From: currmann@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Curtis Hoffmann)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Anime Reviews for the Tokyo Area  (ver. 2.1)
Date: 11 Oct 92 22:36:18 GMT
Reply-To: doi@jrd.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan, R&D center
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                 Anime Reviews for the Tokyo Area  (ver. 2.1)

   [Insert whining here.]
   Since I've been reading the TV listings on June 20, there have only
been five anime movies and one documentary on Tokyo television.

                     >>> ---------------------- <<<
   NOTICE: The new season is just now starting, and not all of the new
shows have started airing yet.  But, so far, this looks to be a very
poor month.  Further, the newest episode of Sailor Moon seems to be
suffering with the new season, too.
                     >>> ---------------------- <<<

   Title                 Animation    Story    Audience    Design
   ------------------    ---------    -----    --------    ------
   Hime-chan no Ribon -- average        ok      girls.     average
   Flanders no Inu    -- below         ???      girls      below
   Yuyu Hakusho       -- below        good      boys       average
   Sailor Moon        -- below          ok      girls      below

   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.)  Because of the major changes in the
line-up, I'm basically cleaning out the reviews of the old shows, and just
adding the new ones as I watch them.
   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.

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

   Lamune and EX 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 "Cider".)  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.

   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.  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.
   Definitely worth watching.  However, Hitoshi Doi and I think that the
series will end when the current big battle is wrapped up.  (Maybe not
until late September or October.)  NOTE: As of Sept. 3, I have already
noticed some major discrepancies between the TV series, and the manga.
The manga story seems to be moving along at its own pace, but the TV
series seems to be heading more quickly toward a major climax.

   Dragon Ball:
   This is the original series, currently in re-runs in Tokyo.  This is
very silly (almost as bad as Dr. Slump,) with the story echoing the video
arcade RPG adventures that were a popular fad a few years ago.  The
characters are trying to locate the seven Dragon Balls, which are rumored
to grant one wish to their possessor.  Along the way, there is a huge
amount of toilet and sex humor.  Not for the prim and prissy, but
something I definitely consider hilarious at times (even when I can't
follow the dialog.)  Plus, the artwork is really well-done, as are the
pacing and "camera-shots."

   Yawara!:
   These are still in re-runs, and are coming out on video tape.  The
earliest episodes have much rougher character designs and animation than
you'll see later on.  As of October 2, the story had gotten to where
Yawara hurts her hand, and Matsuda uses his handkerchief to bind her pencil
to her hand so that she can pass a test she's taking.  If she fails the
test, she has to enter a university that has a good judo program.
   If you aren't familiar with the story, RUN out NOW, and buy all of the
manga.  This is definitely worth the money.
   Yawara is a young girl (now a young woman) who is a natural at judo,
but who really just wants to lead the same kind of normal life other
girls lead.  But, at long last, she actually WANTS to stay in Judo, and
to attend the Barcelona Olympics where she's Japan's entry in the
unlimited weight class.  The actual serialized manga will not have
Yawara competing until after Halloween, and the TV series ended on the
third week of September.  So, the future manga stories may actually echo
the events from the real Olympics.
   The TV series has better than average animation, and the stories are
very compelling.  The voices are well-matched with the characters, and
the background music fits well, too.  I have seen some of the judo
competion footage, and the judo animation is pretty damn good -- a few
too many speed lines, and triple-repeat-pans at times, but not excessively
so.  (Second opinion -- in the final episodes of the series, the amount of
recycled animation, TRP's, and speed lines have increased a bit too much.)
   No question, this was one of the best series on Japanese television
to date.  And, it has ended as of September 21.  Damn, damn, damn.
   The last episode was not animated as well, or as evenly as it could
have been -- it seemed very rushed in certain scenes.  But the ending was
pretty strong, and kind of up-beat.  Basically, the series followed the
manga right up to the end of the All-Japan Women's Tournament episode of
the manga.  And the series then just ended as it stood.

   Obotchama-kun:
   This is a weird little show, which is apparently 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 & EX 40_, and
_Mama wa Shogaku_.

