as good.

After promising to make the film for nearly a decade and a half, James Cameron finally came through with “Alita: Battle Angel”, though with Robert Rodriguez in the director’s chair. The resulting film wasn’t bad at all. The CG created Alita was amazing, especially with her facial expressions and Rosa Salazar’s performance was very empathetic. Christoph Waltz was also excellent as Dr. Dyson Ido. Unfortunately, the dialogue at times was gobsmackingly awful. Though the film made an astounding US$404.9 million at the box office, a sequel looks unlikely, despite fans of the film championing for one. Though audiences seemed to despise Rupert Sanders’ (“Snow White and the Huntsman”) adaptation of “Ghost in the Shell”, I thought it was an interesting take on the franchise. Criticism of the film seemed to centre solely on the fact Scarlett Johansson portrayed Major Mira Killian, who in the original manga was a Japanese woman (Motoko Kusanagi). The criticism seemed to ignore the fact a key theme in the film was loss of identity, which Killian was grappling with in the film. It also seemed to ignore Killian’s real identity which was revealed towards the end of the film. Despite the accusations of “whitewashing”, the cast was quite diverse with Takeshi Kitano, Pilou Asbæk, Juliette Binoche, Chin Han and Danusia Samal in the lead and secondary roles. Lastly, Japanese pop culture has really seeped into western pop culture. For example, “Ready Player One”. Though not a great or memorable by any stretch of the imagination, the film did include some surprising cameos such as a Gundam, Kaneda’s motorbike from “Akira” and the Mach 5 from “Speed Racer”.

That offending scene from "Code Geass Lelouch of the
 Rebellion R2"

At the beginning of the decade in the UK, changes in laws banning what was known as “extreme pornography” also contained a subsection colloquially known as the “Dangerous Cartoons Act”. Essentially this was a change in the law do to with possession of “non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse”. The change meant that non-realistic depictions were now illegal, where as before, the law explicitly stated only photorealistic images and drawings were banned. This change did cause some waves as there was the possibility UK anime fans could be gaoled for importing ero anime and manga freely available in the US and Japan. However, there were no real cases of this happening. While the British Board of Classification (BBFC) was notorious in the 1990’s for censoring and even banning various anime that Manga Entertainment had intended to release, censorship of titles had been loosed over the decades and it was now unheard of for a title to be censored. However, in 2010 UK company Beez received a notice from the BBFC to censor a single shot from episode 10 of “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2” due to the fact it may “encourage an interest in underage sexual activity”.  The issue with this problematic shot was that it included a picture from a photo album, which had a nude young woman in the background holding up her arms so her breasts weren’t showing. The incident seemed rather hysterical and absurd. It’s highly doubtful any part of “Code Geass” would turn anime fans into paedophiles.

In the next part I’ll be looking at what happened in Australia, a decade of turbulence in English speaking fandom, and the rise in physical tokusatsu releases amongst other things. And seeing as we have just discussed the home video market, here’s a list of my favourite releases of the decade;

My Favourite English Language Physical Anime Releases of the Decade

• Tiger & Bunny Part 1 to 4 Limited Edition (Kaze/Manga Entertainment, February 2013 to September 2013)
• Attack on Titan - Part 1 and 2 Limited Edition (Funimation, June and September 2014)
• Love Live! School Idol Project - Season 1 Premium Edition (NIS America, September 2014)
• Patema Inverted Ultimate Edition (All the Anime/Anime Limited, October 2014)
• Kill la Kill - Part 1 to Part 3 Collector's Edition (All the Anime/Anime Limited, October 2014 to June 2015)
• Escaflowne Ultimate Edition (All the Anime/Anime Limited, November 2016)
• Outlaw Star Complete Blu-Ray Box Limited Edition (All the Anime/Anime Limited, November 2016)
• Revolutionary Girl Utena - 20th Anniversary Ultra Edition (Nozomi Entertainment, January 2018)
• Flip Flappers - Complete Collection Limited Edition (Sentai Filmworks, February 2018)
• Robot Carnival (Discoteck/Eastern Star, March 2018)

Documentaries on Japanese Pop Culture: “Tokyo Idols”

Publisher: KimStim (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Length: 92 minutes
Production Date: 2017
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

I was planning to do a new series on documentaries on Japanese pop culture, but realised I don’t quite have enough examples to make it ongoing. Instead of making it a regular feature, I have decided to cover them as I find them. First up is Kyoko Miyake’s recent doco on idol culture;

The bulk of this documentary, seemingly shot between 2014 and 2016, follows the then 19 year old Rio Hiiragi as she tries shooting towards her dream career of being a singer. In order to reach this goal, she has entered the world of independent, underground idols. Though she is quick to point out that she never wanted to be an idol, this part of her career is just to get her to her goal. Rio originally began her idol career as a member of an idol group in a themed café when she was 16. While she does have a manager of sorts, Rio is mostly a one woman show. She runs her own online shop selling various goods and CDs, has meet and greets after shows and does daily live streams to her fans. Over a relatively short period she has gained a small but very dedicated following.

