From: currmann@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Curtis Hoffmann)
Subject: Anime Reviews for the Tokyo Area  (ver. 2.5)
Reply-To: doi@jrd.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan, R&D center
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:27:27 GMT

                 Anime Reviews for the Tokyo Area  (ver. 2.5)

   [Insert whining here.]
   Since I've been reading the TV listings on June 20, there haven't
been very many anime movies, and the number of good TV shows has
decreased steadily.  Tokyo is no longer the best place to go for
watching anime.

                     >>> ---------------------- <<<

   NOTICE: Now that the new season anime have had a chance to settle into
their strides, it's obvious that the new stuff isn't quite as good as the
shows they replaced.  However, the animation quality has recovered for
most of the shows, with Yuu Yuu Hakusho being the clear winner.  Sailor
Moon is still more "cartoony" than before, but has improved from its
"Saturday Morning" status of the first part of the season.

   Definitions for the Triple-Repeat Attack, and other anime cliches, can
be found in the separate "Cheats" textfile.

   Japanese television does not have "seasons" per se; if the producers for
a show want to make major changes to the format or character designs, they
will call the new version "the next season" (the "second season" of
Ranma 1/2 is an example of this.)
   However, October is the "official" yearly start of the TV season, and
September 1992 has seen the end of a number of shows (Ranma 1/2, Yawara,
Chibi Maruko-chan, Dodge Danpei, etc.)  One of the other interesting
things to note is that when an old series ends, a couple of weeks may go
by before its replacement begins airing.  In the meantime, regular
live-action shows fill the empty time slots.

***************************************************************************
*                                                                         *
*    There's more shuffling and shaking going on in Tokyo.  A few of the  *
* remaining series that had survived into October will be cancelled --    *
* Minky Momo, for example, will end in December.  The Dragon Ball re-runs *
* were dropped as of 12/1, replaced by Chibi Maruko-chan re-runs.  High   *
* School Kimengumi seems to have returned as of 12/2.  Spaceship Yamato   *
* will start airing again later on in the month as well (although, this   *
* might just be special showings of the movies, and not the TV series.    *
* Knight Lamune and 40 hasn't been on for 2 weeks,  And, it seems that    *
* the new American Batman series as taken over from Tiny Toons.           *
*                                                                         *
***************************************************************************

   Thanks to the following for additional information:
      Avi Melman    [AM]
      Enrique Conty [EC]
      Hitoshi Doi   [HD]

                         ---------------------

   Batman:
   The new Batman series started airing in the States a few weeks after
I came to Japan, so all I've heard about it came peripherally from the net,
and from one behind-the-scenes article in an old Comics Scene magazine
from last spring that is STILL the most current issue here at Biblos Books.
   Anyway, it's strange.  Batman is available in Tokyo in Japanese only
(Tiny Toons at least was aired bilingually.)  And the lipsync matches up
with the Japanese dialog perfectly.  Hmm, and I thought that this show
was intended primarily for American audiences.  It's a shame that the
Japanese voices used for Tiny Toons also show up in Batman -- there's a
certain amount of miscasting in the first episode (the one where the
Scarecrow uses a "fear powder" on his victims, including Robin.)
   The artwork and animation are better than normal for western
cartoons, but it's a strange mix of old Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny movement
and shading, and Fleischer Brothers Superman character design, action,
and props.  Coupled with the Japanese voices, it's enough to make even
MY head hurt.  The character animation is still ragged at times, and the
vehicle animation needs work.  The character designs don't always work,
but the background sets are GORGEOUS.  The walk down Arkham Asylum's
halls was a nice showcase for villian cameos, and was handled well.  The
special effects are good, but the music and sound effects need to be
re-worked: there was too much dead air, which should have been filled
with SOME kind of sound.
   The Japanese dialog is pretty simple, and I could follow it better
than I can for any other show.  It's not a bad start, and I'd like to
watch a few more episodes to see if the series gets any better.  As a side
note, Omnibus Japan was listed in the credits (I missed what they were
listed for.)  OJ is a computer animation house here in Tokyo, and
they've done a number of TV ads, and footage for some of the theme parks
here.  I visited their offices back in August, but had my job application
turned down after my second interview with them.

   Bush Baby:
   This is not exactly the greatest name for a Japanese show, but the
show itself has its merits.  Bush Baby seems to be the name of a kind of
over-grown kangaroo rat that is the pet of the heroine.  This is a girl's
show, with similarities to Tintin (ie. a young girl travelling to exotic
lands and having wonderous adventures.  However, unlike Tintin, the
heroine here does not do any fighting -- she's too kind and gentle
for that, so the fighting is left up to her adult male friends.)  So
far, the action has taken place only in Africa and India.  The animation
is average for TV, but the character designs are pretty good, as is the
use of color.  The stories seem interesting, and the background artwork
is great.  This series is worth some additional attention.

   Chibi Maruko-chan:
   Currently in re-runs.
   Not quite as popular as Sazae-san, Chibi still has about the same
kind of appeal.  The character designs are a little more modern, and
westernized, and the animation is just as limited.  The voices are
funny just by themselves, and there is just enough action to provide a
clue as to what the stories are about.
   Unfortunately, most of the humor is still buried in the dialog.  But,
if you have a chance, you really should get your hands on a few episodes
of Chibi, because the visual humor is still strong enough to be funny to
western fans.

   Cooking Papa:
   I've only been able to read a couple of manga installments of this
series, and have seen just a few episodes because other people want to
control the TV.  But the manga is interesting.  Papa is a big man, that
gets to help solve other peoples' personal problems.  Along the way, he
prepares food and the recipes get run in the manga (and at the end of
the TV episode,) as well.  The characters have a rather simple design,
and are easily identified as "a manga style."
   I'm planning on trying the recipe for cocktails, some time soon.
   One thing that seems a little strange, though, with the new season's
episodes, is that the sound effects have been changed.  Now, when a
character does something silly (like slip and fall,) or an action occurs
during a non-serious scene, the accompanying sound effect will be played
for laughs (a running character screeching to a halt will get a
squealing of tires; someone falling will impact with a "bweee-bomp".)
These are all canned sounds, and fit in more with _Hammerman_ or
_Karimeru_ than a more serious show like Cooking Papa.

