Heisei Genius Bakabon

**Heisei Genius Bakabon** (平成天才バカボン *Heisei Tensai Bakabon*) is the third anime adaptation to be made of Fujio Akatsuka's manga.

It wound up being the third and final of the "Akatsuka strategy" projects produced through the collaboration of Studio Pierrot, Fuji TV, and Yomiko Advertisting. It replaced Pierrot's Osomatsu-kun on Fuji TV, and ran from January 6 to December 29, 1990 for 46 episodes (each episode split into two stories for 92 total shorts).

## Overview

The directive for this third series was to emulate the success of The Original Genius Bakabon and its high ratings in both its original broadcast and reruns (which had occurred on TV TOKYO in 1987), but now tailored for the new era in Japan. Hiroshi Sasagawa, who had previously directed anime at Tatsunoko, was picked as the director for his reputation of being successful at gag anime. Other people in the "Tatsunoko system" were also chosen, including writers and animation directors that carried over from *Osomatsu-kun*. The musician Yusuke Honma and character designer Yoshiyuki Kishi were also appointed, the latter furthering the rounder and super-deformed style that had become characteristic of the later *-kun* episodes.

The voice cast wound up almost entirely replaced for the series, although in the case of Papa this was inevitable as his original actor Masashi Amenomori had passed away in 1984. Six different actors auditioned to be the "new Papa", but Kosei Tomita proved to be the one that Pierrot would want (he had previously taken over for Amenomori in the 1987 Sega game, and had also voiced Papa as early as the 1971 Asahi Sonorama sonosheet adaptation). Eiko Masuyama was retained as Mama, and Shigeru Chiba reprised both his police officer and Rerere roles from the Pierrot *-kun*.

Since the program was made as a successor to Pierrot's *-kun*, there were many injokes (see "Relationship with other Akatsuka works" below) and actors that previously been utilized in the other show's cast were often cast as bit parts in episodes; Mayumi Tanaka even used her "Chibita" voice and famous ad-libbed catchphrase for him when she voiced the Mynah Bird Prince.

Ultimately, the series did not last as long as *Osomatsu-kun* had, and its ratings did not get as high; the fact that broadcasts of the show had to be suspended and pushed back at least six times due to Fuji TV airing professional baseball games on specific dates was also believed to have hurt this (while had there been no pushback of episodes, there would have been 52 airing slots for the series). The next program to take over *Heisei*'s timeslot for the following year was Pierrot's ***Chokakku, The Stubborn Samurai Boy***, marking an end to their half of the "Akatsuka strategy". As far as other Akatsuka-based programming went from other companies, an adaptation of Let's La Gon by Studio Gallop had also initially been planned to run on Fuji TV through 1990, but never materialized due to difficulties with re-configuring the source work to be appropriate for a family audience.

A remastered version of *Heisei Genius Bakabon* was broadcasted by Animax in 2015, and it has since been rebroadcast through TV Osaka.

### Relationship with other Akatsuka works

Akatsuka's Star System is utilized in tying the series back to -kun, with the town being "Akatsuka District" from the 1988 show, the school Bakabon attends given as the "Akatsuka Elementary" from there, and various other nods:

* Episode 1A shows a little background girl seen to have Totoko's hairstyle and hairband, though her face is incredibly different.
* Episode 9B depicts a young boy reading an "Iyami" manga.
* Episode 14A depicts two children slightly resembling Chibita and Hatabō, but with modified hairstyles and some facial features. They can be seen running about at a park as The Police Officer with Connected Eyes shows up for a date. Later on, Papa is seen playing an Osomatsu-kun video game at home.
* Episode 16A depicts Bakabon to have Osomatsu-kun manga volumes on his shelf, as well as a manga named "Kadomatsu-kun" with Iyami's face on the front.
* Episode 18A has Papa watching -kun on TV, witnessing Chibita angrily chasing after the sextuplets.
* Episode 19A has Dayon depicted during Rerere's cleaning song, as one of the men running as he sweeps. However, his suit is colored teal instead of brown.
* Episode 22A starts with a television baseball game being watched by Bakabon and Papa. Two of the sextuplets can briefly be seen in the audience for the game.
* Episode 28B shows Hatabō at the pool in Papa's flashback to his youth. Hatabō is depicted with a beach parasol in his head, but otherwise immediately identifiable and crying a "da jo!?". Another Hatabō (with flag) can also be seen in the wide shot of the pool crowd.
* Episode 29A has Bakabon wreck his -kun puzzle (shown to have two sextuplets, Iyami, and Chibita) and announce "Osomatsu-kun has fallen apart!"
* Episode 33A depicts a disguised Chibita among a group of schoolgirls.
* Episode 35B briefly shows Chibita being spied on by Bakabon and Papa through a telescope. This cameo was adapted straight from the manga however, and was also present in episode 4 of *The Original Genius Bakabon*.
* Episode 39A has a statue of Iyami in his 'sheeh' pose.
* Episode 42A starts with Bakabon falling asleep bored while -kun plays on TV (with Osomatsu and Totoko visible and arguing on screen). The end of 42B has Chibita and an obscured Iyami show up as concerned citizens watching a house fire.
* Episode 45A briefly depicts Totoko visible in Bakabon's classroom at the start, as Kumada-kun interrupts the teacher. Kumada-kun is also given facial features similar to Hatabō, instead of his original face (but otherwise also has a design reminiscent of a certain terrible dictator...)