We are then introduced to 43 year old Koji. Formerly a salary man, he discovered Rio and instantly became a fan. Fed up with the mediocrity of the salary man life, coupled with his fiancée leaving him and realising his life hadn’t turned out like he thought it would, astonishingly he quits his job and decides to help out promoting Rio via her passionate fan club the Rio Brothers. Koji is most certainly not your typical idol fan. He has spent most of his savings on idol related merchandise and went to 700 idol shows in a year. However as you’ll soon discover the only type of idol fan Miyake interviews is Koji’s type. As the film progresses, Rio’s career starts to gain traction; she does exceptionally well at an independent idol contest, lands a record deal with small label, a big time idol producer writes and produces a song for her, she has her first solo show, and goes on small nationwide promotional tour.

Miyake continues her odd focus on middle aged males in idol fandom, interviewing a guy who calls himself Mitacchi. In his late 50’s or older, Mitacchi discovered his idol obsession via a flyer handed to him by a waitress at his local pachinko parlour. The flyer was for a local idol themed café centred on indie underground idol group P.IDL. Going to the café, Mitacchi gets a crush on Yuka who is probably in her early 20’s. Amazingly Mitacchi dumps his girlfriend and begins to obsess on Yuka. He is constantly creating various bits of P.IDL and Yuka themed merchandise, some of which he gives her at the café. He later admits spending ¥200,000 a month on idol merchandise. The documentary shows him living in an old rundown apartment complex.

Two other young idols in small independent / underground idol acts are also briefly profiled. First is 14 year old Amu who is part of a group called Harajuku Story. Though bubbly and energetic, due to the large number of group members and the small stages they perform on, management practically forces her and other members to win the support of her fans who vote in a limited number of girls to perform. Again the focus here is on the fans. Miyake asks her if she feels weird that her fans are the same age as her father. Confused, Amu replies that her fans are of all ages, which bears out in the footage which does indeed show many of Harajuku Story’s fandom in their early 20’s or a little older. The final idol interviewed is 10 year old Yuzu who performs as part of the child group Amore Carina. Yet again Miyake implies to Yuzu’s mother that the fandom is made up of lecherous middle aged men, but she is just happy that her daughter enjoys what she is doing and is pleased she has gained some independence at such a young age (in regards to her traveling alone on public transport to get to shows).

In between these segments, Miyake interviews several people (I’m not going to call them experts on idols or pop culture, because they aren’t) in regards to idol culture. We are treated to some rather bizarre takes. Newspaper columnist Akio Nakamori attempts to make comparisons with modern day Japan to the depressed state of the United Kingdom's economy of the 1970’s, drawing links between the emergence of punk in the UK and the increased popularity of idol culture in Japan. While to a large degree hard core fans of idol culture are railing against society, this is a bit of a stretch. Another writer suggests the handshake events, popularised by idol group AKB48, are inherently sexual and that until recently handshaking was seen as sexual in Japan and oddly handshaking events inhabit a “legal grey zone” (I’m going to suggest that both statements are utter rubbish). One commentator flippantly suggests that idols should be banned because he has anecdotally heard collage aged men say they would rather follow idols instead of getting a girlfriend.

Unsurprisingly feminist author Minori Kitahara despises idol culture and suggests that “instead of connecting with women in their everyday life, the men choose girls they can dominate. Girls who are guaranteed not to challenge or hurt them. This society will stop at nothing to protect male fantasies and provide comfort for men”. I find this remark to quite off the mark in regards to most of the men interviewed for this film. But this is the preconceived notion Miyake pushes right from the beginning of the film. The doco starts with various pieces of footage of idol acts, mostly established ones that are on major labels. Over this footage is AKB48’s “Seijun Philosophy”, a slightly obscure B-side to their 2013 single “Heart Ereki”, with the lyrics “I want to protect my purity/Until I take off my school uniform”. Miyake's obsession with middle aged male fandom dominates much of the film. While in reality there is a sizable amount of fans who do fit this demographic, she constantly ignores the on camera presence of younger men in their early 20’s (who seem to make up the bulk of the audience) and surprisingly female fans, particularly the ones in Rio’s fanbase.

In a lot of ways I really despise these sorts of documentaries. In cases like this, the point is not to educate the audience, it’s to insert the filmmaker’s ideology or biases into the subject. I think it’s even worse when you’re dealing with a subject most westerners are completely unfamiliar with (despite the recent interest in the west of idol acts such as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Babymetal). Watching this documentary alone would lead people to believe that the idol phenomenon is a relatively recent one and is entirely comprised of female only groups and soloists with an entirely male fanbase. I completely understand that there is only a limited time within the documentary format to explore the long history of idol culture, but the film outright ignores it’s origins in the 1970’s with groups like The Candies and Pink Lady becoming superstars and the formation of modern idol fandom culture in the 1980's. Male idols marketed at an adoring female fanbase such as Johnny & Associates acts like Arashi, V6, SMAP and Hey! Say! JUMP, most of whom exploded in popularity in the mid 1990’s, are also conspicuously absent, considering how they dominate the media landscape. Miyake also ignores the burgeoning alt-idol scene which includes anti-idol acts like BiS (Brand-new idol Society), crossdresser Ladybeard’s death metal inspired Ladybaby and Deadlift Lolita groups and anonymous shoegaze inspired group ・・・・・・・・・ (pronounced “Dots”).

