ninteen anime eighty-one part one

 

Hey gang, earlier this year during the online Anime North convention, I delivered a virtual presentation all about what Japanese animation was like forty years ago, back in 1981. Well, those convention panels, even online ones, move pretty fast. If you aren’t careful you’ll miss something. I know I did! So that’s why today here at Let’s Anime we’re going to take that presentation and turn it into a column that we all can enjoy at our leisure.

Of course, 1980 was a big year for Japanese animation; big movies, big franchises, big shows. But if you thought 1980 was packed with cartoon goodness, well, you hadn’t ain’t done seen nothin’ yet. 1981 made 1980 look like a quiet Sunday at Grandma’s. Don’t believe me? Just look at what we’re looking at first.

 

1981 had no idea this show was going to become a massive international success. King Of Beasts Golion was one in a long line of Toei super robot cartoons built around a toy – they literally designed the toy first and the show was written around its five combining lion mecha robot beast fighters. Golion came and went in Japan without making too much of an impact, but when World Events Productions localized it as Voltron, it was exactly what North American kids were looking for. Voltron and its various sequels, reboots, and remakes continue to loom large in our collective memories.

   

Meanwhile, American televangelist Pat Robertson was looking for a way to sell Bibles in Japan, and the ad agency he hired told him “make a cartoon.” Tatsunoko was contracted and the result was Anime Oyako Gekijo, or as it was called on CBN Cable, Superbook, the story of three children and a time travelling robot experiencing bible stories. Superbook aired on cable and broadcast TV, was released on home video several times, and currently exists, like the Bible itself, in several different versions. We’ve written about Superbook and Flying House and Superbook II before!

 

 

Speaking of co-productions, the legendary Greek epic of Ulysses got an anime makeover in Ulysses 31, a TMS-DIC co-production updating the Homeric epic to the 31st century. America didn’t get this show until a few years later but those who saw it were dazzled by the sweet Osamu Dezaki animation, which blew away pretty much everything else on the TV.

 

Over on the cable channels you might have been watching Nickelodeon when they aired MK Company/Visual 80/Toho’s Meiken Jori, or as we know it, Belle & Sebastian. Inspiring live-action films and Scottish indie pop bands, this adaptation of the 1965 French novel is about a boy and his dog and another dog on a journey through the Pyrenees as they elude the cops and search for mother. I’d say this one’s long overdue for a North American DVD release.

 

Can a gloomy abandoned girl find happiness again in the paws of a ridiculous stray dog? Find out in Ohayo Spank! This 65 episode TMS series was based on the Nakayoshi manga by Shunichi Yukimuro and Shizue Takanashi, and found success in Japan and Europe. Sadly, Hello Spank’s only North American foothold was an English-narrated promo reel and a children’s plastic chair.

 

The Robinson family gets marooned on a mysterious island in the Nippon Animation World Masterpiece Theater adaptation Swiss Family Robinson – Flone Of The Mysterious Island, based on the novel by Johann David Wyss. The 1981 anime series adds a Robinson daughter to the cast and you can watch it in English on Amazon Prime, if you want to know if they ever get off that island!

  

Another western literary adaptation is MIC’s Little Women teleseries, one of the many times Louisa May Alcott’s novel has been translated into anime form. This version lasted 25 episodes and was dubbed by Sound International Corporation, the same people that dubbed Honey Honey and Leo The Lion. Did it exist in America beyond a few VHS tapes?

  

The Three Musketeers battle again, this time as dogs, in Dogtanian, a co-production between Japan’s Nippon Animation and Spain’s BRB International. Enjoyed by children worldwide – there’s even an Afrikaans dub and an Albanian dub - one version of the English voices were provided by Americans living in Madrid.

 
 

Meanwhile over in Scotland, let’s say hello to Hello Sandybell, the Toei series about the young Scots girl with an enormous dog and a cottage surrounded by flowers. Will she finally be reunited with her mother? Will her romance with the handsome rich kid who lives in the castle up the hill finally be realized, or will her rival Kitty win out? Watch the show and find out. Fair warning: this show features a character named “Mark Brunch Wellington.”