   Hime-chan no Ribon:
   Or, Hime-chan's Ribbon.  I have mixed emotions about this series.
The first episode has some nice touches, but it's also one that I'm not
likely to watch in the future if the storyline follows the trend set by
the end of the episode.  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 big problem is that the first story, anyway, really reinforces
the idea that girls should act less like men and more like women (ie. --
a fluffy airhead interested only in men, clothing fashions, and
make-up.)  But, 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.
   I have seen a second episode, and Hime-chan can change into fat old
men, too.  This lends itself for a few good jokes, but I'd rather watch
Agetama (which Hime-chan replaced.)

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 Grizzley Adams.)

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 episode has
worse than average animation, and the animators couldn't hold to the
model sheets consistently.  But the story, although it is unfolding very
slowly, is intriguing enough that I do want to watch the next few
installments.
   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 show.  Now that he's a ghost, he's just beginning a rather unusual
journey into combat.
   The voice acting is flawed, as is the rest of the show.  This is not
a really strong start for the new season.

   Minky Momo:
   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
statutes 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.

   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.)  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.

   Futari no Lotte:  -- R.I.P. --
   This is actually not bad.  The animation is so-so, but the character
designs are quite good (read: realistic.)  I really can't figure out the
story, but it concerns a pair of identical sisters and their parents (who
are facing separation.)  It deals with real-world events and problems,
with a little bit of mystery and suspense thrown in.  It is a soap opera,
but a better one than the sports soaps.
   Basis for the new movie "Watashi to Watashi" (I and I.)
   However, it seems to have been dropped as of 10/10/92.

   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,
most of the action has taken place in either Africa or 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.

   Sailor Moon:
   This is a girl's anime, with four 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 revolve 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 four main characters have "sailor" as the first part of
their names, because of the dresses they wear.
   Hitoshi thinks that since Ramna 1/2 and Yawara! have ended, and
Dragon Ball Z may wrap up with the end of the current storyline,
Sailor Moon will be the only continuing series worth summarizing.
*I* think that he should switch to summarizing Mary Bell, first.

   Mama wa Shogaku:
   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.
   If it didn't appear so toxically cute, I'd watch a full episode just
to get a better feel for it.  Instead, if we ever get another VCR here,
I'll tape an episode while watching Metal Jack, which is on at the same
time.

   Tetsujin-28:
   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 the western fans.

   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
on out-right gay.)  And he befriends a defensive forces commander who turns
out to be a macho woman in disguise (admittedly, she was to be married
to a guy before the groom-to-be got killed by the invaders.)

   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.

   Gambaru-Gar:
   Another young-boys-powersuits series.  Here, we have three school
kids (two boys and a girl) 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.

   Ultraman, and the toy boat thing:
   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.
   I don't care enough about the toy boat thing that is on right after
the Ultraman re-cap to determine the show's title.  But, 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.

   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 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.

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.  I'm not sure I want to watch too many
other episodes, although there are some funny gags.  The animation is TV
quality, the character designs are definitely "oddball," and the
background artwork is pretty good.  The voices are grating, and I don't
remember the background soundtrack at all.
   If you remember the old cartoons featuring the Beatles in various
slapstick situations, you'll have an idea what HSK is like.
   SECOND TAKE: 
   I have now watched two episodes, and I guess I'm hooked.  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!"
   The animation is pretty bad, and the action isn't all that
believable, but 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."