In promotional interviews for her film, Miyake feigns ignorance to idol culture as a whole, which seems really implausible considering how ingrained idols are in the Japanese media landscape and have been so since the 1970’s. While Miyake was born in Japan in 1976, she left to live and study in England around 2002. Now I know the popularity of idols waned in the 1990’s (but did explode in popularity again in the mid 1990’s with male idol groups such as SMAP), but there is no way in the world Miyake could have not known about them. One of the biggest groups in the 1980’s was Onyanko Club, whom would later inspire their producer and lyricist, Yasushi Akimoto, to create the infamous AKB48 in the mid 2000’s. AKB48 is ripe for criticism in this type of documentary, not just for the scandals surrounding them and the poor treatment of the women in the group, but also for the way fans are exploited in terms of acquiring tokens for handshake events and the like. However apart from the song at the opening of the film (which isn’t attributed to the group) the only criticism we see of the group is in terms of the Senbatsu Election process where fans select the group’s top eighty members for that year (the 45th Senbatsu Election in 2015 is depicted in the doco).

Miyake also tars everyone in the film with the same brush; Rio is lumped in with the other idol groups, P.IDL, Harajuku Story and Amore Carina which is absurd because Rio is a free agent while those other groups are run by mostly male management and the girls in those groups are paid employees. The fans also receive the same treatment; all are male, all don’t want girlfriends, all are fanatical about young women or girls. There’s little to no nuance, no real questioning why these men have poured all their free time and money into these groups. There’s also little time or effort to explain why these fans might reject Japanese society, especially salary man culture. Instead Miyake paints the fans as strange and possibly even paedophilic. In one telling subtitle translation, a fan of Amore Carina states that he likes the group because “Their selling point is that they’re not fully developed”, implying that he likes prepubescent girls over women. However in Japanese he actually says “kansei sarete inai”, most likely meaning the girls in the group are not as polished or as developed as professional performers. In fact this is one of the key reasons why fans like amateur groups, but obviously it did not fit Miyake’s preconceived ideas on idol fandom.

As I said before, these documentaries about subcultures, especially foreign subcultures, aren’t created to educate the public about them. They generally don’t exist to empathise with those who are involved in them or to explain their motives. They exist to suggest these subcultures are odd or even flat out immoral or repulsive. And because the general public and even western based fans of these subcultures in general aren’t all that familiar with daily Japanese life or pop culture in general, viewers of these types of documentaries can come to conclusion that Japanese society is odd and impenetrable for westerners. This is of course utter nonsense. Miyake doesn’t even take the time to explain why she has filmed some of the material. For example we see several shots passing by Akihabara Sixteen, a live venue for independent and underground idol acts where Rio performs. However this is never explained in the film.

Instead it’s lumped in with other random shots of Akihabara streets and other unconnected shots of Tokyo streetscapes. I also believe much of Rio’s story is presented out of sequence on purpose for dramatic effect. For example the film ends with Rio recording a single with a famous producer; however I believe this took place well before her 21st birthday concert. Much like Vice’s “Schoolgirls for Sale in Japan”, this doco takes a pop culture oddity from Japan (in that case idol group Kamen Joshi and their fans) and presents it as sinister and commonplace. Sure “Tokyo Idols” is hardly as sensationalistic nor does it cover the sex industry, but in many ways it feels similar. Much of the controversy and issues surrounding AKB48 are downplayed or ignored in favour of criticism of lower rung idol groups and their fans. It’s odd because you’d think Miyake would want to celebrate Rio’s independence and success against the odds. Idol culture deserves to be criticised and explored in much more nuanced and thorough detail. “Tokyo Idols” fails to do that on every level.

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.

Video Backlog: “Dancouga”

Publisher: Eastern Star (Discotek, USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 38 episodes x 24 mins
Production Date: 1985
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

During the late 20th century, an alien empire called Zorbados is in the process of invading Earth. With little effort and in a short amount of time, the invaders lay waste to the vast majority of Earth’s defences. At the Space Officer Academy in Australia, even new recruits are sent into battle. This includes the close couple of Shapiro Keats and Sara Yuki. Shapiro realises the Earth is doomed and believes this is his chance to make something of his life. He takes the bold decision to defect to the enemy. Sara attempts to follow but another cadet, the cocky Shinobu Fujiwara, fires at her plane to disable it which forces her to land. Shinobu advises the military that Shapiro is presumed dead but in fact has been caught and is being tortured by the enemy for information. Brazenly he tells them he wants to defect to their side and offers up a plan to prove himself. He suggests a plan to attack the top secret North American weapon cache, which supplies the continent and has caused trouble for the empire. Since Shapiro’s information is accurate, Emperor Muge soon realises that Shapiro could be highly useful to them and gives him a prominent position in their military, despite the grumblings of his generals.