 

 

1981 was a big year for romantic European gals. MIC’s Honey Honey, based on the manga by Hideko Mizuno, is literally chased around the world because her cat Lily happened to swallow the priceless gem the Star Of The Amazon. It seems Princess Flora of Austria promised to marry whoever retrieved the jewel, which she had inserted inside a fish, fulfilling some no doubt whimsical Central European tradition. A crew of ethnic stereotypes and handsome masked thieves track Honey from Austria to Germany, France, England, Spain, Italy, Iraq, Japan, Norway and Russia only to wind up in New York City. This 29-episode shoujo comedy was dubbed into English by Sound International, aired in the US on Pat Robertson’s CBN Cable, and has only had a few sporadic home video releases.

 

And in modern day Japan, the glamourous young teacher Miss Machiko is forced to endure a constant parade of sexual harassment from her elementary school class in a Studio Pierrot anime series that lasted 92 (!) episodes and inspired eight (!!!!) different live-action versions, all based on eight volumes of Takeshi Ebihara manga, because Japan loves this kind of thing, I guess. Don’t take my word for it, watch it for yourself on Crunchyroll!

  

Japan also loves pro wrestling and Tiger Mask II delivers the kind of powerful masked grappling that inspires millions of fans, and also inspires Tatsuo Aku to don the titular mask and become the second Tiger Mask in this sequel to the early 70s Toei hit, which was based on the popular manga by Ikki Kajiwara and Naoki Tsuji, and which also inspired real-life wrestlers, as well as a legacy in the ring and on TV that lasts to this day.

 

The 65 episode Tatsunoko series Dash Kappei stars diminutive high school sports champion Kappei and was remarkably successful in the ratings, maybe because of Kappei’s panty fetish. Nope, not kidding.

 

Etsumi Haruki’s Jarinko Chie, or Chie The Brat, or Downtown Story as TMS would have you call it, is the story of a short-tempered Osaka girl named Chie and her ne’er do well gambling father, as Chie valiantly attempts to get Dad meaningful employment and a reconciliation with mom.

 

Kenichi’s best friend is the little ninja Hattori, who has amazing ninja powers but is deathly afraid of frogs. Based on the manga by Fujiko A. Fujio, the Shin-ei anime series Ninja Hattori-kun lasted an impressive six hundred and ninety-four (694!!) episodes.

 

You might know Akira Toriyama for Dragonball, but his first manga success was Dr. Slump, the tale of a fumbling genius inventor and his greatest creation, the robot girl Arale. Toei’s cartoony, colorful, crowded, and crazy Dr. Slump anime series ran for 243 episodes, ten movies, a 1997 remake, and at one point crossed over with this series ---

 

Queen Millenia is based on the Leiji Matsumoto manga of the same name which was serialized one page a day, five days a week, for 1000 days, in the Sankei Shimbun and Nishinippon Sports newspapers. That was the plan, anyway. Toei Doga would animate 42 episodes about of the discovery of La Metal, the 10th planet, which not only is on a collision course with Earth, but whose advanced civilization sends a queen to secretly rule over Earth every thousand years. What happens when La Metal’s queen sides with the Earth people? This mashup of the Princess Kaguya tale, the kook-science works of Immanuel Velikovsky, and the film When Worlds Collide would be edited together with the 1978 Captain Harlock anime and be shown in America as “Captain Harlock And The Queen Of 1000 Years.” And as mentioned, there was that crossover with Dr. Slump.

Over at Tatsunoko, the Time Bokan series continued with the fifth installment Yattodetaman, as Princess Karen and her robot guardian Daigoron travel back in time to 1981 to recruit Wataru Toki and Koyomu Himekuri in a quest to capture the immortal fire-bird Phoenix - no relation to Tezuka's Hi no Tori.

 

Prince Mito and his loyal retainers set out in the super robot Daioja to inspect the galactic empire in this fifty-episode Sunrise sci-fi update of the popular Mito Komon jidaigeki television series.

