1972: The Year Anime Got Groovy

 

It’s 1972! President Nixon's plumbers are plumbing up what we’d call Watergate, while Tricky Dick makes a historic relations-normalizing visit to mainland China. Arab terrorists murder 11 at the Munich Summer Olympics, a three-man Japanese hit squad kills 26 at Lod Airport near Tel Aviv, and negotiators in Paris try to hammer out a Vietnam peace deal. Top American films include The Poseidon Adventure, Blacula, The Godfather, and Georgia dueling-banjos favorite Deliverance, while on TV audiences enjoyed All In The Family, Columbo, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Flip Wilson, Emergency!, Sanford & Son, Maude, the Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H and Kung Fu. Kids tuned in Saturday mornings to watch Scooby-Doo, The Osmonds, Josie & The Pussycats In Outer Space, The Brady Kids, Sealab 2020, and endless reruns of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Meanwhile in Japan, the Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo. Yes, they used to hold the summer and winter Olympics in the same year! Controlled by the US since the end of WWII, Okinawa was returned to Japanese administration. Japanese theaters spent 1972 screening Godzilla Vs Gigan, Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion, two Zatoichi films, and four Lone Wolf & Cub movies, while Japanese TV aired the historical dramas Mito Kōmon and Ōedo Sōsamō, the tokusatsu adventures of Kamen Rider, Lion Maru, Ultraman Ace, and Kikaida, the detective series Key Hunter, and the "Japan's Got Talent" series Star Tanjō! 

 

1972 Japanese film and TV

But here at Let's Anime we are an anime blog, we're here to talk about Japanese animation and what it looked like fifty years ago. 1972 was a year that set Japanese animation firmly upon the path it still walks today, a merchandise-driven, synergistic production-committee collaboration between the publishing industry, the toy industry, the broadcasting industry, and the eyeballs of impressionable children. Right now we're living in the anime ecosystem that 1972 built. 

 

Stars of 1971

Continuing from 1971 were series like the second Q-Taro The Ghost anime, the first Lupin III series, the second Kitaro show and, of course, the longest running animated series of all time anywhere, Sazae-san, brought to you by Toshiba. But let’s keep moving and get into the new Japanese animation happening in 1972! 

 

First up in our list is Astroganger. Fleeing the evil alien Blasters, the extra-terrestrial Maya crash-lands on Earth, falls in love with a scientist and gives birth to a human boy named Kantaro. When the Blasters invade the Earth, Kantaro must defeat them by fighting with Astroganger, a robot made from living metal. This was the first color super robot TV anime, if you can call Astroganger super, which I personally do not. However, let's remember that every anime series is somebody's favorite anime series, and Astrogangar is no exception, being popular in Italy and the Arabic world. This Knack anime series ran for 26 episodes between October 1972 and March 1973. 

 

Seen in Mexico as "Capitan Centella," Moon Mask Rider is based on the groundbreaking tokusatsu hero series Gekko Kamen/Moonlight Mask/Moon Mask Rider, who donned the titular moon mask, fired up his moon cycle, and strapped on his moon six-guns for justice in the name of the Moon on TV in 1958 and soon afterwards in six feature films. The '72 version, also animated by Knack, appeared in response to the success of 1971 tokusatsu series Kamen Rider, itself perhaps influenced by the original Moon Mask. 

 

Onbu Obake aka "Piggyback Ghost" aired from October '72 until September 1973 and was based on the manga by Ryuichi Yokoyama, who created the wartime manga Fuku-chan and was one of the first manga-ka to be recognized by the Japanese government as a serious artist. A Top Craft/Eiken series, Onbu Obake aired on YTV. The Onbu Ghost was born from jade and spends happy days with a kind old blacksmith and a young village girl, encountering a wide variety of Japanese folktales as he becomes pretty much a Japanese version of Casper The Friendly Ghost. In the final episode, Onbu saves the village by holding up a crumbling rock all night alone, before exhausting his powers and returning to the jade from whence he came. Beat that, Casper! 

 

Tamagon The Counselor or "Kaiketsu Tamagon" is a goofy, friendly monster who is inordinately fond of eggs. He advises anyone with a problem, asking only eggs in payment - as soon as he's eaten that egg he gets to work. However his solutions usually end in comedic failure and he winds up being chased by his irate clients. This series of 195 5-minute shorts from Tatsunoko aired in Europe as "Eggzavier the Eggasaurus." 