   Crayon Shin-chan:
   I kept getting this one confused with Shonen Ashibe, since they were
both primarily manga-only stories.  However, with the start of the new
season, I can watch them in the same week and I now know which is
which.  Shonen Ashibe is a rather gentle sit-com, whereas Crayon
Shin-chan (the title character) -- while very young -- is a lot more
socially offensive.  All of the character designs seem to be a cross
between a monkey and a horse.  In fact, when a delivery truck drives up
to Crayon's house, (there's a picture of a horse on the side of the
truck,) instead of a engine sound, we get the clopping of hooves, and
the driver looks a LOT like a horse.
   The animation is very limited, and the character designs are very
odd.  The background artwork, and music are equally low-quality, but the
sound effects and stories are very good.  Crayon's voice is very
laconic, and the delivery of his lines is just great.  And, as with all
of the other badly-animated shows, all of the real humor is in the
dialog (but the positioning of the characters is also very funny, unlike
in the other shows.  When Crayon drawls out about his mother having to
wash her panties, he does have his head under her dress.)
   This is one of the better situation comedies, and is pretty funny
even if you don't understand Japanese.

   Dai no Dai-boken (AKA Dragon Quest):
   Currently in reruns.
   I don't know enough about this particular incarnation of the series
(Hitoshi tells me that everything changed but the name,) to really be able
to understand the full story.  But, the animation is poorer than average,
and the storylines and action are poor rip-offs of the early Dragon Ball
episodes.  Cooking Papa was on at the same time, and was more exciting to
watch.
    However, this series ended on September 24, 1992.  The last episode
was particularly weak, with the characters mainly standing around and
talking about how good Dai is, and how bad the villians are, before the
current villian gets blasted again (apparently this was Dai's father, and
he just gets out of danger at the last second.  When the heros walk away
rejoicing, the guy appears on the screen again and talks about Dai.)  A
lot of the animation and character art looked very rushed and tacked on,
as if the animators hadn't expected the series to end with this episode,
and had to change the story at the last minute to wrap up a couple of
loose details.
   Overall, this version of Dragon Quest was a waste of paint, with a
very weak finale.
   And now that the series is in re-runs, I have been able to watch the
first few episodes as well.  I'm not sure that this incarnation of
Dragon Quest EVER had any redeeming features.  There's a heavy reliance
on animation cycles and reused sequences, and the animators can't hold
to the model sheets.  The stories tend to be too silly even when the
writers were trying to be serious.  Super Bikkuri-man is better than this.

   Densetsu no Yuusha Da Garn:
   A quant kiddies, transforming giant robot show.  The artwork is ok, the
stories are the typical "bad guy comes up with a new plan to invade the
earth, the heros defeat him every episode" type.  Animation is TV
average, and the character designs are just plain average.  There is an
amusing interaction between the young boy hero and his multi-colored-boy
rival protagonist, both while at school, at home, and in their
respective giant robots.  Hitoshi likes this show a lot; I think it's
standard mind-candy.

   Doraemon:
   Kiteretsu Dai-hyakka:
   Ninja Hattori-kun:
   There is class of children's show, featuring a young school boy as
the main character.  The supporting characters include the immediate
family, a couple of male friends, and one female friend.  Plus, a weirdo.
The stories are concerned with growing up, and escaping reality through
some kind of magic.  (The male counterpart to the girl's anime like
_Mama wa Shogaku_, and _Mary Bell_.)
   Doraemon is a large, funny-cat with a pouch that he can use to pull
out neat gimmicks (a sumo belt that lets you win wrestling matches,
gloves that increase your strength, etc.)  This is still a very popular
show for Japanese adults.
   Hattori-kun is a boy ninja, with a smaller, younger ninja as a
side-kick.
   Kiteretsu is a hamburger-bun-faced ninja robot.
   The animation is all the same, and so are the characters.  In fact,
the only difference between the three are those title characters.  (All
of the other characters are identical between the three shows.)
   The animation is pretty limited, and the character designs are pretty
poor.  These shows are aimed at families with young children, but can
occasionally be fun to watch in their own right.

   Dragon Ball Z:
   If you've never watched this series, you can at least get an idea of
what it's like from Hitoshi's synopses, or by reading the manga serialized
in Shonen Jump.  This is a space-opera martial arts psychic combat
adventure, based on the earlier Dragon Ball series.  The story is rather
unpredictable, and the characters don't get along with each other too well.
Innocent people die rather often, and the face of the planet occasionally
gets rearranged when some of the combat gets rather more intense.
   I've never heard a more mis-matched voice for an anime character,
than the one used for Goku, the hero.  (Hitoshi Doi says that this is
the voice Goku had early on in the series, and it's logical for him to
keep it now that he's older.)  I'm not going to spoil the shock for you,
you just have to hear it for yourself.  Also, the fighting action has to
be seen to be believed.  Often, it's VERY fast; unlike western cartoons,
Dragon Ball Z's combat is not slowed down so that ordinary people can
follow it.  (Hitoshi comments: In recent episodes, the combat action is
invisible. You can just hear the hits landing, and there is a blur on
the screen.)
   Definitely worth watching.

   Flanders no Inu:
   This is one of the new anime series, but I haven't been able to watch
it for more than a few seconds.  It seems to be a badly animated girl's
show about a dog in the old west wilderness (ala Grizzly Adams.)
   (Enrique Conty comments: This is either a remake of the old _THE DOG
OF FLANDERS_ anime, or a re-run of the original.)