 

Also from Sunrise, Fang Of The Sun Dougram documents the guerrilla rebellion of planet Deloyer from the corrupt Earth Federation and its puppet government. Created by Ryosuke Takahashi, this real robot series featured mecha designs by Gundam’s Kunio Okawara, and toys and model kits of this series’ mecha would appear in North America both badged as “Robotech” and under the Dougram brand, while Dougram manga by Yoshihiro Moritou would see print in Kodansha’s Comic BonBon, not to be confused with the completely different Dougram manga by Yu Okazaki, which was running at the same time in Adventure King, make up your mind Japan.

 
 

Robot mayhem continues from TMS with God Mars! Earth is attacked by the Gishin space empire, led by the dark emperor Zule. Our only hope is Crasher Squad member Takeru Myojin, who it turns out is actually a Gishin space alien with ESP powers and a six-god combination super robot that doubles as a planet-destroying bomb sent to demolish the Earth! Based on the manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, TMS’s God Mars ran for 65 episodes of colorful, science fictiony, very not-real robot action, and you can watch it right now streaming for free on Tubi.

Speaking of unreal robots, Sengoku Majin Goshogun is all about how the shadow illuminati Dokuga, secretly ruling the world for Lord NeoNeros, comes under attack by Good Thunder and the GoShogun team, using Beamler energy to battle for the fate of humanity! Ashi Pro’s Goshogun only lasted 26 episodes but its mix of colorful action and fun characters captured enough fans to get a compilation film and a sequel OAV. Portions of the show were dubbed into English as “Macron 1,” the television broadcast version of which contains music video segments featuring covers of popular 80s tunes. The Japanese series has been released in North America by Discotek and is streaming on Retrocrush.

 

Hiro Taikai finds a gold cigarette lighter that instead of helping smokers to get lung cancer, is actually the transforming sentient super robot Gold Lightan, sent to defend the Earth from invasion by the Mechanic Dimension. This Tatsunoko series lasted 52 episodes and is streaming on HIDIVE!

 

From the studio that brought you Little Women and Honey Honey comes Galaxy Cyclone Braiger, the first in Yu Yamamoto’s J-9 series. In the lawless Asteroid Belt, four outer space commandos for hire use their expanding plasma super robot Braiger to defy the cult-leader crime-lord Khamen Khamen, who plans to blow up Jupiter. Will he succeed? Get the discs from Discotek and find out!

 

Rumiko Takahashi’s outer space high school comedy Urusei Yatsura concerns itself with the tumultuous relationship between the space princess Lum and the Earthling reprobate Ataru, except when it focuses on their equally wacky friends and neighbors. Urusei Yatsura came to TV in 1981 courtesy Studio Pierrot, and its mix of girls, gags, and galactic shenanigans would last 218 episodes, spawn six feature films, appear in a Matthew Sweet music video, and generally obnoxious-alien its way into pop culture legend. The series was released in English by AnimEigo and the pilot was dubbed into English on two separate occasions.

That’s an awful lot of anime TV shows! Join us next time when we head to the movie theater, buy a ticket, some soda, a large popcorn, and some Twizzlers, and also take a look at the Japanese anime theatrical films of 1981!

-Dave Merrill

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God And/Or Tatsunoko Don't Make No Junk

It's the 1980s. You're bored in front of the TV, punching buttons on that weird multiplex cable TV channel box with all the buttons and three levers, and you come across a Japanese cartoon that you've never seen, and it's about two kids, and a robot, and Jesus. Yeah, THAT Jesus. And you ask youself, how did I get here? 

high-tech 1980s channel-changing device

The liberating influence of the Reformation put religion in the hands of anybody who could shout the Gospel and stir up a crowd, taking salvation out of the hands of a centralized bureaucracy and allowing a million tent revivals to bloom. Heir to the traditions of mass-media evangelists like Billy Sunday, Father Joe Coughlin, and Aimee Semple McPherson, Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960 with the purchase of a small UHF station in Portsmouth Virginia. CBN's early days were financed via a telethon requesting 700 volunteers each giving $10, this "700 Club" becoming the genesis of Robertson's flagship current events/prayer series. Amidst the growth of cable television in the late 1970s, Robertson bought a cable TV channel in the area and soon CBN was a basic-cable fixture on TV sets, reaching 10 million homes by 1981. 