 

Pinocchio, the venerable Carlo Collodi folktale, comes to life in this 1972 Tatsunoko TV series. Pinocchio here is known as “Mock Of The Oak” or Kashi no Ki Mokku, and he faces constant struggle and strife as he makes his way through the world. This was released on VHS and DVD in North America, look for it in the thrifts! 

 

The historical samurai series Akado (Red-breast) Suzunosuke is based on the 1954 manga by Eiichi Fukui and Tsunayoshi Takeuchi, which ran in Shonen Pictorial and spawned a radio drama, a TV show, nine feature films, and this anime series from TMS, which was directed by Isao Takahata and featured key animation from some dude named Hayao Miyazaki. It's about Suzunosuke Konno, an Edo-period boy swordsman learning his chops at the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Chiba Shusaku Dojo. He habitually sports his father’s red breastplate, leading to the nickname and the series' title. 

 

Mon Chéri CoCo is 13 episodes of romantic comedy anime airing from August to November 1972, with animation by Studio Look, Studio Take, and Joke. CoCo was a Nippon TV Video/NTN/TBS production and is based on the manga by Waki Yamato, who'd later create the popular Taisho-period romance Haikara-san. CoCo's star is Coco Charmant, a Paris fashion designer with a French textile-company president father and a Japanese mom from a Kyoto fabric wholesaler background. Coco creates her own new styles in the fashion world while mixing love and friendship. CoCo's production head Shimozaki Jun resigned at the end of August and NTN's animation producer resigned in October, leading us to conclude this early shoujo romance anime was cursed. The CoCo series has only been re-run once and has never been released on home video. 

 

A child of Atlantis, Triton Of The Sea was raised by humans but discovers his true identity and sets forth to battle the empire of Poseidon with his mermaid friend Pipi and his magic sword, turning the ocean red with the blood of his enemies. Seriously, this is a violent show! Based on the "Blue Triton" manga by Osamu Tezuka from 1969, the manga was later renamed to come into line with the TV anime, which only lasted 27 episodes but would return for two 1979 features culled from the show. Triton was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and the animation was produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki's "Animation Staff Room," a studio which would become Nishizaki's Office Academy and soon release Space Battleship Yamato. 

 

Based on the folksy, quirky fantasy comics & novels by Finnish national treasure Tove Jansson, Shin Moomin or “New Moomin” is a 1972 Mushi Pro anime series that continued the 1969 Moomin anime, which was produced by TMS until somebody named Hayao Miyazaki decided the show needed tanks in it. Suddenly TMS was out and Mushi was in. The 1972 series lasted 52 episodes and is all Mushi. 

 

Doknojo Gaeru or The Gutsy Frog, based on Yasumi Yoshizawa's six-year run in Shonen Jump, is all about middle schooler Hiroshi who accidentally squashed the frog Pyonkichi onto his sweatshirt. Now Pyonkichi lives on the front of Hiroshi’s shirt and causes no end of kooky comedic situations. This iconic TMS series ran for 206 episodes and was brought back in 1981 and again in 2015 as a live action show. 

 

The '72 TMS TV series pilot "Yuki's Sun" is based on the manga by Tetsuya “Tomorrow’s Joe” Chiba and is about an orphan named Yuki who’s adopted by a new family. This was Hayao Miyazaki’s first solo directorial work. 

Yuki and Pandas

 

In 1972 the Chinese government loaned Japan two giant pandas for the Ueno Zoo and Japan went positively psychotic for pandas. One of the products of this mania we know as Panda ko Panda, a pair of short TMS films about a little girl named Mimiko who befriends both a baby panda named Pan-chan and Pan-chan’s panda Papa. The creative team involved superstars Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, and Yoshifumi Kondo, who used concepts left over from their aborted "Pippi Longstocking" project (I guess Astrid Lindgren heard about the Moomin tanks). 

 

Nagagutsu Sanjuushi aka The Return Of Pero aka Ringo Rides West aka the second of Toei’s Puss In Boots movies is a kiddy version of a spaghetti western as Toei mascot cat Pero finds himself chased all the way to the Old West! Outlaws are trying to take over frontier Go Go Town for their own evil ends and Annie's inheritance stands in their way. Will Pero and the mysterious Kid With No Name aka Jimmy save the town? 