   Gambaru-Gar:
   Another young-boys-powersuits series.  Here, we have three school
kids who can summon power suits to save their town from a magical villian
with a water cooler bottle over his head.  When the going gets tough, the
kids call out some giant-robot animals to help them.  The animals can
reform into a super-giant robot, and a mega-blaster cannon.  There is also
a talking dog who's their leader/assistant.
   This show is ok, with nothing really outstanding to recommend it.
Except for the silly story lines, and the fact that the town gets
trashed everytime the giant robot fights it out with the latest enemy
conjured by the main villian.  It's mind-candy, and I'll watch it as
such.  But, I do like the ending credits, where the kids, dog, and
villian comprise a Japanese-style chorus line and dance to the closing
music.

High School Kimengumi:
   This is a new series, in that I saw it listed in the paper for the
first time on August 28.  It seems to be an attempt to tell the high
school punk stories like _Bebop High School_, and _Rokudenashi Blues_,
to a TV audience of young school kids.  That is, the characters are
funny punks, often drawn in chan style, and do many very silly things
simply for the slapstick value.  The animation is TV quality, the
character designs are definitely "oddball," and the background artwork
is pretty good.  The voices take some getting used to, and the
background soundtrack isn't all that memorable.
   The show is, ostensibly, about the two girls in the class, and the
guys are just there for comic relief.  Or, maybe they're not.  Anyway,
the second episode concerned the heros competing in a baseball game
against the best team in the school.  The heros win, but not it's not
easy to tell how.  Anyway, at the end, the villian's star pitcher throws
his secret weapon -- a grounder that plows a trench to the plate, hits
the plate and bounces up into the batter's strike zone -- while pitching
against the main screwball for the final, crucial out of the last
inning. First throw, a strike.  Second, the main screwball hits for a
foulball. Before the third, the main screwball asks to swing with two
bats, and hits a home run.  The class teacher, who has been acting as
the game's announcer, asks the color commentator for elaboration on how
this play had been made.  Thereby stepping into one of the most
brilliant jokes about the Schick twin-blade razor I have ever seen.
And, finally, the principle is shown complaining that the screwballs won
-- pulling his hair and yelling in English, "Shit, shit, sh...., shit,
shit, shit!"
   It's now on daily, at 4:00 PM.  Just about when the kiddies get home.
   Good stuff.
   Kimengumi == "A Class Startling By Its Appearance."

   Hime-chan no Ribon:
   Or, Hime-chan's Ribbon.  Basically, this is a girl's show ala Mama wa
Shogaku and Minky Momo.  It starts out with an attractive young witch
flying around the city on a talking broom (with some vague similarities
to Kiki's Delivery Service) who is mistaken for a very clumsy tom-boy
named Hime-chan.  Hime falls for the school's top mischief maker, but is
too shy to approach him at all.  So, the witch (who's been watching all
of this from the air) gives Hime-chan a red ribbon that has the ability
to turn her into an attractive older teenager.
   The character designs are pretty good (I do like the design for the
tom-boy version of Hime-chan) and the background art is also well done.
The music is ignorable, and the character animation is TV average.
However, the character acting is really good, and Hime-chan comes across
as a very believable young girl.
   Hime-chan can change into a variety of other people, and the stories
do run a gamut of plot ideas.  This lends itself for a few good jokes,
but I'd rather watch Agetama (which Hime-chan replaced.)  Hitoshi likes
it, though.

   Japanese History:
   This is presented as kind of a talk show, with just one host, and all
of the stories are narrated.  It's a creation of the NHK educational
channel.  The characters don't actually talk, as the actors just read
their dialog as voice-overs.  There's no real animation -- it's just
moving illustrations, shot on 12s.  (12 frames per cel, the norm is 2
frames per cel.)
   This show is one way to learn more about Japan, if you can understand
the language, but although the paper lists it as a "cartoon," it isn't.
Unless you CAN understand Japanese, ignore this show as a waste of tape.

   Karimero:
   I couldn't watch this one for more than a few minutes before
switching over to _Cooking Papa_.  Suffice it to say that this is what
you get when the Japanese copy Saturday Morning cartoons to create a
little kiddies show.  Badly animated stupid slapstick with "funny"
animals as the main characters.  "Cute" and stupid.
   I would just call it stupid.  It's not cute. I think Karimero is a
duck, and most of the other characters are little animals too.  [HD]

   Kimba, the White Lion:
   Osamu Tezuka originally named the series "Jungle Taitei"  (Jungle
Emperor), and as you probably know, the white lion's real name is Leo.
This series was remade in 1989-90, the original one appeared in 1962 (in
Japan, first color TV cartoon). [AM]
   This is the color version, in re-runs during the week on some
mornings.  The stories, animation, and artwork all show this series'
age.  Outside of the fact that this is one of the productions from the
God of Anime, it's not really worth a whole of attention. [CHH]

   Kinpatsu no Shojo Jenny:
   I'll quote the newspaper description for the first episode:
   "A series portraying the adventures of a young tomboy and her family
living in a Pennsylvania town around the mid-19th century.  Her father,
who is the town's doctor, is criticized by the mayor when he chooses to
treat a sick elderly black woman instead of attending the Easter
parade."
   I didn't notice any tomboys, and this show reminded me a lot of a
Huckleberry Finn re-make.  The animation wasn't too bad, but wasn't all
that great.  The character designs also seemed reminiscent of the 1960's
attempts to tell a Tom Sawyer story (that is, they had the boy, girl,
and big black man from the TS world, and while the designs were
realistic, they still felt "cartoony."  This may have come from the lack
of shading in the faces.)  The story pretty much matched the above
description, with some schoolboy high-jinks tossed in (such as kids
trying to trip people into a mud puddle.)  Overall, I'd say that this
show is ignorable.
   And, after having watched a few more episodes, I still have no
interest in _Shojo Jenny_.