In the late 70s, CBN hired ad agency giant Young & Rubicam to promote sales of Christian literature in Japan. This is Japan in the late 1970s we're talking about here, in the midst of an unprecendented animation boom fueled by hits like Yamato, Gundam, Gatchaman, and others. Anyone with two eyes could see that animation was the way to go. Hooking up with Japan's Yomiko Advertising Agency and perhaps emboldened by the prior ad agency/animation studio success of former SCDP exec Lou Avery's partnership with Tatsunoko to produce Scout's Honor, CBN would contract Tatsunoko to produce a Bible-themed cartoon for young people. 

The resulting cartoon, Anime Oyako Gekijo, or "Anime Mother & Child Playhouse", would be directed by veteran Masakazu Higuchi (Vickie The Viking, Urikupen Rescue Team, The Real Ghostbusters) and would premiere Oct. 9, 1981 across the spectrum of Japanese broadcast television, on Fuji TV, TV Tokyo, Asahi TV, and TBS. 

Chris, Joy and Gizmo

The story stars young Chris Peeper (Sho Azuka), his friend Joy (Azusa Yamato) and toy robot Gizmo (Zenmaijikake) as they discover a mysterious old book in the attic of Chris' father, Professor Peeper. Opening up, the book transports them back in time to experience many of the stories of the Bible's Old Testament, with a few New Testament stories thrown in for good measure, but always returns them to the Peeper house at the end of the adventure in time for snacks. There's a very Tatsunoko look to the characters, particularly Professor Peeper, thanks to the work of veteran Muteking/Temple The Balloonist character designer Akiko Shimamoto. 

Chris, Joy, Gizmo, and the Peeper parents 

CBN was reportedly unsure about localizing the series for America, but let's get real, they did own a cable network and you always gotta have something to show on your cable network. The dub cast featured veterans of anime classics Astro Boy and Kimba The White Lion, including Billie Lou Watt, Ray "Aquaman" Owens as Jesus, Gilbert Mack, Peter Fernandez, Hal Studer, and others. Owens had been featured in CBN's Christian soap opera "Another Life", which is where he got wind of the upcoming cartoon-voice gig. The series was given the title Superbook and in 1982 it premiered on CBN and became available to other broadcasters through CBN Continental Syndication. 

Superbook wasn't CBN's only big-eyed Japanese cartoon; other anime appearing on CBN included the Sonic International dubs of Honey Honey and Leo The Lion, and 3B Productions' compilation films of Voltes V, Fighting General Daimos (as "Starbirds") and Tatsunoko's 1979 "Daddy Longlegs" telefilm (directed by Superbook's Masakazu Higuchi). 

Anime Oyako Gekijo was followed immediately by "Adventure Of Tondera House", or as we'd know it, Flying House. While playing in the woods, youngsters Justin Casey (Gen Adachi) and his pal Angie (Kanna Natsuyama) and Angie's even-younger brother Corky (Tsukubo Natsuyama) are caught in a storm and seek shelter in a mysterious house where they meet an astonishing robot. This mysterious house and its robot inhabitant belong to Professor Bumble (Dr. Tokio Taimu – "time" – get it?), who has created an amazing time machine built into the house itself, like those great intercom systems you see in mid-century suburban tract homes. A lightning strike reboots the robot S.I.R. into its combat mode and his flailing robot attacks send the house flying back through the ages to New Testament times. During an amazing series of 52 adventures our lost travellers witness the birth of Jesus and the early days of the Christian religion. Airing in Japan from April '82 until March of 1983, the series was also localized by the same cast and distributed by CBN. 