 

Hellhound Liner 0011 Henshin! Tsutomu lives in the world of the future and his only friends are dogs. When those dogs are killed by outer space alien invaders in an assassination attempt on Tsutomu’s father, there is only one response - to rebuild those dogs into transforming robot combination spaceship cyborgs and destroy the planet of devils! This is a kids’ movie? This IS a kids' movie, a Toei Manga Matsuri favorite delivering rocket-powered robot monster-destroying excitement at 24 frames a second. Don't miss it! 

 

"Anime Document München e no Michi" or Anime Document: The Road To Munich is a combination animation/live action documentary series about the Japanese Men's Volleyball Team as they prepare for the 1972 Munich Olympics. This series, the second time animation was used in a "documentary" format on Japanese TV, aired on TBS from 23 April to 20 August 1972, was sponsored by Fujiya (the Peko people), and was part of a plan to bring greater recognition to the men's volleyball team, who would go on to take the gold in Munich! That's the power of anime right there. 

 

A princess in a magical land, Chappy longed to visit the human world and when her brother Jun provided a convenient distraction at just the right moment, Chappy and Jun came to Japan! There, she found the human world to be full of pollution, traffic accidents, and bad people. Chappy, Jun, and mom and pop try to get along in our modern world without revealing their magical secrets. If you count Marvelous Melmo, Toei's Magical Chappy is the sixth magical girl to appear in Japanese anime, and aired from April to December 1972. 

 

Tatsunoko Productions' legendary animated series Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman premiered at 6:00 pm on Sunday, October 1, 1972 and gave us 105 bird-ninja starring episodes. Operating under the orders of the International Science Organization, Gatchaman fights to defeat the gangsters, robots, monsters and villains of Berg Katse, who leads the evil Galactor Syndicate controlled by the mysterious Sosai X. This immensely successful franchise would encompass a feature film, scads of merchandising, two sequel TV series, 90s and 00s reboots, a live action film, and international if slightly edited success under the title Battle of The Planets. 

Gatchaman's muscular realism would provide a template for a decade's worth of Tatsunoko hero adventure as the studio brought forth similar adventure programs like Shinzō Ningen Casshan, Uchū no Kishi Tekkaman, and Hurricane Polymar. I've lost count of how many times this show has been made available in America - televised as BOTP, dubbed again as G-Force, Gatchaman II and F shown as Eagle Riders, on VHS and DVD as BOTP, and on DVD and Blu-Ray as Gatchaman. 

 

Not content with the cataclysmic climax of his parent-disapproved "Shameless School" manga, up and coming manga superstar Go Nagai continued to push boundaries with his next popular series, Devilman. Notorious crybaby Akira Fudo lives with foster parents and endures abuse by bullies until one day he merges with the demon Amon and becomes Devilman, sworn to battle the awakening devils that seek to exterminate mankind. This Toei TV adaptation of Nagai's manga began airing in July of 1972, barely a month after the manga began appearing in Weekly Shonen. The comic's nihilistic violence was toned way down in the anime, but it still took decades to see any sort of English-language appearance of the character, who would return to the anime world in two 1980s OVAs and a 2018 Netflix series. 

Mazinger Z, the super robot, was built out of Chogokin-Z by Juzo Kabuto to battle the forces of Dr. Hell, in much the same fashion as creator Go Nagai forming Dynamic Pro to battle those who would abscond with licensing rights to his creations. Just before Dr. Kabuto's murder by Dr. Hell’s agents, Kabuto reveals Mazinger Z to his grandson Koji Kabuto, who then pilots Mazinger Z through 92 episodes of a Toei TV anime series airing from December 1972 until September 1974. Based on the manga by Go Nagai, Mazinger Z spawned armies of toys, battalions of merchandising and legions of sequels and imitations that infest Japanese popular culture to this day. 

English versions

Mazinger Z was dubbed into English in the 1970s (by M&M) and again in the 1980s as “Tranzor Z” by 3B. In 1973 Devilman and Mazinger Z would team up to star in the fine art film Mazinger Z vs Devilman. Koji Kabuto and Mazinger Z would return in the 2009 series Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact! and in the 2017 feature film Mazinger Z Infinity.

 

cinema at its finest

 

And that's 1972, without which we would not have Tatsunoko adventure, Toei super robots, Devilman Crybabies, Gutsy Frogs, or Astrogangers. What would that non-'72 world look like? Popular culture would have to limp along without bird ninjas or super-mechanical heroes, toy companies would be bereft of robot toys, Japanese PTAs would have to find something else to complain about. Fifty years later, however, we still live in the world that 1972's anime created, our feet firmly planted in that strong 1972 foundation. Now, choose your soundtrack: "Ziggy Stardust" or "Exile On Main Street"! 