Back on Earth, Shinobu is transferred to Japan as part of the Cyber Beast Force (or CBF), which is an agency specifically set up to fight the alien attack with advanced technology. There under the supervision of General Ross Igor and Professor Kotaro Hazuki, Shinobu’s fighter is modified. Sceptical that the modifications will enable him to better fight the enemy, he is given orders to pilot the machine now called the Eagle Fighter. As per his nature, Shinobu ignores the general and professor’s orders in terms of engaging the enemy. However, while in combat that he realises that through his anger, it changes into “Aggressive Beast Mode”, in which he is able to wipe out most of the empire’s fighters. Shinobu is soon joined by Sara who is tasked with piloting a tank called the Land Cougar. Though at first Shinobu protests at her inclusion in the team due to the fact she tried to defect with Shapiro, he later accepts her as a team member. Two others later join them; a young man named Masato Shikibu who pilots a tank called the Land Liger, and the rather aloof and cool Ryo Shiba who pilots another tank called the Big Moth (as in Mammoth).

Through the many battles with the aliens, they discover many things about their craft they pilot. All of them have the “Aggressive Beast Mode”, and can change into “Beast Mode” (into a mechanical Eagle, Cougar, Liger and Mammoth respectively). Not only that, their machines can transform into a humanoid form and eventually can link up together to form the giant robot “Dancouga” when Shinobu enters the code word “Dancouga” in his Eagle. Although they are sometimes defeated by the enemy, they always return to counterattack. They are sometimes helped by a mysterious fighter only known as the Black Knight who has his own beast warrior machine. However General Ross warns the CBF not to engage with the Black Knight as he may not be on their side. Early on in the series, Shinobu befriends a young girl called Laura Sullivan. Her mother has been killed in an attack on Sacramento city and only her and her puppy, Becky, have survived. But due to an alien attack, Shinobu manages to lose track of her. Later in the series, Sara discovers Laura and brings her back to the CBF base where General Igor eventually adopts her.

With the continuing Zorbados empire attacks, Sara notices the pattern of tactics being used is similar to those favoured by Shapiro. She believes that he is directing the attacks, however Shinobu convinces her that it’s a coincidence. In a latter operation Sara accidentally comes across Shapiro inside the enemy’s fortress. The confirmation that Shapiro did indeed defect to the enemy which shocks her. The former lovers are now on opposite sides of the war, directly fighting each other. As the series progresses towards its final arc, the war against the Zorbados empire is soon getting worse and it seems that Earth is losing. After a long search often hampered by the CBF themselves, the Zorbados empire eventually finds the hidden CBF base and attack it mercilessly. But General Igor and Professor Hazuki have an ace up their sleeve that may be able to save the Earth.

This somewhat mediocre robot show from the mid 1980’s has for some reason always fascinated me. I’ve previously written about it a few times. Possibly the only other franchise I’ve written about more is Gundam. Originally released by Software Sculptures on VHS in the US in the late 1990’s, it had the unfortunate distinction of being the longest series released on VHS that was never reissued on DVD or blu-ray.  Finally Discotek has decided to release the series on DVD. Although the show is from the mid 1980’s, it does feel at times it is a throwback from another era, especially with some elements obviously taken from super robot shows. Certainly with shows like “Macross” and “Votoms” airing years before “Dancouga”, the general set up of the series feels downright old fashioned. Couple this with the fact it’s an anime explicitly made to sell transformable toys and looking like a combination of “Go Lion” and any number of 1970’s giant combining robot vs alien invaders shows, it’s somehow is quite entertaining. There’s enough plot twists to keep the viewer interested nearly all the way through. Despite the fact CBF look like a clichéd fighting team on initial viewing, the characters have a decent amount of depth to them, though some can be rather unlikable at times, and some have really interesting backgrounds. But as I said before a lot of the show is pretty mediocre. A lot of the story is predictable. For example, guess who General Igor’s estranged son is? Also the way the general acts towards his team is pretty clichéd as well. Outside of “Zeta Gundam”, I’ve never seen so many people get slapped or punched (mostly team mates hitting each other or high ups doing the hitting).

Playing an odd role is a girl called Laura Sullivan. Though it would seem she’s only there to sell the soundtrack to the series (she sings a song named “Harmony Love” and her voice actor sings both opening theme songs.), she plays an important part in the end due the song she sings. The creators have also included some odd pop culture references in the show. A child solider they come across is named Dan Aykroyd, and the system that controls Dancouga is called “THX 1138”. Even worse is the terrible stereotyping of foreign people. Since the show takes place in many countries, the writers had many chances to show their general ignorance. In one episode the CBF go to Harlem in New York where they meet a group of African Americans who just dance and play Jazz all the time. In another episode they go to Switzerland where a local says “We Swiss are always prepared for war!”, and we cut away to the locals bringing out a massive cache of weapons and even anti-aircraft turrets.

Unfortunately some of the animation isn’t too crash hot. For a large number of episodes towards the first quarter of the series, in some scenes only the key animation is used. So there’s only about two frames a second in some of the animation. It looks terribly cheap, even for TV animation. Also some of the character designs are massacred by the animators and are really off model at times. However, towards the end of the series, especially in the last five or so episodes, the animation improves substantially. Like a lot of robot anime of the period the soundtrack is reasonably good. Most of it is with a full band and includes a lot of brass instruments. There are some synthesised tracks, but these are kept to a minimum and most of these are OK, albeit a bit cheesy at times. There’s no one on the staff roster of note other than Masami Obari who did some of the mecha designs and key animation. His style is pretty distinctive and you can easily spot his animation cuts, especially those involving Dancouga or any other mecha in the series.