While both Flying House and Superbook use the same basic structure of "modern kids in Bible times", Flying House embedded those kids in the stories themselves, like AP stringers with the 3rd Infantry Division in Anbar Province. Justin, Angie and Corky visibly struggle alongside their new scriptural pals as the timeline asserts itself and the stories come to their King James-decreed conclusions. This distinguishes Flying House from Superbook, where characters having vague memories of these seemingly immortal kids is just a running gag, and any attempts by Chris or Joy at direct involvement unsupported by Leviticus, or Exodus, or whatever, see them yanked out of the past with an abrupt, unsettling counterclockwise sequence. The two shows feature very different kinds of involvement: enmeshment vs active observation.

the gospel according to Superbook

In the tumbling wake of the Flying House came the third part of Tatsunoko's Bible Trilogy. We know the further adventures of Chris, Joy, Gizmo as Superbook II, but in Japan the title is Pasocon Travel Tanteidan, or Personal Computer Travel Detectives, or PC Travel Detective Group, take your pick. As you may remember, the early 1980s were a boom time for personal computers both here and in Japan. When the Superbook and a PC team up, it means new Bible adventures for our Superbook kids, joined here by Chris's dog Ruffles and his cousin Uriah (in Japan, Sho's brother Yuu). Character designs are softened a little to reflect mid-80s aesthetics and the ravages of time, the show being set two years after the events of the first Superbook. PC Travel Tanteidan aired 4-4-83 to 9-26-83, adding 26 episodes to the Superbook canon. 

Superbook II cast and the exciting Atari 2600 Superbook II game

Scriptural fidelity is probably too much to expect from a series that involves different sets of children travelling through time and witnessing different iterations of the same Biblical events, and each series handles interaction with religious events and characters differently, Superbook's kids being passive observers and Flying House's Justin and Angie doing their best to mess with history. Both shows take dramatic liberty with the Gospels; for instance, Flying House has Justin, Angie and Corky being tempted by Satan alongside Jesus, and the show reinterprets the dance of Salome into a children's talent show and involves the kids in an ethical capital-punishment quandary with the son of Barabbas (the murderer set free instead of Jesus).

The Dance Of Salome, as interpreted by Flying House

Tatsunoko's utilitarian animation lacks both the tricky special effects we'd see in their more fantastical series and the props or gadgets typically inserted into shows for the toy market. Since Tatsunoko already had CBN financing, they didn't need Takatoku. The second series of Superbook improves slightly, but lacks visual excitement when compared to concurrent series like Orguss, Dunbine, Mospeada, and Vifam. 

Jesus and the Flying House kids are tempted by Satan via animation reference from "Little Norse Prince"

In 1985 CBN produced a Spanish language version of Superbook. Eventually the series would reach fifty nations, including a Soviet Union in the throes of Glasnost and Perestroika. Superbook on Soviet Central TV was immensely popular in the twilight days of the USSR and when party bigwigs threatened cancellation, the series sparked a revolt among the Children's Television Department. At one point the show was receiving 30,000 letters from viewers every day. In 1990 CBN rebranded as the Family Channel, which was sold and became Fox Family, which was sold and became ABC Family. Superbook and Flying House relocated to the Trinity Broadcasting Network, run by the televangelist Crouch couple. As streaming video became a thing CBN began streaming Flying House for free while keeping most of Superbook behind a paywall, and building an online interactive children's experience around a Superbook reboot. 

TV ad for Superbook VHS only $24.95 each, a bargain

In spite of the interest in Japanese animation, most self-professed "otaku" would be hesitant to list Superbook as being an influential anime import. And yet, the worldwide reach of this franchise rivals or surpasses titles like Robotech, Sailor Moon or Star Blazers. Superbook/Flying House has been shown continuously for decades in dozens of languages, impacting millions and millions of viewers. Few TV shows of any sort can boast that kind of reach. Of course, Superbook has built-in educational and religious advantages attractive to parents desperate for wholesome family entertainment that their kids will actually sit still for. Prior to Superbook, seekers of scriptural kids TV had to rely on Davey & Goliath or Jot, or the occasional Moody Institute of Science short.

rare "Flying House" edition of The Bible

Superbook/Flying House videos were available in retail and Christian specialty stores and advertised on TV, unheard of in the anime field at the time. Among its target audience of easily impressed children with limited access to TV remote controls, Superbook has remained surprisingly resilient. The series continues to entertain with the original series and with a new, computer-animated Superbook update currently in vogue among the Sunday School set around the world, starring an updated Gizmo and Chris Quantum, who is reportedly "an awesome skate-boarder." The new Superbook is featured on websites, DVD purchasing clubs, online games, and broadcast and streaming video, while the neglected Flying House has yet to receive any updates or reboots at all.