   Kobo-chan
   I guess it had to happen -- since there's been a number of Doraemon
clones, it was just a matter of time before we got a Sazae-san clone.
As with Sazae-san, the animation is very limited, the character designs
are simplified and look like those from Sazae-san, and all of the humor is
embedded in the dialog.  Since I can't follow enough of the Japanese, the
entire show is lost on me.  Further, while I don't mind watching the
original, I have no interest at all in Kobo-chan (incidentally, the
title character is a young Japanese boy who does normal young boy things
within a slightly silly family.)  Recommendation: Ignore.

   Mama wa Shogaku (Mama is a 4th Grade Student):
   I really can't say much about this series, because it is on opposite
several other shows that I've been watching instead.  However, if you
read any of the monthly anime magazines, you've seen pictures of a young
girl, and the cute little baby that she cares for.  The girl has a
magic compact (like that from Mary Bell, Sailor Moon, and Minky Momo,) a
magic flute, and a baby that seems to get into much more trouble than one
would normally expect.  Her mother is in London, don't know about her
father -- he's not shown much if ever.  But, the character designs are
much more realistic and "human-looking" than that of the other girls'
wish-fulfillment shows, and the main girl doesn't actually have the
ability to transform into anything.
(   Hitoshi writes: Mama 4 is a story about a 4th grader girl who has to
( take care of a baby.  It is her own baby!  The reason why a 10 year old
( has a baby is because the baby fell back in time.
( I don't watch Mama 4 enough to know much more of the story.
( Try grepping Mama 4 on my old animedia files.
( There might be more information.
   I have actually watched one full episode, and the storyline was
pretty good, as were some of the visuals.  Basically, the kids stumble
in to the house of a mad scientist friend of theirs, and discover that
he's created a portable hologram projector.  Later on, they take the
projector and use it to make a domineering old bat of a school teacher
think that she's losing her marbles -- by projecting images of the baby
crawling in the halls.  The prank is reenforced with a call to the house,
where the baby gets a chance to speak on the phone.  However, the
projector is set to "infinite copies," and we soon get a parade of
thousands of this baby, crawling through the school, playing with the
art students, and generally disrupting the proceedings.

   Mary Bell:
   If _Mama wa Shogaku_ is toxically cute, Mary Bell is fatal in small
doses.  This is a young girls' wish-fulfillment series, with the main
character being derived from the plant world.  She has a magic
tamborine, and a wand that spews flower petals when she needs to rescue
her friends.  Her friends are ordinary school kids that go with Mary
Bell on adventures.  There is an evil adult, who looks like a German
version of "Where's Waldo," who is constantly trying to discover Mary's
secret, and failing in various slap-stick ways.
   The main plus going for this show is one of Mary's friends -- a
sourpuss little girl dressed in rags.  This girl deliberately refuses to
have fun if she sees anyone else enjoying themselves.  Which is used
constantly as a plot device.
   The character designs are simplified, and the eyes are huge.  The
animation is so-so, and the artwork is good.  The voices are ok, and the
music is acceptable.  There are some interesting twists in the plots and
stories, and the character interactions are usually better than in the
boys' anime.  This is not great anime, but it can be fun.

   Mikan E-nikki:
   The main character is a cat kept by a young high school girl.  In the
second episode, Mikan starts talking, and laughing, in front of certain
select people (including her keeper.)  The animation is nothing special,
and character designs keep slipping so that characters sometimes look
like they're from Chibi Maruko-chan.  Some of the artwork is very good,
but the stories are mainly a combination of light-hearted sit-com, and a
slight tugging at the heart-strings.  The still portraits of the
characters in the closing credits are very well-drawn in multiple
medias.
   This isn't a great series, but it's ok at times.

   Minky Momo (Minky Momo Yumewo Dakishimete):
   A children's series, aimed mainly at young girls.  I've only been
able to watch a few episodes, and they're animated as well as one would
expect for a TV show.  But there's some nice visual jokes, and some
interesting story twists.  If you can ignore the cute characters, big
eyes, and non-violent action, then you can appreciate a show that is
leaps and bounds better than its Western equivalents.  I rate it higher
than most of the anime on Japanese TV right now.
   One of the best sequences had two neighboring islands worshipping
statues of Minky (placed there when Minky's grandmother was a playful,
young child-goddess.)  The problem is, the statues show Minky as a child
on one island, and a grown woman on the other.  This causes the
islanders to fight bitter wars, to determine which one is worshipping
the true faith.  Minky stumbles across this, and ultimately gets so
frustrated at not being able to stop the war, that she uses her wand to
turn into a young woman in camo fatigues, and carrying a bazooka.  She
shoots the volcanoes on both islands, causing them to erupt (which does
stop the war...)
   The start of the new season does not bode well for this series.  The
animation and character designs have been changed for the worse, and the
story was very inconsistent and dripping with an anti-pollution moral.
Definitely one of the worst Minky Momo episodes I've seen to date.
   (Enrique Conty comments: And again I say:  the first season (when Minky
gets run over by a truck) of this show was GREAT!, and it went downhill ever
since.)