Discotek’s 6 disc set is about as good as you’re going to get in terms of an English langue release. The original 8 volume set put out by Software Sculptures not only cut out most of the ending animations as well as the next episode previews, but the second opening animation featuring the song “A Real Kiss In Return”, was transposed with the first. Naturally the Discotek version reverses all of these edits and unnecessary changes. The original episode title cards had the episode title in Japanese as well as an English language title, often not a translation at all and sometimes phrased awkwardly or misspelled. Software Sculptures never actually translated or subbed the Japanese titles, however Discotek have finally done the right thing and subbed them. The translation in part seems to be ported directly over from the original script found on the old VHS tapes. I sort of wish they had scrapped that script and done a completely new translation. The other thing I noticed in this set is the rather noisy analogue tape hiss in the audio. I can only assume this was present on the Japanese DVD and blu-ray box sets, so I’m confused as to why the audio was never cleaned up. This DVD set contains no extras whatsoever. The final VHS tape in Software Sculptures’ release featured the follow up OVA, “Requiem for Victims”, albeit edited down to 30 minutes to remove recap footage from the TV series. Unfortunately, this OVA is not present in Discotek’s release. The company have not stated if they will release this OVA or the other OVAs in the franchise.

“Dancouga” is a decent robot anime TV series. Without the plot twists and fairly interesting characters it’d be dull as dishwater and just a toy commercial. It just manages to rise above being average. There is a significant rise in the quality of the story and animation towards the end of the series which just about saved this show for me. In short, this show is hardly as good as many other robot anime of the time, but still it’s worth a look if you like the genre. 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: Five TV series, four OVAs and nine movies. In addition I am also waiting for additional parts of four TV series and two movies to be released before viewing them.

Anime DVDs You May Have Missed: “Marmalade Boy”

Japanese Title: Marmalade Boy (TV), Marmalade Boy the movie
Publisher: Tokyopop (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 76 episodes x 24 mins (TV), 30 mins (movie)
Production Date: 1994 – 1995
English Version Release Date: 27 April 2004 – 26 April 2005
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes, 2017 Eastern Star/Discotek DVD reissue

Note: Originally published on the "Lost World of Anime" blog in 2009. Revised version republished on the "Anime Archivist" blog in March 2014.

When I went to my first local anime club screenings in the mid 1990’s, I was exposed to a number of new genres, including anime aimed squarely at girls and young women. Some of these release included “Magic Knight Rayearth”, “Please Save My Earth”, “Fushigi Yugi”, and of course this title, “Marmalade Boy”. Now with the majority of attendees being male weaned on sci-fi and action anime which was pretty much all that was available in video stores, you can imagine that this shoujo romantic teen comedy was bit of a shock to the system for a lot of us, me included. Initially I sort of dismissed the show, but after a couple of years becoming a little more mature and with further exploration and understanding of the many genres within Japanese animation, I have really come to appreciate this title and love it for its drama and characters. Before I get into why I enjoy this title so much, here’s a little commentary on the story;

Miki Koishikawa is an ordinary teen girl pretty much living an ordinary life. After her parents return from a holiday in Hawaii, they both cheerfully announce that they’re getting divorced. As if the shock of her normally loving parents parting ways wasn’t bad enough, her parents then inform her that not only are they going to swap partners with the Matsuura’s, a couple they met on their holiday, but all of them are going to be living together under the one roof! The absurdity of it all is too much for Miki to take. But still Miki agrees to have dinner with her parents and the Matsuura’s. The Matsuura’s son, Yuu, also attends. He makes an immediate impression on Miki. He’s cute and the same age as Miki.

Although she completely opposes the arrangement, Miki finally relents and the two families move into a new house as one. Unfortunately Miki takes an immediate dislike an to Yuu as he comes off as a bit aloof and he likes to tease her. But soon she begins to fall for him, and Yuu seems to be reciprocating her feelings. Adding to the already complex situation is that Yuu will be attending Miki’s school. The inevitable happens and the entire school finds out about the situation. Miki is living with a boy under the same roof! Eventually the misunderstandings are explained, but new problems arise as Miki’s male friend, Ginta Suou, becomes jealous and suspicious of Yuu. Ginta’s relationship history goes back to their first days of high school. Miki once tried to give a love letter to Ginta in an attempt to express her feelings to him, but the letter was discovered by his friends, and Ginta was put on the spot and felt he had to deny any feelings for Miki in front of them, even though he really liked her. Unfortunately Miki overheard the conversation and although things were eventually smoothed over, romance between the two of them seems destined to never happen. Well at least in Miki’s mind. Ginta still has feelings for her.