 -Dave Merrill

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Shogakukan TV Picture Book: Psycho Armor Govarian

Psycho Armor Govarian (sometimes spelled “Govarion”), perhaps Knack Productions’ most visually appealing SF anime show, aired from July to December of 1983. One of several series whipped up by Go Nagai and his Dynamic Pro crew for Knack, Govarian stars young Isamu Napoto, who is recruited along with other psychic Earthlings by the alien scientist Zeku Alba to battle the evil Garadian space invaders, who attack Earth in their “Genocider” mecha. Luckily for Earth, Isamu and pals can use their psychokinetic powers to conjure up their own powerful super mecha Raid, Garom, and the titular Govarian. Rick Zerrano was kind enough to translate this Govarian children’s book for us, so now we can achieve the knowledge level of Japanese 8-year olds and join Govarian as he battles to save the Earth!

(please click on images to Psycho-Enlarge)

Enjoy more Shogakukan TV Picture Books today. Thanks for reading, and look out for Genociders!

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!

GET THE KNACK

Back in the feral prehistory of anime fandom, seekers would brave the darkest recesses of that most foetid pit of darkness- the children’s section of the video store. There, amongst the clamshelled remains of Walt Disney, would reside the sole representatives of the Japanese anime industry deemed worthy to compete in the American home video market. These were the days before AnimEigo would pioneer the field of uncut direct-to-video anime releases, so our choices were Jim Terry’s FORCE FIVE series of giant robot slugfests, maybe a few Family Home Entertainment’s abortive ROBOTECH releases, and a scattering of Z.I.V. versions of shows that deserved better treatment, like CAPTAIN HARLOCK or CANDY CANDY.

artwork from Knack founder Seiichi Hayashi

And of course we had NINJA THE WONDER BOY. Ah, NINJA THE WONDER BOY. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? This remarkably inept piece of junk found its way into the tape collections of most Reagan-era anime fans. Not because it was good - far from it – but because by God, it was an anime title, and we were anime fans, and therefore we had to embrace it like a recently paroled cousin. Apart from providing fodder for Corn Pone Flicks documentary series BAD AMERICAN DUBBING, NINJA THE WONDER BOY served only as a Ninja The Whipping Boy for the sarcastic amusement of jaded anime fans seeking what we’d later term “totally lame anime”. But confusion lingered around NINJA THE WONDER BOY. Sure, it was dubbed by legendary kidvid localizer Jim Terry Productions, who gave us not only the FORCE FIVE family of super-robots like GRANDIZER and DANGUARD ACE, but also voiced Tatsunoko’s TIME BOKAN as TIMEFIGHTERS, produced a very edited English CRUSHERS dub of the CRUSHER JOE movie, and brought forth the dub of Toei’s KING ARTHUR. Dubbing is, however, only half the story. Who animated this piece of ninja junk anyway? Was it in fact one of those crazy Korean knockoffs like GOLDWING or DEFENDERS OF THE SPACE? Or was it an honest-to God Japanese cartoon from Japan? Careful examination of the Jim Terry credits led me to the production company - Knack Productions.

As it turns out Knack has the dubious honor of being the driving force behind some of the worst Japanese cartoons ever produced. If they weren’t ruining Japan’s martial heritage with NINJA THE WONDER BOY (MANGA SARUTOBI SASUKE), they were cluttering up the giant robot field with turkeys like ASTROGANGER and GROIZER X or diluting the children’s comedy anime market with CYBOT ROBOTCHI (American title ROBBY THE RASCAL). Not to mention despoiling the memory of beloved live-action heroes with their versions of MITOKOMON and GEKKO KAMEN (“Moonlight Mask”, not the naked Go Nagai one). Most of their productions share the Knack hallmarks of shoddy, barely-there animation and characters, themes, and mechanical designs suspiciously similar to other, more popular shows. That’s not to say that everything they did was terrible, but the Japanese animation field is a big one and somebody’s got to be near the bottom, that’s just how things shake out.