   Nangoku Shonen Papuwa-kun:
   Hmmm.  How do I start this?  I could say that Hitoshi hates this
show.  Conversely, I could say that I (the master of the weird shit that
I am) am not at all that sure about how to describe this series.  It is
based on a manga that I don't read.  We have an island native in a grass
skirt who, with his pet big orange cat, will break into a side-step
dance with Japanese flag-fans with no prompting at all.  There's a
transvestite fish (wearing fish-net stockings,) and some other odd-ball
incidental talking characters.  And a rather strong, big young man that
may be the title character.  In the second episode (the first one I
watched,) the island is visited by a Nazi-kind of young guy holding a
grudge against the big young man.  The Nazi-guy has a kanji brush that
allows him to write on people's chests and turn them into whatever kanji
he uses.  It's vaguely reminiscent of Ranma 1/2, without any of the
subtlety.
   The animation isn't bad, the character designs show an influence from
Dragon Ball Z (the island boy's voice is the same as Freeza's,) and the
artwork is ok.  No one can really describe the stories beyond "sit-com
slap-stick on acid."  And the music is ok.  This is definitely a show
that would make less sense if you could understand the dialog.
   Recommendation: Watch this just to see how offensive TV can be.
Definitely rivals Obotchama-kun on this count.  I'm amused.

   NG Knight Lamune and 40:
   Definitely one of the more interesting giant robot series.  Lamuness
is a young boy that finds a matchgirl who's selling game cartridges.  He
takes one of the games home and plays it non-stop until late at night.
Finally, he beats the final stage, and the girl reappears.  But this
time, she's dressed like a elfen princess and she drags Lamuness into
the TV, and another universe.  Now, what Lamuness had been playing as a
game has become the real world, and he gets to operate a giant
transforming robot against the forces of evil.
   This show is based on the concepts of _Tron_, _Da Garn_, and any
number of video games.  But it is also a lot of fun, and very silly.
The character designs are amusing, the art is good, and the stories --
while cliched -- still have some great twists.  Most of the character
names are puns on soft drinks (Lamune is a Japanese soda, the princess
is "Milk," and one of the villians is "DaCider".  There's also Cafe
AuLait and Cocoa)  For a better, more complete description of the series,
I suggest you contact Doug Dlinn on Genie and ask him for a copy of his
Mangazine review.

   Obotchama-kun:
   This is a weird little show, which has come back in re-runs.  It's
aimed mainly at kids, but I think there's also a number of jokes that
only adults would understand.  The hero is a VERY obnoxious little boy,
who is kept in line by his more pleasant friends.  There's lots of odd
visual stuff going on, and lots of toilet humor.  But, it's still funny
in a twisted, demented way, and the stories are rather non-standard
(mainly about the kinds of situations that bizarre school children can
get into.)  AND, it has some of the more interesting background mood music
of the kiddies shows I've heard so far.  Definitely worth watching 3 or
4 times.
   NOTE: The ending theme song was performed by MC Hammer, and he appears
in the closing animation sequence.
   Unfortunately, it's also on at the same time as _Lamune & 40_, and
_Mama wa Shogaku_.

   Oishinbo:
   The _Yawara_ re-runs have been replaced by this show.  Which is a
mixed blessing -- first, since Yawara was on at the same time as Dragon
Ball, I couldn't watch it much anyway, but Yawara was a GREAT series and
I hate seeing it disappear from TV altogether; second, Oishinbo is not
that bad of a replacement -- at least, for the first few episodes.
After the first month, though, the episodes are all the same.
   Oishinbo is about a renegade food critic for a city newspaper in
Tokyo.  He has no class or manners (which would immediately spell social
death for a lesser man,) but he also happens to be a very good chef in
his own right, with an encyclopeadic command of food history and
preparation.  There are over 30 collected volumes of the manga, which is
still running in Big Comic Spirits Weekly, and it has been featured in
Mangajin.
   From the few episodes I've seen, the animation is average, the
animators can't hold to the character sheets, and the voice for the main
character is slightly mis-cast.  Otherwise, the voice acting is as good as
usual, and the sound effects and background music are acceptable.  The
really outstanding element of the show is the background artwork --
which is highly detailed and vivid.  Channel 4 in the Kanto region
always cuts the closing credits from their re-run shows (like Yawara,)
to fit more commercials in the middle, so I don't know what the closing
animation or music are like.
   But, if our VCR could record the sound track, I'd pick up several
episodes for future fan dubs.

   Ooi Ryoma:
   Old style ronin-type samurai story.  Ryoma is a wandering kendo
master with a very high level of honor, and a sense of the appropriate
as it applies to assholes with a higher rank than he.  (Ie., when
they want to beat him up, he'll let them.)  He is close friends with the
villagers, when he stays in town.  The artwork is good, as is the character
designs.  It's not a great series, and the animation is TV level, but it
is fairly interesting.  I've only watched a couple of episodes, so can't
really pan or recommend it.  However, I do rank it higher than _Sangokushi._

   Pygmalio:
   The hero is a small boy, drawn in a Tezuka-style, with jagged yellow
hair, a sailor-type tunic, and a short sword.  He has a cutsey green
lizard thing (a green and brown "dog" with a spike on its nose) as a
pet.  He's on a quest (I think to either find his mother, or revenge her
death,) and he travels to far lands, and fights Greek-mythological
monsters along the way. The main villian seems to be a Medusa.
   This is not a very good series, and I normally leave the TV off,
rather than watch it.  The animation is limited, the music is ok, but
the story and plot are ignorable.  As usual, though, the background
artwork, and some of the voice acting, are very well done.  But, the
woman doing the voice for the hero occasionally slips, and sounds more
like an older woman, than a 10 year-old boy.

   Sailor Moon:
   This is a girl's anime, with five young teenage girls as the main
characters.  Sailor Moon has a wand that gives her magic powers to solve
her problems, and a cat that talks.  There are some rather unique
storylines, many of them revolving around growing up, and young love.
However, there are also evil forces that have magic powers themselves,
and are constantly at work to corrupt the heroines.  The first episode I
saw had one of the characters taking up animation, but becoming
possessed by an evil drawing pencil.  If nothing else, even if you'd
prefer to watch people die in bloody ways, or love stupid giant robot
shows, you can watch this series for the great artwork and special
effects.
   Note: The five main characters have "sailor" as the first part of
their names, because of the school dresses they wear.