The ghosts of Yuu’s romantic past also come back to haunt him. His ex-girlfriend from his old school, Suzuki Arimi, shows up to steal him away from Miki. When Arimi sees that the task is more difficult than she initially thought, she starts to date Ginta in attempt to make Miki jealous and to take her focus off of Yuu. But Arimi has to deal with her fellow schoolmate, Tsutomu Rokutanda, who has had a crush on her for a long time. Despite repeated rejections from Arimi, the not very bright Tsutomu keeps on trying to woo her. To make matters worse, Ginta is Tsutomu’s cousin and the situation already adds fire to a long rivalry that is already going on between them. The fact that Tsutomu now sees Ginta as a rival in love only intensifies things between them with Tsutomu making absurd challenges over Arimi to win her from Ginta, something that Ginta doesn’t really want to deal with as he’s not really interested in her or the challenges.

Yuu also has to deal with Suzu Sakuma, a very cute teen model whom Yuu meets on the set of commercial that Miki’s mother asks him to co-star in. Suzu is smitten with Yuu and won’t take no for an answer. She attempts to throw as many spanners in the works in Miki and Yuu’s relationship. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Miki and Yuu have to go to great lengths to keep their relationship secret from their parents. But a shocking discovery about one of the family members threatens to permanently end their relationship. And to top it off, if Miki and Yuu’s family life wasn’t complex enough, Miki’s best friend, Meiko Akizuki, is secretly dating her teacher Shin’ichi Namura.

“Marmalade Boy” began as a manga created by Wataru Yoshizumi (who also wrote “Ultramanic”) in 1992 and was published in the shoujo anthology “Ribbon Magazine”. The anime version is part of an unofficial trilogy of 1990’s shoujo anime series produced by Toei Animation colloquially known at the “trendy trilogy”. All three to a degree mimicked Japanese TV dramas and are considered a high water mark for shoujo anime. The other two shows were “Neighbourhood Story” (based on the manga by Ai Yazawa, who is better known in the western world for her follow up series “Paradise Kiss”) and “Boys Over Flowers (Hana Yori Dango)”. The manga and the anime have a bit of a nutty set up to the story. I mean what parents in their right mind would do such a thing as to get remarried to another married couple and live under the same roof together? Amusingly most of the time the story portrays the teens as the ones with their heads screwed on, while the adults are a bit clueless, especially Miki and Yuu’s parents.

Once you get past the absurd set up, this is truly a great show to watch. Throughout the entire 76 episode series, Miki and Yuu’s relationship is tested at every turn. Once either Miki or Yuu fight off a potential suitor (who more often than not intentionally or unintentionally cause misunderstandings of rather innocent events), another shows up. You might think this would become boring after a while but it doesn’t. The characters have a real depth to them and situations are full of great drama, but thankfully not too overly melodramatic. Most of Miki and Yuu’s rivals in love have great personalities and back stories, some of which diverge into their own little side stories not involving the two main characters. Suzuki Arimi and Ginta’s relationship is one of the more pleasing side stories presented with Ginta caught between Miki, the girl he first loved and the more outgoing, cute and forceful Arimi. Arimi herself has a similar problem with Yuu, but soon sees Ginta’s charms, even though their initial relationship is a ruse to make Miki jealous. But it isn’t all teen drama. There’s some adult drama with Namura’s work colleague Ryoko Momoi. She has had a crush on him since they met in school, alas he’s in love and is a having a relationship with Meiko, one of his students.

There’s also a ton of very well developed secondary characters who step up in an attempt to take either Miki or Yuu from each other. There’s Kei Tsuchiya who works in the same ice cream shop as Miki and is a piano virtuoso who has run away from his music career. Anju Kitahara is a sickly girl from Yuu’s childhood who also threatens to tear Miki and Yuu apart. The show was a runaway success on TV and unsurprisingly material from the manga soon ran out and quite a few new characters and storylines appeared. The major one is towards the latter part of the series where an American exchange student, Michael Grant, comes to stay with Miki and Yuu. This leads into another arc where Yuu leaves Japan to study architecture at a school in New York which really tests the relationship. This is probably the weakest part of the series, mainly due to the rather shallow and unlikeable Michael. Also dragging things down is that some of the American characters seem rather undeveloped. Unlike the other love rivals in the series, Michael seems really self-centred with few redeeming features and isn’t really believable as a character. Luckily the last few episodes return to some serious and very well done shoujo drama.

To be honest, it came as a real shock to me when it was announced that Marmalade Boy would be getting an English language release. It’s the last anime I’d expect to get a commercial subtitled release, let alone receive an English dub. Tokyopop dubbed the entire series and released it in four very attractive and solid boxed digipak sets labelled “The Ultimate Scrapbook”. I’m not sure where the scrapbook reference comes from as there’s no reference in the TV series to any scrapbook of any kind. Even the 30 minute 1995 movie which recounts how Yuu met Miki for the first time is included in the last box set. I find it to be some sort of a miracle that any sort of commercial English language release was even considered, let alone the entire series and movie being released. The Tokyopop version does have some audio problems on the Japanese side with a few episodes sounding rather muffled, and one of the latter episode’s video doesn’t look too crash hot. But overall it’s a great release. I don’t think we could have expected better. The extras are virtually non-existent save for some Tokyopop created ones. One of the more notable ones is an audio commentary by the English dub cast. Usually I find most of these commentaries to be awful as nearly all the time the cast either has no idea of the background of the show (despite actually dubbing it) or they don’t care and make light of the show in a nasty way. Well the commentaries presented on these discs are a refreshing change. While the cast do make a bit of fun of the show, it’s done with respect for the material and most importantly it’s as funny as hell. In one commentary, Miki’s voice actor, Michelle Ruff, describes Miki’s diary, which she always writes in at the beginning of the early episodes, as her “little book of neurotises”.

