At Eirtakon this year I presented a panel on a particular interest of mine, awful anime dubbing. It’s one of these things that always gets a good few laughs, especially when you present clips of some anime dubs that, whether through accident or design, are just hilariously inept, completely nonsensical, or downright offensive.

Quite a few people approached me after the panel and asked could they have copies of the clips I played. Since all of them are actually available on youtube, I thought I’d post some of the highlights here.

So we start off with some of the attempts that companies localising anime made to translate the opening for a particular show. Some of these were valiant attempts, others were just epically bad.

• Bow-chika-wow! This opening was recorded by Mark Mercury, a “space, electronic, electro-acoustic, ambient, cinematic” musician”. From the 70s (in case you hadn’t noticed).

  Captain Harlock – English Opening

• Soldiers of warlords from deep space! Before Robotech, Harmony Gold produced a “concept” english dub of Macross entitled Space Fortress Macross. You have to love the way this song describes the plot of the entire show. Which is a recurring theme…

  Space Fortress Macross – English Opening

• Seijushi Bismarck is a funky little show with robotic, rocket powered horses. It was brought over to the states and retitled Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs:

  Seijushi Bismarck
  Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs

• So here’s the original Japanese opening to a show called Ninja Senshi Tobikage, remember the tune because you’ll hear it again in a second.. NINJA ROBOTS! NINJA ROBOTS! This has it all. You have to hand it to them, they did a great job of summarising the entire show and re-using the melody of the original OP.

  Ninja Senshi Tobikage
  Ninja Robots

• Back in the 80s, the fantastic film Macross: Do You Remember Love was chopped to bits, given a comedy dub in Hong Kong and released as Clash Of The Bionoids. Check out these clips of “jet jockey in action”.

  Clash Of The Bionoids – Dating Advice
  Clash Of the Bionoids – Chauvenism
  Clash Of the Bionoids – Alcoholism

• Some brilliantly awful clips from the Ziv dub of Harlock.

  Harlock – I think it’s a woman!
  Harlock – Zetons

• I’m a sugar frosted donut…. with cream:

  20 short clips from Dangaioh

• The dub isn’t the only amazing thing about Black Lion, it was created by Go Nagai after all, but it does complete the experience:

  Why you should see Black Lion right now

• Wow, just wow. Tecno Police is the archetypal example of the early 80s Hong Kong chop job. Originally planned as a series but then abandoned, the remaining footage was cobbled together and released as a movie in the UK. Some interesting people who would go on to much greater things worked on it, including Toshimichi Suzuki (Bubblegum Crisis) Joe Hisaishi (composer for many Ghibli films) and Shoji Kawamori (Macross). Thankfully, it sank without a trace:

  Tecno Police – Best dub ever!

• Whilst Transformers finished its original run over here, in Japan it kept going with disastrous results. Yet another HK dub for the SE Asia and UK markets. There were also quite a few bizarre name changes – Metroplex is called “Phillip”, and Fortress Maximus is known as “Spaceship Bruce” :/

  Transformers Headmasters – Sappo the sap
  Transformers Headmasters – Sixshot, the ninja consultant!
  Transformers Headmasters – Everyone is stupid and useless

• It’s impossible to describe what happens in Garzey’s Wing, so I’m not going to try:

  Garzey’s Wing – Comedy gold

• Stopthenonsense! It’s Locke the Superman. This is yet *another* Hong Kong dub for the SE Asia and UK markets. A long-running manga given an even longer OVA treatment between 1984 and 2000, the first OVA was dubbed and released as Locke the Superpower:

  Locke the Superpower

• In the early 90s, many anime importers got into the habit of inserting copious amounts of swearing into their dubs in order to bump the rating up to 15 or 18. A cynical person would say it played up to the then prevalent tabloid image of anime as “violent japanese porno cartoons”, but that would be ridiculous! Here’s a selection of some of the more extreme examples:

  Violence Jack makes an entrance!
  Legend of the Overfiend
  Cyber City Oedo 808 condensed
  Mad Bull condensed

So that about sums it up… or does it? If you find this kind of thing hilarious, I recommend you check out Bad American Dubbing from the Corn Pone Flicks guys, or Mike Tool’s Dubs That Time Forgot panels. I stole some of my funnier content from these guys

Over the past while, I’ve been watching (and re-reading) Phoenix, a sprawling epic by that towering figure of anime and manga, Osamu Tezuka.

I’d read most of the manga a while ago, but I’d not seen any of the anime based on it. Phoenix concerns itself with some pretty lofty themes; birth, death, the meaning of life, mankind’s place in the universe and the quest for immortality. That last one crops up quite a bit.

The titular Phoenix is the classic fire bird that is reborn from the ashes, common to many mythologies both western and eastern – it’s called Hi-no-Tori (bird of fire) in Japanese. Throughout the chronology of Phoenix, which spans eons, the bird appears many times. Oftentimes to advise people, influence the development of life, observe or comment on man’s folly. It is also an object of desire for people throughout time, as it is said that drinking it’s blood will give one immortality. As it turns out, those that do achieve this suffer the most of all.