Knack (now called Ichi Corporation) was started in 1967 by former Mushi Productions and Toei staff, including talented, award-winning illustrator Seiichi Hayashi. As a studio they might have had more misses than hits but there was real potential in their lineup. Knack’s earliest show was 1970’s IJIWARU BAASAN, "Grimalkin" aka “Granny Mischief”, a gag show based on the comic strip by Machiko “Sazae-San” Hasegawa. SAZAE-SAN’s still on the air, while GRIMALKIN is a misty memory. Do the math. It wouldn’t be long before high-profile licenses would give way to more original, less coherent shows.

Astroganger and friend

1972’s ASTROGANGER is a particular favorite; and by “favorite” I mean “favorite to laugh at”. When danger threatens the Earth in the form of sequentially-numbered aliens in flying saucers, our young hero Kantaro brandishes his medallion, instantly changes into a superhero outfit, and is sucked via energy beam into the guts of the clunky-looking robot Astroganger, who then proceeds to smash the aliens. Astroganger talks, feels pain, and makes the audience wonder what the benefit of having a giant robot is if he’s grunting every time some monster takes a swipe at him. Naturally there’s a requisite science center, managed by what appears to be Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders. ASTROGANGER creatively strip-mined earlier, vastly superior shows like BABEL 2 and TETSUJIN 28, while the rest of the industry was moving on the slightly more sophisticated entertainment of MAZINGER Z style robot action. Character design and key animation for ASTROGANGAR was courtesy Tama Productions’ Eiji Tanaka, who also subcontracted for Tatsunoko Productions, and who also worked on Knack’s 1973 series CHARGE MAN KEN.

get dynamite in the brain with Charge Man Ken

As a CASSHAN or a HURRICANE POLIMAR for the preschool set, CHARGEMAN KEN wears its Tatsunoko hero pedigree on its weirdly colored sleeve. But as a piece of cartoon television it carves out its own wildly incomprehensible space, as legions of YouTube viewers have come to know. The show’s inexplicable DVD release sparked an online viewing frenzy as dumbstruck fans shared their newly uncovered, forever lame gem with their friends. Parody subtitles, fan videos, and the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for, you know, actual entertainment have all appeared in the mighty wake of CHARGEMAN KEN.  Similar in superhero tone was Knack's pilot for the adventure series "Invisible Detective Akira", which was a Knack show actually deemed too lousy for broadcast, if such a thing is possible. 

Groizer X

Joe & Rita & Groizer

Knack would return to the super robot field with a disgruntled-with-Toei Go Nagai and 1976’s GROIZER X. When a mysterious girl flying a super space vehicle crashlands on Earth, it’s time for science center layabout hero Joe to take the wheel of her super space vehicle and battle the Gaira aliens. The Groizer X transforms into a super robot with rocket fists and jets of flame, but easily transforms back into jet-airliner configuration to enable it to land safely at any major metropolitan airport. GROIZER X inspired some boss 70s diecast toy action that even saw a brief US release, and the show was a major hit in Brazil.

Go Nagai’s frequent collaborator Ken Ishikawa would work on Knack’s CYBOT ROBOTCHI, the tale of an absentminded, lecherous inventor who builds himself a little robot buddy who gets into trouble a lot. Though this is a DR SLUMP ripoff crossed with a ROBOCON swipe, it’s nowhere near as shameless as the American sitcom SMALL WONDER. Fact is, ROBOTCHI gets downright wacky; there’s an entire village of wacky small-town type robots who struggle against the machinations of a spoiled zillionaire and his sexy henchmen. Released in America as ROBBY THE RASCAL, it’s a definite curiosity.

Cybot aka Robby

in the name of the moon

When KAMEN RIDER was heating up the small screen Knack had to cash in. So they did the next best thing, they licensed Kamen Rider’s spiritual predecessor, GEKKO KAMEN or MOONLIGHT MASK, for a 1972 anime series. Unfortunately capturing the zip and panache of Japan’s tokusatsu heroes in animated form has never been easy, and it’s got to be even more difficult when your studio is Knack and therefore sucks. I saw this show in Spanish on Univision, and unlike fellow Univision series EL NINO DEL FUTURO (FUTURE BOY) CONAN, MOONLIGHT MASK is inept and clumsy, dated even as it aired. 

1979’s NINJA THE WONDER BOY (Manga Sarutobi Sasuke) itself is no prize. Forget contemporary, successful ninja anime series like KAMUI and NINJA SASUKE, with their drama and their expressionistic, gekiga inspired visuals – NINJA THE WONDER BOY looks like Astro Boy in feudal drag. The show’s cartoony designs and kiddy-grade stories are nowhere near Real Ultimate Power when it comes to ninja animation, and while there’s lip service paid to the feudal setting and the historical reality behind the characters, this show also features evil witches, giant dragons, and betting on horse races.