Now apart from Meiko and Namura’s rather, uh, unconventional and maybe illegal relationship, Marmalade Boy is pretty much “G” rated. There’s barely a hint of sexual behaviour and only very, very vague references to sex, and then only very occasionally. Most of the time they’re playing tennis when they’re not sorting out their mostly platonic relationships. It’s all so middle class, neat and clean. However in 2005 a regional Florida TV station claimed that Miki and Yuu’s parents were “swingers” after a couple of parents discovered their 11 year old child had borrowed the manga from the local library and complained profusely. Oh the horror. One would have thought that Miki and Yuu’s parents were trying to help out their kids by making the divorce process less stressful, but no, it’s all about sex. I remember reading a post on one anime blog at the time which bizarrely defended the parents and TV station for airing the piece on the manga. But gee, let’s call a spade a spade here. There is no excuse for crappy tabloid journalism on a subject that wasn’t worthy of airtime. Who really cares what libraries have anyway. Plus it’s not their job to disallow any material they have to lend to anyone of any age. One would have thought the parents of the child who borrowed the manga would have gone and talked to the library first, but no, off to the hack of a tabloid reporter they went. There’s far, far worse things a kid could read than “Marmalade Boy”, but what do I know? I’m not a hack journalist looking for a news story on a slow day.

But back to the review; overall this is one fun little show. For some reason that I can’t put finger on, I find shoujo manga is better at dealing with relationships than romance manga for men and young adults. Perhaps it is because they don’t really dance around the issue, they get to the point. This is by far the best romance anime I have ever seen including “Kimagure Orange Road” and “Maison Ikkoku”. My favourite part of this series is that it almost never stops to take a breath. Once one problem is solved another suitor steps up to try and put a spanner in the works. On paper you would think this would be repetitive and dull, but the majority of characters and situations makes it almost always interesting through the entire 76 episodes. Initially I did find it a little hard to get into, but once I got past the somewhat ridiculous premise, I found to be really fun. Though the series is a little hard to find (especially the latter two box sets), I would recommend searching it out especially if you like any kind of romance in your anime. It’s a really underappreciated show that more anime fans should become acquainted with.

Video Backlog: “Gatchaman II”

Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 52 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 1978 - 1979
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

If you haven’t seen the ending of the original “Gatchaman” series, please stop reading now as it’s pretty much impossible to do a write up of this series without mentioning the original’s shock ending. Two years have passed since the Science Ninja Team defeated Galactor at the heavy cost of the apparent death of Joe. However Leader X returns to Earth, sinking a cruise liner named the Queen Margaret. Abducting a child who has been sucked underwater, Leader X hastens the child’s puberty and in a very short time transforms him into an adult mutant named Gel Sadra who has been conditioned to head up the new Galactor. At an emergency meeting at the International Science Organisation (ISO), mysterious disappearances of military personal and scientists are discussed. Dr Nambu announces that Galactor has returned is behind the disappearances and that despite their apparent disbandment, the Science Ninja Team has reformed and will do battle with them.

At their new underwater mobile base, G-Town, the Science Ninja Team assemble to take on a new case. Nambu introduces Joe’s new replacement, Getz, however the rest of the team are less than impressed with his overly cocky attitude. Gatchaman and the team are sent out in the New God Phoniex to investigate newly discovered ruins of an ancient civilisation on Easton Island inside a cave system. But it is soon revealed that this is a trap set up by Galactor with Getz revealed as a Galactor agent who killed the real Getz and assumed his identity. After escaping and destroying one of Galactor’s mecha, the team set about silencing the faux Getz to avoid him telling Galactor about the location of G-Town. However Getz is found dead, killed by a feather shuriken, Joe's trademark weapon. A shadow on the wall of the cave seems to indicate that Joe is still alive. Outside, the team battle Galactor in their new mecha, however Ken’s jet is caught up in an explosion when he finishes off their base on the island. As he falls into unconsciousness, Ken believes he can hear Joe shouting at him to evacuate from the cockpit.

Ken awakens to find himself inside a cave with the rest of the Science Ninja Team surrounding him. Former Galactor scientist, Dr Raphael, has apparently saved him and killed the Galactor agent posing as Getz. Raphael tells them of his defection from the organisation and how he now fights against Galactor. In a later case, Gatchaman is sent out to the country of Amelia to sabotage a Galactor base. However, Gatchaman and the Science Ninja Team find themselves overwhelmed by Galactor agents. Miraculously a man claiming to be Joe appears and helps them defeat the agents. Joe explains that he was saved from near death by Dr Raphael and has been recuperating since that time. Joe rejoins the Science Ninja Team, who are overjoyed at the fact he is still alive. However as the team take on various missions, they soon discover something isn’t right. Joe takes on impossible tasks with superhuman strength in which he should be severely injured or killed, yet seems to manage to survive them all without a scratch.