It’s hard to pin down what the Phoenix represents, it refers to itself many times as a galactic spirit, other times as one aspect of the life force of the universe. In any case, it is instrumental at key points throughout history.

Tezuka began work on Phoenix in the mid 60s and continued to write it up until his death in 1989. He had intended to tie all aspects of the story, past, present and future, in the final chapter – unfortunately it remained unfinished. Phoenix contained a lot of experimental artwork and themes that were very advanced for the time, so it was initially published in Tezuka’s “out there” magazine, COM. The manga has been released in english by viz and is collected into 12 volumes. I’ve managed to get 11 of these, however volume 4 seems to have fallen off the face of the planet and is extremely difficult to find.

In terms of adaptations, the first was actually a live action version, from 1978, of the Dawn chapter (volume 1 in the viz release). This is a *really* odd film, it appears very much like it was made by students and was obviously done on the cheap – locations range from some kind of rural cottage, grass huts and what appears to be an abandoned gravel quarry. It also mixes live action with anime in parts – Astro Boy even makes an appearance at one point!. Despite it’s strangeness, it’s very faithful to the source material. As an aside, the subtitles on the copy that I have are hilariously bad in parts.

The first anime adaption came along in 1980, Phoenix 2772: Ai no CosmoZone, released in english as Space Firebird (very imaginative translation there guys). I’ve not seen this in it’s entirety, but from the few clips I have seen it looks extremely impressive, especially for the time.

The english dub is also amusing, it was one of those cheapo dubs that were oh so common in the 80s, done with British actors that didn’t bother to disguise their regional accents.

In the late 80s, 3 OVAs were produced, based on the Karma, Yamato and Space chapters. Directed by Rintarou, I think these convey very strongly the essence of Phoenix with high quality animation and an extremely atmospheric electronic score. If you only watched one Phoenix series, I would suggest this.

Finally, in 2004, a 13 episode series was released. This was directed by Ryousuke Takahashi (Votoms, Dagram, Gasaraki) and covers the Dawn, Resurrection, Strange Beings, Sun and Future chapters. Whilst this was a very impressive series for the most part, I felt that they took too many liberties with certain chapters – in some cases totally changing the setting and cutting out massive chunks of the story in order to fit things in. For this reason I was left with the impression that the latter half of the series was somewhat rushed, it would have worked better if they’d covered a smaller number of chapters in the same amount of episodes.

All in all, this is a monumental series from one of the greats of anime and manga – Tezuka called it his “life’s work”. If you are up for something that will fascinate, amuse, surprise, shock and promote some interesting debate on the nature of existence, Phoenix is really worth a look.

Apparently, this is the first Yamato movie in about 26 years and one of the last things made by the series’ co-creator Yoshinobu Nishizaki before he was killed in a boating accident a few weeks ago. Ironically, after falling overboard from a ship called “Yamato”.

For those who may not know, Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto created Space Battleship Yamato in the mid 70s. To say it was a hit would be a huge understatement. The show went on to spawn 2 sequels, 5 (?) feature-length films, a ton of merchandise and a huge cult following outside Japan in the form of Star Blazers, as it was called for the english-dubbed version. Crucially, it inspired a new generation of anime fans who went on to become creators themselves. For a better insight into the whole phenomenon, Corn Pone Flicks have recently produced a fantastic documentary.

But, back to the film at hand. After Yamato/Star Blazers’ phenomenal success throughout the 70s and into the 80s, at some point Nishizaki and Matsumoto had a falling out, the rights to the show became disputed and several court battles ensued. However, Nishizaki seemed to remain obsessed with the idea of re-making Yamato, for monetary or artistic reasons…or both, sometimes with horrifying results. Things finally came to fruition late last year.

The plot would be familiar to anyone who’s seen either the series or the films – a space-born menace threatens to destroy earth, in this case an oddly purposeful black hole. In the face of the approaching black hole that threatens to gobble up the entire solar system, the citizens of Earth are slowly being evacuated to a friendly planet in gigantic fleets of “emigration ships” that can carry 100s of millions of people. Unfortunately, an alliance of aliens (who look pretty much like humans) aren’t too happy with the prospect of new neighbours and have been ambushing the colony fleets. Which means that the World War II battleship Yamato needs to be pulled out of retirement to guard the emigration ships on their long journey, in order to save mankind. Honestly, you’d think the old crew would throw their hands in the air at this point – it’s about the fifth time this has happened.

Despite the oft-recycled plot, I was very impressed. It’s been in the works, in one form or another, since about 1994. The legal battles may have delayed its completion. But as is sometimes the case with troubled productions, a superior product has been delivered.

We’ve got gigantic fleets of emigration ships performing slingshot maneuvers around the edge of a black hole, battles with trans-dimensional beings, noble enemies, even nobler deaths and of course the Yamato back on the big screen – one of the most iconic symbols in anime. All this is done in CG that can be a little jarring at times, but certainly not as intrusive as it could have been.

It just goes to show you can’t keep a good series down, even if it takes 26 years.

Durarara!:

From the makers of the excellent Baccano! (they must have a thing for !’s in the title). There’s a guy stamping on some ko-gal’s phone in the trailer, whilst laughing hysterically… I like this:

Dance in the Vampire Bund:

Oh, something about vampires. The premise looks interesting however, an extremely rich vampire from the Tepes family (as in, Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler) pays off the national debt of Japan (!!) in order to get her own island which can be used as a safe haven for the blood drinkers of this world. She proceeds to make preparations for revealing the existence of vampires to the public at large, before some terrorists decide to attack and wreck their buzz:

Katanagatari:

A very nice period piece with some swordplay, interesting artwork and music. The director worked on Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Crest of the Stars, amongst other things:

Uchuu Senkan Yamato Fukkatsu-hen (Movie):

Power up the wave motion gun! After nearly 26 years of false starts there’s finally a new Yamato movie:

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (Movie):

It goes without saying that this will be enormous.

Gundam Unicorn (OVA):

I’m saving the best till last. A new Yamato movie and now the first UC Gundam show since 1993. Mabye this season isn’t so bad after all. Neo Zeon are back and there is a Char-like character called …wait for it…Full Frontal. This is going to rock.

First off the bat we have Code Geass R2 (April 7th?). This is probably the most anticipated show of the new season, I hope it delivers.

Then of course there’s, Golgo 13 (April 11th). Oh yeah. I believe this is the first TV outing for Duke Togo, he’s a good counterbalance to the glut of moe and dating sim shows this season I’ve been reading a lot of the Golgo 13 manga recently so I’m really looking forward to this one.

Macross Frontier (April 3rd) – We already had a sneak preview of the first episode back in December, the storyline appears to be direct remake of Macross 7. Episode 1 was pretty impressive and of course, it’s more Macross

Real Drive (RD Sennou Chousashitsu) (April 8th) : The latest Production IG/Masamune Shirow offering with some of the staff from the GITS TV series. Must watch:

“In 2061, 50 years after humanity developed the “Net society” that depended on information networks despite their security issues. To improve security, a new network called Meta Real Network — or “Metal” for short — was developed. People’s personal memories are reduced to information and placed within “protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves” called bubble shells online. The result was a virtual “explosion” of creative freedom as people felt safe enough to explore instincts and desires on Metal that they would not otherwise explore in real life. This “friction” between the Metal’s alluring lack of restrictions and rules-bound reality led to trouble and incidents that investigators known as “cyber divers” must handle. Masamichi Haru is one such cyber diver.”

Himitsu: Top Secret (April 8th).

“The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years’ worth of memories from people’s minds — even if they are dead. The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science’s 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in the ultimate invasion of privacy as they delve into people’s minds to solve crimes.”

Allison and Lillia (April 3rd): A World War II-type conflict has been going on for about a hundred years, two people set out to find a treasure (??) that can end the war. This looks quite impressive.

Toshokan Senseou (Library War) (April 10th): This is a quirky one, sounds like a cross between Fahrenheit 451 and Read or Die.

“Based on a light novel series by Arikawa Hiro, illustrated by Adabana Sukumo.

In the year 2019, the explosion of information and misinformation became a direct threat to society. In a daring decision, it was decided to create a new government agency dedicated solely to information management. Now some thirty years later, the government still monitors and controls information, suppressing anything they find undesirable, but standing against their abuses of power are the libraries, with their special agents called ‘the book soldiers.’”

Kaiba (April 10th): From the director of Mind Game and Cat Soup, produced by studio Madhouse (rock!).

“A sci-fi love story set in a world where digitization of memory made physical death obsolete. A world where memories can be stolen and altered, and replaced in a new human body. Kaiba wakes up in a room wthout knowing who he is. He has a pendant with the photograph of a woman he does not remember. After being attacked all of a sudden, he has to flee to space, meet various people, and rediscover the world.”

Kamen no Maid Guy (April 6th). Fist of the North Star meets He is My Master? This has the potential to be completely wretched or hilarious, or both:

“Fujiwara Naeka is a typical 17 year-old high school student. Or so we thought. She’s really one of two surviving heirs of a tycoon who has the right to inherit his mass fortune when she turns 18 in half a year. Fubuki, a young and beautiful maid, and Kogarashi, a big burly maid guy with a mask, have been assigned to keep Naeka and her brother Kousuke safe from those who would plot their demise, and to steal the fortune she would inherit.”

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the above series’, a more complete roundup can be found here (which the above is mostly based on).

Summer is teh arrived, today makes me think of the Haruhi ending, Hare Hare Yukai (Sunny Sunny Happy!):

NAZONAZO mitai ni chikyuugi wo tokiakashitara
Minna de doko made mo ikeru ne

Boooon!!