## Staff

* Original manga- Fujio Akatsuka
* Planning - Kazuo Shimamura (Yomiko)
* Character design - Yoshiyuki Kishi
* Producers- Yuji Nunokawa (Studio Pierrot), Kenji Shimizu, Yoshihisa Tachikawa (Fuji TV), Kyotaro Kimura (Yomiko)
* Assistant Producer- Ken Hagino, Kazuhisa Sakaguchi
* Director- Hiroshi Sasagawa
* Screenplay- Hiroyuki Hoshiyama, Keiji Terui, Yoshio Urasawa, Hiroshi Hashimoto, Yukiyoshi Ohashi
* Music- Yusuke Honma
* Sound Director- Kan Mizumoto
* Animation Production- Studio Pierrot
* Art Director- Setsuko Ishizu
* Director of Photography- Hirofumi Takahashi
* Production - Fuji TV, Yomiko, Studio Pierrot
* Broadcaster- Fuji TV

### Voice Cast

* Bakabon's Papa- Kosei Tomita
* Bakabon- Megumi Hayashibara
* Bakabon's Mama- Eiko Masuyama
* Hajime- Chika Sakamoto
* The Police Officer with the Connected Eyes, Rerere- Shigeru Chiba
* Unagi-Inu- Aruno Tahara
* Additional Voices by- Rica Matsumoto, Issei Futamata, Kenichi Ogata, Eken Mine, Naoko Matsui, Joji Yanami, Mari Mashiba, Mayumi Tanaka, Tetsuo Mizutori, Koichi Kitamura, Takuzo Kamiyama, Chafurin, Tomie Kataoka, Taro Arakawa, Yoko Yano, Ken Shiroyama, Yoko Asagami, Katsumi Suzuki, Chie Kojiro

Many actors from this version would be used later on for commercials and pachinko game releases.

## Theme Song

### Opening theme

**"Tarirariran Rock N' Roll"** (タリラリラーンロックンロール)

Lyrics, Composition, Performance- Tatsuo Kamon/Arrangement- Takashi Kudo

### Ending theme

**"The Day Continues from Morning to Night"** (その日は朝から夜だった)

Lyrics, Composition, Performance- Tatsuo Kamon/Arrangement- Takashi Kudo

### Insert Songs

**"Cleaning March"** (おそうじ行進曲, episode 19A)

Lyrics- Fumio Saikiji /Composition and Arrangement- Yusuke Honma/Performance- Shigeru Chiba

**"I Really Love Mama"** (ママ大好き, episode 29A)

Lyrics- Fumio Saikiji /Composition and Arrangement- Yusuke Honma/Performance- Eiko Masuyama, Kosei Tomita, Megumi Hayashibara, Chika Sakamoto

## Other Animated Content

It is unknown if a pilot film was developed for *Heisei Genius Bakabon* in the way that one was for *Osomatsu-kun*, although early promotional art can stand out for featuring characters that never appeared in the actual show (like Camera Kid).

### Crossover TV Special

*Main article: Bakabon: The 3000 Mile Quest For Osomatsu's Curry*

In October 1991, Pierrot would produce a 2-part TV special that would air on Fuji TV, crossing over both casts of the *Osomatsu-kun* and *Heisei Tensai Bakabon* series for one last appearance and the ultimate final work of their "Akatsuka strategy"; ***"Bakabon: The 3000 Mile Quest for Osomatsu's Curry"*** (バカボン・おそ松のカレーをたずねて三千里)

The characters meet in a re-enactment of "Journey to the West", as Bakabon and Papa go on an adventure to find curry to bring home and meet Chibita as Son Goku (as he had played before in episodes 64 and 65). As Toei had since regained the rights to the Extraordinary Ataro characters, Nyarome, Kemunpas, and Beshi do not show up in the special as they had in Pierrot's -kun.

## Overseas Broadcast and Adaptations

### Taiwan

JET TV broadcast a Mandarin dub of the series in 1996 under the title of "Heisei Genius".

### Spain

*Main article: Cosas de Locos*

The series was licensed in 2005 by Jonu Media, and combined along with *Osomatsu-kun* and Rerere's Genius Bakabon, that were also licensed as part of the package deal with Studio Pierrot.

The 156-episode **"Cosas de Locos"** ("Crazy Things") would air in Spain, dubbed in the Castilian dialect. Jonu would also produce regional variants; a Galician version called **"Cousas de Tolos"**, a Valencian version **"Coses de Grillats"**,and a Basque version **"Zoroak Zoro"**.

The overall humor of the series was often localized to better appeal to Spaniards, with celebrity references being changed to be more recognizable. Some characters also underwent name changes to either make puns off of their design, or to insert Spanish adult innuendo. Other than this, many characters' names stayed intact.

In the case of *Heisei*, the opening and ending themes were unable to be used due to rights and royalty issues with Victor Music Group (who owned the songs), so only the themes for -kun and *Rerere* were dubbed. A remastered version of *Heisei* was also unavailable at the time of the dub, which lead to the episodes looking very dated when put alongside the digital *Rerere* and the attempt at a new transfer of *-kun*.

The dub has since been released on four DVD box-sets, with both the Castilian Spanish and Japanese audio tracks available. Unfortunately, the *Cousas de Tolos, Zoroak Zoro,* and *Coses de Grillats* versions remain obscure without home video release.

### South Korea

A Korean reversioning under the title **It's Half-Assed!** (얼렁뚱땅 반쪽이네)aired on JEI Talent TV in 2011. As with most other Korean dubs, the characters' names were changed and many scenes were edited to display Hangul or otherwise censored for objectionable content. This extends even to the opening sequence, where some infamous frames showing Bakabon's kimono flipping up to expose his bared crotch were edited out.

## External Links

* Entry in Studio Pierrot catalog (Japanese). English-translated version also available.|}|}