Ninja The Wonder Boy - he's a wonder!

In spite of its more questionable creative decisions, Knack managed to knock out a few quality shows and score some international success. Go Nagai returned to Knack for 1983’s PSYCHO ARMOR GOVARIAN, an outer space super-robot show with an ESP twist; pilot Isamu, along with an international team of ESP young people from all walks of life,  controls his Psycho Armor with his own psychic power and battles demonic invaders and bald women from another dimension. Though similar in appearance to MAZINGER Z, there isn’t any connection between GOVARIAN and the more successful MAZINGER, except in South Korea, where GOVARIAN and GROIZER X were released as part of MAZINGER Z.

psychotherapy with psycho robots and psycho children

Children around the world in 1975 watched and enjoyed DON CHUCK STORIES, a long-running series about a beaver who wears overalls. Germany, Italy, the Arabian world, Russia; they all went nuts for this overall-sporting, strangely yellow beaver and his more than 100 episodes of woodland fun. 

Don Chuck is the mascot of a theme park, by the way

A more sophisticated anthropomorphous Knack series was SUE CAT, the story of a cat girl in a world of cat people who, suffering from amnesia, decides the best way to locate her family would be to become a singing star and appear on nationwide television as a celebrity, which she then does. Along with her two sisters she becomes a singing idol with a musical career AND life as a line of character goods. Want to get strange looks from sales clerks in Akihabara? Purchase Sue Cat DVD sets. If that doesn't do it I don't know what will.

Sue Cat and family impress their fans.  Well, fan.

The 1984 volleyball comedy/drama ATTACKER YOU managed to overcome a derivative title with unique and, for Knack, classy character designs. Tomboy You Hazuki arrives at a new school, finds herself on the volleyball team, and struggles with her coach and the hostility of the team’s captain on her way to the Olympics! This series was a big hit in Europe where it was packaged as a sequel to ATTACK NO. 1, even though the two shows had nothing to do with each other. ATTACKER YOU was even popular enough for a 2008 Chinese/Japanese co-produced sequel that starred a kung-fu fighting volleyball girl and went straight to video in Japan.

And when Knack produced THE LITTLE PRINCE in 1978, based on the children’s books by French aviator Antoine St. Expury, they managed to score both domestically and around the world. Early adopters of NICKELODEON will remember THE LITTLE PRINCE fondly along with BELLE AND SEBASTIAN and MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD, not to mention YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TELEVISION and the show where they would simply read comic books out loud. What was up with that? At any rate I wrote a whole thing on THE LITTLE PRINCE already so go read that now.

Knack’s situation-comedy family division would be represented by several different series over the years. 1984’s OH! FAMILY was based on the manga by Taeko Watanabe. OH! FAMILY is the delicate, pastel-colored and very 80s slice-of-life story of Anderson family of Los Angeles, California, whose idyllic family life is disrupted when young Johnathan shows up, claiming to be Dad’s illegitimate child. It’s a far cry from 1974’s NO-GOOD DADDY (Dame Oyaji), the biting, irreverent story of the saddest dad in Japan, disrespected by wife and children alike. Though toned down from the original manga’s bleak cynicism, the show still managed to shock audiences unwilling to look past the icon of the all-powerful Japanese father.

Oh! Family - a Brady Bunch for the 80s! But not really.

As the anime boom of the 80s wound down, Knack diversified into live-action films and direct-to-video live productions with titles like Assassin Girl Battle Road, Path Of Shura, New Gangster Kingdom, and something called “Peanuts”. Their animation business continued as they assisted in the production of END OF EVANGELION and their bandwagon-jumping continued as they produced a whole slew of adult-oriented anime videos with titles like SPONGE HEAVEN, TIME FOR ADVENTURE, and SLIGHT FEVER SYNDROME.

But as the internet-meme success and subsequent astonishing North American DVD release of CHARGEMAN KEN shows us, the true legacy of Knack may very well be that of a studio that solidly filled out the middle-to-lower ranks of the anime world, producing adequate if uninspiring sports and children’s anime along with what-were-they-thinking oddities. So whether you’re a sarcastic mocker of lame anime, or a nostalgic basic cable viewer with a fond memory of little princes in outer space, you have only one studio to thank, and that’s Knack.

-Dave Merrill

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!