   Salaryman:
   _Gimme A Break_ is a variety show on Tuesdays at 9:00 PM, where 6
people sit around and discuss the stuff they shown.  The first week I
caught this, there was a horror theme with 2 cartoons and one
live-action short.  The first was a girl's horror, about a beautiful
ball gown that has a red rose pattern on it.  The dress is delivered
by a strange figure that disappears in a flutter of black rose petals
before the door is opened.  Each girl (victim) has trouble getting boys,
and feels that the dress will help them out.  They are then possessed
by the dress, and either go insane, or disappear entirely.  The dress is
then delivered to the next girl in line.
   The second anime story was from the continuing series, "Salaryman."
(Mangajin has carried a couple examples of _Salaryman_ in the past.)
Salaryman is a scary guy that has huge red lips frozen in a permanent
smile, huge eyes that stare fixedly into space, a black bowler, and
black suit.  He goes around the city targeting people, and kind of
bringing about their destruction in one way or another (sort of like an
evil Alfred Hitchcock.)
   Gimme a Break does not seem to have a consistent pattern for its
weekly schedule, since the show has had a variety of live-action
"documentary" subjects in the subsequent weeks (like the piece on
Japanese women that married Korean men prior to World War II.)
   However, _Salaryman_ is on every week.  The girls' horror story was
pretty interesting, and fairly well made, (although I didn't care for the
character designs, which ressembled that of _Love and Rockets_.)
_Salaryman_ suffers from very limited character animation at times,
although the character designs are all pretty good.  Salaryman himself
bothers me, because of his focussed, malicious targetting of people that
don't seem to initially deserve their fates.   (This may be a subconscious
view normal Japanese workers have of their real salary-men counterparts,
which is also disturbing in its own way.)  In any case, both this show,
and _Salaryman_, require further attention.

   Tiny Toon Adventures:
   I might as well review this too, as it is one of the regular series
in the weekly line-up.
   When I was in the U.S., I caught a couple episodes of TTA, and was
completely unimpressed.  The action was too frantic and uncontrolled to
be funny, the "takes" didn't stay on the screen long enough to make the
proper impact, and the voices stunk.  Further, I was turned off by the
hype, and the noise made by its all too excitable fans.
   But, since coming to Japan, and having more free time (plus the fact
that I am activily watching anime specifically to review it) I've been
more willing to leave the TV on when TTA starts up.
   Basically, TTA is very uneven, both in terms of its animation, and
story lines.  The voices of the original characters like Bugs Bunny,
Wilie E., and Foghorn, are not even close to what Mel Blanc gave us (ie.
-- read "worse than pathetic.")   When the show is "on," it is very
funny, and some times even inspired.  Otherwise, the jokes are stale,
the storylines are trite and predictable, and it even becomes incredibly
preachy (worse than the worst of the _Disney Ducktales_, and _Rescue
Rangers_ garbage.)
   I do have a couple favorite episodes, and there are also some real
bombs.  But, the rest of the series can just as easily be ignored.
   One amusing note is that TTA is broadcast bilingually, and if you
have the right kind of TV or VCR, you can choose to listen either to the
English dialog, or to the Japanese dub.  The Japanese voices are even
worse than the English ones, and the lip-sync suffers, too.

   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 at a town.  The artwork 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 one episode, so
can't really pan or recommend it.  However, I do rank it higher than
_Sangokushi._

   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 Japan, ignore this show as a waste of tape.

   Tomato-Man:
   Soreiki! Anpan-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,) 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.

   Kiteretsu Dai-hyakka:
   Doraemon:
   There is another 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 _Sailor Moon_, 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.
   Kiteretsu is I forget what.
   The animation is all the same, and so are the characters.  In fact,
the only difference between Kiteretsu and Doreamon are those two
characters themselves (all of the other characters are identical between
the two shows.)
   The animation is pretty limited, and the character designs are pretty
poor.  These shows are aimed at children, but can occasionally be fun
to watch in their own right.

   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.

   The Little Prince Thing:
   Actually, I have no idea what the real title is -- I keep missing it.
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 cutsty 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.

   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.
   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.  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 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 sure of exactly
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 is 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 Takabatake (friend and
collaborator with Miyazaki.)
   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.

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

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
Dragon Ball
Bush Baby
Futari no Lotte
Sailor Moon
Minky Momo
Sazae-san



                Re-runs
Title
------------------------------
Dragon Ball
Lamune and 40 EX

                     +++++++++++++R+I+P++++++++++++

                     Shows That Ended In September:

Yawara!
Dragon Quest
Mabochan
Ranma 1/2
Chibi Maruko-chan
Agetama
Obotchama-kun
Sangokushi
Kinniku-man
Marude Dameo
Dodge Danpei
Cooking Papa
Yatta-man
Futari no Lotte