Superbook Club is in the house

We may have Eastern Europe's love of Superbook to thank for the show's longevity; Ukraine's Emmaneuil TV started airing the children's show Superbook Club in 1996, based on a Superbook-themed youth group initiative. The live-action series stars lots of kids and a long-suffering suit actor in a Gizmo costume – over there he's known as Robik, and yes, he did upgrade to the new CG Superbook look - and kids 6-14 can write or email Robik with any question they may have, and can even call him on his toll-free Robik Hot Line. Meanwhile, the kids of the Superbook Club are ready 24/7 to sing, dance, and have low-key adventures across the CIS states of Europe and Western Asia.

Sure, Superbook and Flying House are simplistic children's cartoons selling a watered-down Gospel ultimately for the benefit of multi-millionaire Gospel grifter Pat Robertson. But nothing illustrates the global reach of Japanese animation like Virginian televangelists hiring Asian studios to animate the Middle Eastern cultural traditions that formed the religions of the Western world. Perhaps anime does indeed, as the song says, have the whole world in its hands.

-Dave Merrill

Special thanks to William J. Brown and Benson P. Fraser for their scholarly and informative "The Diffusion of Superbook: One of the World's Most Popular Entertainment-Education Television Series", and a big super Let's Anime thanks to fellow recreational Christianity researcher Wednesday White for her invaluable insight into the world of Superbook and Flying House! 

Happy Holidays from Superbook Club & Let's Anime!

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Net world, please consider joining our Patreon!

Kokusai Movie International Eiga-Sha Corp. 1

Movie International Corporation theme song CD

It’s hard to say when I first encountered Kokusai Eiga-sha, or Movie International Co., Ltd.  It might have been a Sunday afternoon cartoon in a non-peak time slot on a niche cable network. Or it might have been a super robot toy incongruously racked in a tacky mall gift shop.  As an anime studio, Kokusai Eiga-sha (or “MIC") produced a lot of mid-level stuff and a few cult favorites, never getting that big breakout hit but never descending to the level of, say, a Knack Studio.  With something like sixteen different anime TV series produced in the midst of the “anime boom”, MIC impacted both the Japanese anime scene and the nascent American anime fandom – maybe in an indirect, roundabout way, but their shows still resonate with fans.

Movie International letterhead courtesy Anime Nikansya

Like many things, you could blame America’s initial MIC exposure on evangelist and 700 Club host Pat Robertson. His CBN Cable network broadcast several anime series in the early 1980s, among them a weirdly-dubbed version of MIC’s HONEY HONEY. On the other hand, and at the complete opposite end of the moral spectrum, perhaps my first MIC glimpse was this GINGA REPPU BAXINGER toy purchased at the local Spencer’s Gifts with precious allowance money and a desperate hunger to learn more of the culture that brought us SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO and BATTLE OF THE PLANETS.

thank you, toy buyer for Spencer's Gifts

But what was this Movie International Corporation, this Kokusai Eiga-Sha?  MIC was an animation production house formed in 1979 by former Nikkatsu exec Shigeo Tsubota. MIC’s business strategy was to handle production and planning, license anime titles, outsource the actual animation production to other studios and subcontractors, and reap the benefits of providing content to an anime-starved Japanese and international public.   Their rise and fall coincided almost exactly with the fortunes of the anime industry as a whole, buoyed by the “anime boom” of the late 1970s and then laid low by that same boom’s subsequent bust.

some kind of drug metaphor I think

MIC’s first TV series were coproductions with Ashi Production (later Production Reed). KUJIRA NO JOSEPHINA, or “Josephina the Whale”, was a 1979 version of the children’s story by Jose Maria Sanchez Silva about a young boy who uses his imagination to bring his toy whale to life and help him be less insecure. Works as well as a blanket, I guess. This was followed in 1980 by their goofy comedy version of Don Quixote, ZUKKOKE KNIGHT DON DE LA MANCHA, followed by an anime version of the popular MONCHICHI toys, the comedy robot-kid MECHAKKO DOTAKON,  and SPACE WARRIOR BALDIOS, a very 1980 ecological disaster co-produced super robot series. MIC also produced their own version of LITTLE WOMEN, calling theirs FOUR SISTERS OF YOUNG GRASS. 