   Sazae-san:
   This is by far the most popular series in Japan, up to well over
3100 episodes (most are only 10-15 minutes long.  But, _Dragon Ball Z_
has a stronger fan following.)  The character designs are very simplistic,
and the animation is virtually non-existant.  But the true appeal of this
series is in the dialog and character interactions.  Unfortunately,
because I can't follow the dialog, almost all of the humor is lost on me.
   This is kind of an every-family slice of life series that appeals to
the Japanese middle-class.  Unless it becomes fan-subtitled, there will
never be much of an U.S. following for it.  Which is a shame, because,
due to its very popularity, it is a great indicator to the Japanese
frame of mind.
   Note: the creator of this series had died in May of 1992, but the anime
studio has enough scripts to carry the TV series for some time, yet.
Hitoshi has stated that the later episodes hadn't been written by the
creator anyway, but instead were the product of some scriptwriters.

   Shonen Ashibe:
   This series is very similar in concept to Doraemon, except the humor
is less slapstick, and the character designs are more "chan-style."
Ashibe is a young boy who had found a baby seal, which looked dead and
was taken home to be made into supper.  But the seal is still alive and
is accepted as a pet.  The animation is very limited, and the character
designs aren't all that interesting.  The stories are cruel in a gentle,
funny way (the seal is constantly being terrorized and scratched up by
cats.)  I watched this show just to get a feel for it, but probably
won't do so again.

   Soreiki! Anpan-Man
   Tomato-Man:
   There are a few shows for young children, based on food products.
Anpan-Man (Sandwich-Man) and Tomato-Man are the main ones.  Tomato-Man
is actually a young boy, with a tomato for a head.  His hat can revolve
to become a propeller, and he acts largely as a super hero for a town
populated by anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables.  The villians are a
female moth, and her insect henchmen.  This is a cutesy series, designed
for kids age 10 and less.  Overall, the show isn't that great on any
count, but it does have its moments when the villians come up with some
new plan for disrupting the town, or capturing Tomato-man.  This series
comes close to western Saturday morning cartoons in terms of animation,
story, and how it treats its audience.
   In many ways, Anpan-man is less interesting than Tomato-man.  It's
about animated food products (like sandwiches,) being constantly
harrassed by a villian that looks like a mosquito on acid.  The villian
has a henchwoman of some kind.  I'm not sure what the henchwoman is
supposed to be (obviously, she's some kind of insect that ruins
picnics, probably a horn-beetle) but she's the most endearing character
in the show.  Anpan-man's best friends are a human baker, and his young
apprentice.  Anpan-Man will be ruined in some way (like, getting soggy,)
and the Baker will have to heat him up to dry-him-out/revitalize him.
   I do watch both shows when I can, but the other renters in the gaijin
house give me a lot of flack for hogging the TV when the news comes on,
and I'd rather forego both shows if someone else wants to change the
channel (otherwise, I risk losing access to the set entirely.)  Neither
show is all that great, but they do occasionally have their moments.

   Space Oz no Boken:
   Not one of the better shows on the air right now, Space Oz no Boken
is simply a futuristic retelling of the Wizard of Oz classics, with some
ignorable twists.  It's aimed at younger children, and could very easily
be mistaken for a western Saturday morning cartoon (except for the
Japanese dialog.)  The animation is very poor, the sound effects are
played for laughs (but not very well,) the character designs are heavily
westernized, and the story is pretty tame.  Overall, not worth the
effort to video tape, much less to watch more than once.

   Super Bikkuri-man:
   Part of the idea of this series is to create a dungeon and dragons
fantasy story for kids.  But, there's also a certain amount of
technology being used, too.  There are three boys, and one girl, running
around completing quests, and they can invoke power suits (ala Bubble
Gum Crisis) when they need to.
   This is not one of the better fantasy series, and could be easily
ignored, if it weren't for the great background artwork, and the
occasional silly use of chan-style drawings with crayon backgrounds
when various characters freak out.  Basically, the animators like to
play with various artforms to get unusual effects.

   Super Zugan:
   A show dedicated to Mah Jongg players.  The animation is virtually
non-existent, except for the close-ups of the tiles being set down
(which is when the movement becomes very clean.)  Character design is
ok, not all that hot, but the main girl looks like an escapee from Pop
Chaser.  The only reason for having a story is to give the characters an
excuse to play another game (almost like a porno flick without the sex.)
It's really not a bad little show.

   Tekkaman Blade:
   This is one of the giant robot series ala Gundam.  It's aimed more at
teenagers, so the stories are a bit simple, and there's lots of battle
sequences.  The artwork is ok, but the character designs look
amateur-ish.  Overall, I consider this series ignorable.  However, there
are occasional nice touches.  In a recent episode, one of the good guys
helping the Tekkaman team is a transvestite programmer (not sure if he's
an out-right gay.)  And he befriends a defensive forces commander who turns
out to be a macho woman in disguise (probably lesbian, with the conversion
to such occurring after her groom-to-be got killed by the invaders.)

   Tetsujin-28-go FX:
   The original Tetsujin-28 was a black-and-white series made in the
60's.  It was pretty bad, about a giant robot that followed the orders
of a young boy through a hand-controller, for fighting crime.
   The new series has updated both the robot design, and the stories.
But, Tetsujin-28 is still hand-controlled, while its opponents are all
giant robots with human operators inside them.  The animation is pretty
good, and the character designs are much improved over the originals.
The character interactions are very realistic, although the dumb stories
themselves are still aimed at kids.
   This is an interesting series in its own way, and deserves some
attention from western fans.

   Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai:
   This is yet another of the oddball series, this time with a
Cinderfella-style family.  Our hero is a rather ditzy high school
student, with two older sisters and a vicious mother.  He's very
easy-going (usually, although he will lose his temper at times,) and
highly clever when he needs to be.  But, the actual trademark for this
show is The Slap.  Doesn't matter who he's with, or what he's doing --
our hero will eventually say something that'll get his face slapped VERY
hard.  This is a family sit-com.  
   The animation is average, the character designs are a bit unusual
(blocky jaws ala the later Lupin III episodes,) and the sound effects
are quite good.  The music is ignorable, but the voice acting is pretty
good (although they are the standard batch of voice actors.)  Because of
the nature of the stories (slapstick life in the city,) there's not a
lot of real action, but the situations people get themselves into are
original.  There's also a heavy emphasis on food preparation.

   Ultraman, and Gambare Tugs!:
   Ultraman is classified as a cartoon, although it's really one of the
rubbersuit genre entries.  At 7:30 AM, channel 12 will run a 5-minute
villian feature, where any given monster will be highlighted.  We'll be
shown it's height (usually 40 meters or taller,) weight (in tons,) and
abilities (usually "breathes flame, or throws humongous boulders.)
Then, there will be a fight where Ultraman loses, followed by one where
he wins (also accompanied by slow-motion replays.)  The actual TV show
itself is aired at 2:00 PM, and is hilariously bad.
   Gambare Tugs! is on right after the Ultraman re-cap and it too is
called a cartoon.  Really, it's nothing more than some little wooden
boats with faces carved and painted on the smokestacks, and eyes that
move a little.  The dialog is all done as narrative voice-overs, since
none of the "characters" have lips.  This is the kind of dumb show that
has the same appeal to very young children as _Gumby_ has.  I consider
it a waste of time, and it should be replaced by something else that I'd
rather watch.

   Yuyu Hakusho:
   Another of the new series for this season.  It's based on the manga
of the same name in (I think) Shonen Sunday.  The first episodes had
worse than average animation, and the animators couldn't hold to the
model sheets consistently.  Going into November, the art direction has
changed drastically.  The characters have become a little more
interesting to look at, and the animation is much smoother.  The
character designs now have more of a visible influence from the 3x3 Eyes
OAVs, or maybe PatLabor.  As of the fifth episode of Yuyu Hakusho, this
series is now much more interesting to watch, although the plot and
pacing are about the same.
   Basically, the main character is a tough high school punk that is
very fast, unimpressed by authority, and respected grudgingly by the
other school punks.  He also makes the mistake of trying to save a small
child from an oncoming car -- which kills him in the first 30 seconds of
the first show.  Now that he's a ghost, he's just beginning a rather
unusual journey into combat.  In the manga, a punk who was his chief
rival in real life (and who is still alive) becomes a ghost to join him
in a major combat later on in the series.
   One of the better of the new shows.

   All the other stuff.
   There are several other shows that appear in re-runs at various times
during the week, but are listed in the English newspaper, Japan Times,
simply as "cartoon."  In these cases, it is difficult to tell what the
names actually are sometimes.  The following comments refer primarily to
the Kansai area -- the above reviews show that the current collection of
anime on Tokyo TV is slightly different than that of the Kansai area.
   There is a predominance of giant robot, and mecha suit, anime aimed
directly at school kids.  And, after a while it's hard to tell the
difference between them.
   There are also several sports-oriented series (like "Ace wo Nerae,"
and "Ashite e Free Kick" -- tennis and soccer) that are really nothing
more than over-blown soap operas with a sports twist.  The differences
between these shows and Yawara are in the quality of animation (the
other shows use many more holds, recycled sequences, and close-ups of
tear-filled eyes,) the trite "acting", and the mundane storylines.  (In
other words, Yawara is great anime, the "sports soaps" are not.)
   The main reason for not reviewing these shows is that I haven't
watched a single complete episode for any of them (that, and I'm not in
Osaka.)  If I can form a solid opinion of any of these shows, I'll review
them.


Movies:
-------

The Age of Heros:
   This is a Hungarian movie aired on the educational channel, NHK.  The
story was a little difficult to follow, and I wasn't watching it
consistantly, however it's about a war in mideval Europe, with castles,
and armor, and infantry battles, and horses, and even some normal life in
a small village.  At the end, one man is crowned king.
   What's really amazing about this movie is the level of detail, and
the quality of the character animation.  I'm still not exactly sure
how this was made, because when I first looked at the artwork, it
appeared to be paint on glass.  Later, it seemed to be acrylic on
canvas.  For all I know, they painted on canvas, cut the canvas out, and
glued it on separate cels for each frame.  Either way, I don't think
I've ever seen anything quite like it.  Given that each character, and
all of the other moving objects, had the same amount of detail as an oil
painting, and that many individuals could be running around on the
screen at one time, plus the fact that the animation looked very fluid,
the creation of this movie was a major feat.
   The dialog was in Hungarian, and dubbed into Japanese, but consisted
mainly of a narrative voice-over, so I can't really comment on the
quality of the voice acting.  The music and sound effects, however, were
very good.  So were the background artwork and the overall timing,
plotting, and pacing.
   In short, I'm very impressed, and I'd like to get this movie on
video tape some day.