Five months after the theatrical release of a compilation of episodes from the original TV series, this series debuted on Japanese TV in October 1978. It eventually became the basis for the 1996 English dub “Eagle Riders”. Two years prior in 1976, Tatsunoko had written treatment for a follow up series to the original “Gatchaman” where a dying Joe was saved by Leader X who then transforms him into a villain named Space Joker. Joe’s long lost brother, Jack, joins the Science Ninja Team as Joe's replacement, and of course end up fighting his brother. A second abandoned treatment is similar to the final broadcast series; an android duplicate of Joe is created by rouge scientist, and the android actually believes he is the real Joe. If it wasn’t already obvious (and most of the synopsis of the series on the web and in books already point this out), the Joe in the final broadcast version is mostly a cyborg created from Joe’s body by Dr Raphael. I really wished the original concept for the series was given the green light as this show the final broadcast version is a bit of a dud really.

This is despite the fact most of the staff on the first series had returned. In addition Akemi Takada ("Creamy Mami", "Kimagure Orange Road", "Patlabor") updated the character designs (from the original 1972 Yoshitaka Amano designs) and created new ones, famed mecha designer, Kunio Okawara (who did the original Gundam designs) created the new mecha, and most intriguingly Mamoru Oshii, who was a staffer at Tatsunoko at that time, was episode director and storyboard artist for a handful of early episodes. Despite Okawara being board for the mechas design, many of the designs are pretty mediocre and uninteresting compared to the outlandish ones we got in the original series. The New God Phoenix receives a new robot pilot, Pima (obviously influenced by R2-D2), whose main function is to enable Ryu to join the rest of the team on missions. Other changes include less Galactor mecha which I think makes the series a lot less interesting. In this series Galactor seems to me more concerned with creating natural disasters, and the Science Ninja Team seem to be constantly infiltrating and destroying Galactor bases most of the time.

The stories in this series (and the dialogue) are kind of rubbish to be honest. Sure, a lot of the plots in the original series where absurd and silly, however you couldn’t say that they weren’t fun. Tatsunoko put a lot of love, time and effort into the original series. It just looked brilliant, better than any other anime on TV at the time. With this series it seems minimal effort in just about all aspects of production was the order of the day. The animation in particular looks a bit shoddy and is in no way up to the standard of the original. Most annoyingly live action undersea footage is occasionally used for the ocean outside the windows in G-Town, which is not to scale with the animation in the foreground. The result looks as if they are in a part of the ocean where giant schools of fish roam. The music has also been changed with the fantastic original music by Bob Sakuma replaced with less exciting, and frankly inappropriate at times, score by Hiroshi Tsutsui. Apart from the R2-D2 rip off Pima robot, I noticed quite a number of sound effects ripped straight out of “Star Wars” including Tie fighter, light sabre and R2-D2 sounds. I even noticed the familiar whir of the TARDIS used as the sound one of Galactor’s mecha made.

While Joe’s mysterious return is the main plot for a number of the initial episodes, the focus soon changes to Dr Pandora, a female specialist hired as an assistant by Dr Nambu. While the team are suspicious of her at first, she proves where her allegiances lie and ends up being an invaluable member of the team. She even ends infiltrating Galactor bases on her own a couple of times. In the last few episodes of series, Pandora and Gel Sadra become the focus of the story of the finale, which also includes a Galactor plot to change the course of the sun thereby destroying Earth and the solar system. A secondary plot has Joe given a special mission by Dr Raphael in order to kill Leader X. Unfortunately the vast majority of the other episodes are just padding. Most are daft wastes of time such as an episode where Dr Pandora creates a device so children can communicate with animals only for Galactor to plant bombs in an attempt to kill them. Galactor, the ISO and the Science Ninja Team come off as incompetent a lot of the time when compared to the original series. Members of the Science Ninja Team seem to be captured by Galactor quite often, their machines totaled (with an almost a never ending set of replacement machines) and surprisingly there are a number of failed missions. Their personal weapons have been changed too, with Ryu’s being a weird green slime thing called Gripper. Luckily most of these rather daft weapons are used sparingly.

Sentai’s 9 disc set isn’t all that brilliant. The source is quite a cruddy looking old composite analogue master with a lot of aliasing and interlacing and blatant film splicing marks. It looks pretty horrible. For some unknown reason, the opening and closing animation only contains romanised lyrics to the songs. There’s no actual translation of the lyrics.

Overall, this is not a great series. Most of the episodes are pretty crappy to be totally honest. The writing is pretty bad and the mecha (when it appears) is pretty mediocre. With the final few episodes things do improve dramatically. However a lot of time has been wasted getting to these episodes for no real reason or benefit to the story. Looking at this series and the original, it’s as if the staff behind “Gatchaman II” didn’t really see the previous series and only read a few of the old scripts to get up to speed. Not only do Galactor's mechanised monster robots which were a key to original's success rarely appear, but also the commanders under Gel Sadra make fleeting appearances or don’t exist at all. Compare with the original series. The final few episodes are quite good, but don’t make up for all the rubbish which preceded them. 5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 14 TV series, 5 OVAs and 10 movies. In addition I am also waiting for additional parts of four TV series to be released before viewing them.