watching this won't get you out of having to write that book report

In 1981 MIC would serve up their own special take on the super robot genre with a distinctive show that became their first fan favorite. GINGA SENPU BRYGER (aka Galaxy Cyclone Braiger, Cosmo Whirlwind Brygar, Cosmo Ranger J-9, etc) wasn’t your little brother’s space robot anime series – it starred desperate outlaws, living by their own code in a corrupt solar system full of crime and vice. Creator Yu Yamamoto combined the antihero aesthetic of Peckinpah’s WILD BUNCH with the brand name of the top-of-the-line Sony VCR (J-9), got K. Kazuo to design our heroes, gave it an amazing OP sequence animated by Yoshinori “You” Kanada, and set it all to a driving rock beat by Masayuki Yamamoto. 

Equal parts Western, SF space opera, and biker movie, BRYGER is set in the year 2111 where a colonized Solar System and a weak central government are paralyzed by criminal Mafias known as “Connections. In the J-west section of the Asteroid Belt, Issac “the Razor” Godonov has used both his immense wealth and his amazing scientific knowledge to create a secret asteroid base for his J9 Cosmo Rangers team of mercenaries – Kido “Blaster Kid” Jotaro, Steve “Speedy” Bowie, and Machiko “Angel Omachi” Valencia. For a price they’ll solve any problem you might have, and if it requires the use of their combining spaceship-car-super robot Bryger, so much the better!

BRYGER easily found a small but devoted audience. The lack of kid sidekicks, funny animals, or most of the other super robot tropes left plenty of room for BRYGER’s cast to act like adults; drinking, smoking, gambling, fistfighting, enjoying casual sex, and generally not giving a rat’s ass about most of the societal pressures that would plague the younger, less experienced heroes in its robot anime contemporaries like, say, GUNDAM or GOD MARS.

the Cosmo Rangers

But here’s the thing with BRYGER and other MIC series. Once the episode starts, you realize that as great as the opening credits look and as kick-ass as the theme song is, the show itself fails to live up to the promise, that BRYGER’s animation reach exceeds its animation grasp. And that’s OK, Kanada has to sleep sometime, but the show’s stiff animation and simplistic mechanical design make it feel like a holdover from the 70s, like the J-9 team invaded a much cheaper show. However, by the time BRYGER’s climax rolls around and Khamen Khamen’s evil plan to blow up Jupiter has been dealt with, you’ve become acclimated to poorly-animated thugs on space scooters and the goofy, dashed-off look of the Connection robots Bryger casually destroys.  You’re left with fond memories of the J-9 team and that “Khamen Khamen” song echoing throughout the ruins of the Solar System.

the charming Honey Honey

The show spawned a decent amount of toyage from sponsor Takatoku Toys, and on the whole was successful enough for MIC to get right to work on their next J-9 series.  But first they’d take a shoujo manga detour with THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF HONEY HONEY (Honey Honey no Suteki na Bouken). This 29 episode series followed the adventures of orphan Honey Honey and her cat Lily as they are chased through Europe and around the world by Princess Flora of Austria and her four suitors while the mysterious thief Phoenix plots and plans. Set in the early part of the 20^th century, HONEY HONEY is based on the 60s shoujo manga by Hideko “Fire” Mizuno, former resident of Tezuka’s “Tokiwa” apartment house and pioneering manga artist. Broadcast on CBN cable a few years later, HONEY HONEY caught the eye of many an American anime fan, and its foreign broadcasts put the “International” in MIC at last.  

that is one scared kitty

Based on a 60s manga, the show has a definite 60s feel, particularly in the early episodes, and the clunky MIC-farmed animation doesn’t help things. Episode 22 (“Snowbound Castle”) is memorable with its slicked-up frame rates and fleshed out character designs, but it’s the exception, not the rule.  Luckily, HONEY HONEY’s charm gets us past the stiff animation. It’s hard to nitpick a show that has characters rescued by UFOs, drops Honey Honey into feudal Japan via flying carpet, and ends with a King Kong riff complete with World Trade Center. 

MIC would return to the super robot well in 1982 with MAKYOUDENSETSU ACROBUNCH, or “Legend Of Hidden Places Acrobunch”, another well-designed, offbeat SF robot drama that sold a few toys, got a few fans, failed to get past 24 episodes. The story? It was explained to me back in the day as “In the future, Indiana Jones has a family and a giant robot, and they travel the world seeking archeological treasure and battling monsters”, which as a synopsis works as well as anything I guess. 

  

The Rando family versus Emperor Delos

Tatsuya Rando, millionaire sea farmer and archeologist, retires to spend the rest of his life seeking the hidden treasure of “Quashica”, the fantastic legacy of an ancient super civilization that existed on Earth millions of years ago. To this end he’s built the Acrobunch, a mobile complete living environment with sleeping quarters, medical facilities, and all the comforts of home that happens to transform into a super combination fighting robot.  Unwilling to take over the family business, his children Hiro (the cool one), Ryu (the boring one), Jun (the kid), and the twin girls Miki (girly-girl) and Reika (tomboy) come along for the ride.  Trouble is, the underground Goblin empire wants Quashica too. Can Acrobunch find the treasure and save the world?

Reika and Hiro, the two stars of this show. No I don't care what anybody else says

With a great theme song sung by Yukio Yamagata and a typically terrific Kanada-animated OP full of Stonehenge, Nasca, and other Von Daniken ancient astronaut kook-science landmarks, ACROBUNCH promises great things. This time the show lives up to the hype and delivers zippy, action-packed episodes as dreamy megane-otoko Hiro’s doomed romance with Goblin princess Shiira colors their showdown with Delos, the Goblin King, whose beard and devil horns and shepherd’s crook make him disturbingly close to various medieval horned depictions of Moses. Kanada protégé Mutsumi “Leda Fantastic Adventure Of Yohko” Inomata keeps things zippy right up until the series climax, which defies description. No, seriously.

 

MIC would take a different mythological tack with LITTLE POLLON (Ochamegami Monogatari Korokoro Poron), the charming tale of the daughter of Sun God Apollo and her wacky adventures among the Greek pantheon. The original manga, “Pollon Of Olympus,” ran in PRINCESS and was one of many by Hideo Azuma, who’s known for being the, uh, “father of lolicon”. 

little Pollon and friend

 His manga career ranges from gag detective (“Eito Bito”) to quintuplet comedy (“Futari Go Nin”) to sex comedy (“Scrap Student”, “Night Angel”) to autobiographical manga about abandoning his punishing workload for alcoholism, homelessness, and employment as a gas pipe fitter (“Disappearance Diary”), but POLLON’s cutesy fun belies her creator’s darker side. From May of ’82 until March of ’83, 46 episodes of goofy god adventures – Apollo is a lazy drunk, Eros is an ugly kid, Poseidon can’t swim – were a hit on Fuji-TV in Japan and in foreign markets also, particularly Italy.  The simple, cute style was clearly a success for MIC and their followup was another Azuma manga, NANAKO SOS.

it's Supergirl, I mean Nanako! I'll tell you what's super-crazy, is Yotsuya's hair

Nanako was a normal high school girl until an experiment by fellow high school student and part-time mad scientist Yotsuya gives her super powers.  Unfortunately it also gives her amnesia!  Never one to pass up a profitable opportunity, Yotsuya makes a deal with Nanako – if she’ll help him with his detective agency, he’ll use all his scientific knowledge to bring her memory back!  Aided by assistant Iidabashi and robots Convenience Angel 7 and Convenience Angel 11, Yotsuya gets Nanako involved in one crazy scheme after another. However, through it all, Nanako retains her sunny personality and can-do attitude. NANAKO SOS lasted a respectable 39 episodes from April to December of 1983.

Next: the return of J-9, a Mission: Outer Space, and more!

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