   Omoide Poroporo (Remembering in Drops):
   This is one of the most spectacular films I've seen so far.  The
background artwork is absolutely stunning, and the animation is very
fluid, at times.  The music and special effects animation are both very
good.  Given that the story is nothing more than "a woman visits the
countryside and remembers her childhood," it is a very captivating film.
Produced by Hayao Miyazaki (Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro,
and Porco Rosso,) it was directed by Isao Takahata (friend and
collaborator with Miyazaki.)  Takahata has produced all of Miyazaki's
recent films, is the other half of Studio Ghibli, and directed
GRAVE FOR A FIREFLY.
   Isao has said that he set out to show that animation can tell a
live-action story as well as live actors can.  I think that while he
came damned close to proving his point, he didn't quite succeed.
   Poroporo is a beautiful, but flawed film.  When Taeko Okajima (the
main character) flashes back to her childhood, we get: children with
toothpick legs that don't match their bodies, faces that are straight
out of a Miyazaki film and look more "cartoony" that the adults' faces
do, occasional shots where the cels float on the glass -- creating a
little shadow around the edges of the paint.  Overall, a lot of the more
complex animation was shot on 4's, giving a jerky feel to the movement,
and when vehicles like trains and cars approach or recede from the
camera, their outlines aren't quite stable enough, which detracts from
the picture.  When the characters are in 3/4 profile, their faces are
distorted to show more of the hidden side of the face than you'd
normally see in real life (this is a common problem.)  And, every so
often, the characters just lie flat on the film, instead of springing
out in a 3 dimensional effect.
   Poroporo is a fantastic film, and it does many of the things that
Disney only dreamed of, but it lacks the "Illusion of Life" that Disney
Studios mastered -- with things like keeping the clothing moving even
though the person is stationary, and the fact that no one is completely
immobile at all times.  There's also almost too much attention to little
details -- a frog on a leaf, the cut to a close-up of a car's dashboard
when it's being started, etc., that call too much attention to
themselves and that fact that this IS an animated film, and away from
the story itself.
   One of the biggest problems, though, especially for the adult animation,
is the way characters move and react facially.  Animation is
traditionally a caracature form, so that people's bodies and movements
are distorted a little to make them seem more natural.  By keeping to a
more realistic rule for movement and shading, Isao has created the
impression that his adults have all been rotoscoped -- this is NOT a
good thing (just ask Ralph Bakshi.)  I was constantly reminded of the
rotoscoping effect throughout the movie.  In this case, slightly thinner
arms and faces, and more fluid movement would have been better than to
conform to the rules of real-life outlines and movement.
   Overall comments: I'm very impressed.  The background artwork is
photorealistic almost ALL of the time.  A lot of the little details are
very well done, and the voice acting and music were well performed.
Some of the character animation and acting were dead-on perfect.  And I
have been on some of the trains in this film, and this is just how I
remember them.  The shots inside the train stations were perfect, too.
I'd kill to get some of the artwork from Poroporo, and I will do my
damnedest to get a subbed copy on videotape, or LD.  Omoide Poroporo is
not quite perfect, but it's better than some of the Disney animated
movies I've seen, and that says a lot.
   Recommendation: Watch this movie with a critical eye, and a good
script.  You'll learn a lot about anime, and about life in Japan.  But
beyond anything else, just watch this film for the experience, if you
haven't already.

   Chinese Animation:
   This does not seem to be a continuing series, but there have been two
shows listed the same way in the paper for the NHK Educational channel in
October.  I only saw the second show, and didn't turn the TV on in time
to catch the title.  But.
   The Chinese have some GREAT animators in their studios.  The one show
I caught was a simple story, 15 minutes long, done in AIRBRUSH on cel.
The animation was very fluid, the character designs were in the classic
ancient Chinese ink-painting style, and the music was performed on flute
and Chinese zither (but sounded more like guitar.)  And the acting was
brilliant.
   Simply put: An old scholar needs to cross a lake, and hires a young
boy with a boat (think of a gondola) to do that.  When the old man
reaches the other side, he passes out, and the boy takes the scholar to
his hut to be cared for.  To pass the time, the boy plays a flute, and the
old man has a highly-treasured zither.  After a while, the two become
like father and son, and when the old man decides that it's time to go
off to die in the mountains, he passes the zither on to the boy.  As the
old man walks away in the mist, he hears the boy playing a tribute to
him on the zither.
   VERY impressive.

   GUNHED:
   This is a live-action/special effects/miniatures film; Kia Asamiya
made a manga version based on it which was translated into English by
VIZ.  The manga is better than the film.
   The story is rather simple -- a scavenger team happens upon an
island that had been the site of a major high-tech battle some years
earlier.  The team encounters a solo thief who is after the same goal
they are -- a data crystal worth a lot of money on the open market.
Also on the island are a pair of kids, the only survivors on the island,
and a giant war robot.  The team systemically die off, leaving the
female thief, a single male team member, and the two kids.  And then the
robot wakes up.
   Caveat: I didn't watch this all the way through, and I forget parts
of the story since I haven't read the manga in over a year.  I THINK
that GUNHED is the name of the giant war robot.
   Anyway, this movie is so bad it's funny.
   The sets scream "movie set!", the robots in the battle scenes scream
"miniatures!", and the characters scream "poorly trained, ham actors!"
GUNHED is a combination of every Godzilla flick, Dr. Who TV episode, and
the Terminator movie.  When the team members start dying, it's hard to
tell why and how ('how' becomes a little more clear after a while.)  The
special effects are pretty good, the miniatures look like they came
from the props room at the BBC, and the sets could be great fun for any
role-playing group that wants to enact a GURPS space adventure.  The
choice of mood music is sometimes comical, and the actors probably broke
up laughing all the time while trying to deliver their lines.  And then
there's what's most likely the most distracting element of all -- are the
cheap TV editing effects used to wipe from one scene to the next.
   Recommendation: This is a great movie to watch in a convention film
room with a bunch of other fans.  Make sure you have lots of buttered
popcorn, and some cola.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratings:

   I'm going to list some of the anime titles currently shown in Tokyo,
in attempt to rate them for watchability.  This may give you an idea of
the types of things you should demand from your local club or trader.

               New Anime
Title
------------------------------
Dragon Ball Z
Sailor Moon
Minky Momo
Yuyu Hakusho
Sazae-san



                Re-runs
Title
------------------------------
Oishinbo
NG Knight Lamune and 40
Obotchama-kun
High School Kimengumi
Chibi Maruko-chan


Shows that possibly may have been dropped as of the beginning of
December:

   Dragon Ball
   NG Knight Lamune and 40

Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime