Honey Honey's Wonderful Adventures

Can a European teenager and her cat find love and happiness while being chased throughout the world by a mysterious thief and four ethnic stereotypes in the wild and wacky days before World War One? That's the question asked every episode of HONEY HONEY, the show that kept many of us glued to our cable TV sets in the early 1980s!

HONEY HONEY began as a manga success from the pen of shoujo mangaka Hideko Mizuno - perhaps the only female resident of the famous Tokiwa "manga apartment house" in the Toshima district of Tokyo (other residents included Fujio-Fujiko, Shotaro Ishinomori, and some guy named Osamu Tezuka). She would later go on to critical and commercial success with FIRE! But before FIRE! there was HONEY HONEY. Or as we like to call it, "The Wonderful Adventure Of Honey Honey".

Honey Honey and Phoenix share a manga moment; Flora fumes

Honey Honey's manga appeared in "Ribon" in 1966 and ran for several years; Mizuno's Tezuka influence is obvious but there's stylish, breezy fashion to her pen line, moving away from the rounded kiddy look and towards the more ornate style we'll come to see as "shoujo". Though HONEY HONEY is set in the early 20th century it's not slavishly devoted to the period; Honey's 60s' bubble hairdo is kind of a tip, but the series itself refuses to take ANYTHING seriously. Animated in 1981 by Kokusai Eiga-sha and broadcast on Fuji TV, the cartoon emulated its star by making its way around the world and onto American TV sets.

Honey Honey children's book based on episode 6

Honey Honey herself is an orphan, working in a Viennese restaurant just trying to make ends meet. One day while serving a gigantic roast turkey, a white cat leaps into the restaurant and into her life - chased by a gang of cops, royalty, and various stuffed shirts! As it happens the white cat happened to be hanging around outside the royal palace where Princess Flora was entertaining suitors with her fabulous new gem, the Star Of The Amazon. Annoyed by the constant parade of weak-chinned Euro-trash, Flora stuffs the ring into a fish and hurls it out the window, proclaiming to one and all that whoever finds the ring shall win her hand in marriage. Well, when you're a hungry cat and a fish falls from the sky, you eat every bit of it, including the ring inside. Hence the gang of well-heeled cat chasers, and the white cat's furious leap into Honey Honey's face, and the trajectory of the giant roast turkey as it is delivered with more than customary speed. And thus we begin the Wonderful Adventures Of Honey Honey.

Far from the typical shoujo soap opera of tragic romantic misunderstandings, HONEY HONEY refuses to take itself seriously. The bumbling, pompous, stereotype suitors, the hair-trigger temper Princess Flora, and Honey Honey's willful troublemaking as she careens wildly across Europe make for fine viewing. Pulp adventure is represented by the Makio "Harlock" Inoue-voiced Phoenix, the mysterious masked thief who swings in to rescue Honey Honey just when he's needed most (we'll be seeing more of his type of character later in "Sailor Moon"). Is he just after the Star Of The Amazon, or does he harbor feelings for Honey Honey? This enrages Flora, who lusts after Phoenix herself and can't understand why he won't come to his senses and propose to her.

Furious Flora, Herr Gustav

Geronimo, Oil Dollar, Pika Pika: The Stereotype Squad

In the meantime Flora has to deal with Herr Gustav, King Pika-Pika, Sheik Oil Dollar, and Native American tribal leader Geronimo, who chase Honey Honey around the world and occasionally double cross each other trying to find that white cat so they can get married to Princess Flora. Honey Honey herself, though voiced by CANDY actress Matsushima Minori, isn't a typical shoujo heroine. She'd rather bum around Europe than be a princess, won't stand for cruelty or injustice, and woe betide anyone who dares to threaten her beloved Lily. Paying lip service to the Mauve Decade time period, HONEY HONEY never lets historical accuracy get in the way of sight gags, culminating in a King Kong-referencing final episode complete with 1970s skyscrapers.

Phoenix breaks the fourth wall

The journey begins as Honey escapes Vienna via balloon. Landing in Venice, she helps a young couple elope and winds up in Rome, thence to the Swiss Alps and a William Tell adventure. Then to Munich. Heidelberg, Amsterdam, Brussels. Paris, Orleans, Arles, and the Grand Prix in Monaco. Escaping by boat through the Mediterranean she arrives in Barcelona and hurries to Madrid, Toledo, Gibraltar, Lisbon, and London, where she meets both a long-haired guitar group and Robin Hood. 

Herr Gustav's Dream Wedding (Ring Bearer Phoenix and Flower Girl Honey sold separately)

It's also in London where, with the assistance of the King, the Star Of The Amazon is removed from Lily. Hey, that's the end of the show, right? Wrong. Kidnaped by Vikings - yes, Vikings - and taken to Norway, Honey learns she is actually heir to the throne of Priscilla, a tiny nation overthrown by the usurper Slag when Honey was an infant.

The evil Slag

Far from being a thief, Phoenix is really a secret agent working to restore the rightful rulers to the throne of Priscilla. Kidnaped by Slag's ninja-style raiders, Honey is taken to his secret castle in Russia. Escaping with the help of a flying saucer (used as an explanation for the Tunguska Explosion in Siberia) Honey travels to Moscow and south to Constantinople, where both she and Phoenix are sold into slavery. Phoenix is bought by Princess Flora, and Honey is left to become the latest addition to a sultan's harem.

I Dream Of Honey

It's not so bad for Honey because she gets to dress like Barbara Eden and help with magic tricks, and she gets a flying carpet which takes her to India and Japan and Los Angeles and finally to the show's climax in New York. By the time the series ends three different groups are chasing after Honey Honey for three different reasons and when the show wraps with a giant ape climbing a skyscraper holding Princess Flora, we take it all in stride.

I don't think anybody saw this coming.

Plenty of boy cartoons are watched by girls, but HONEY HONEY may have been the first girl cartoon watched by boys, in America anyways, after the show somehow made it into English and onto Pat Robertson's CBN cable network. Dubbed by "Sound International Corp." along with LEO THE LION, HONEY HONEY was broadcast in the vital Sunday noon timeslot that, unless you're sports, is ignored by all. The offices of "Sound International Corp" are now occupied by a chemical company. At the time I happened to notice LEO in the TV listings and the family VCR was sitting idle waiting for somebody to re-run STAR BLAZERS. Why not check it out? I was pleasantly surprised to learn LEO was the sequel to KIMBA THE WHITE LION (the first episode I saw helpfully featured a flashback to Leo's younger days) and, relaxing in the afterglow of my viewing discovery, decided to check out HONEY HONEY. I knew of an anime called CANDY CANDY, maybe this was a re-titled English dub? No sir, HONEY HONEY was its own thing. At first I didn't give it much attention, but after a few weeks the anything-goes style and Perils Of Pauline melodrama had its hooks in me.

Western-style Flora and Slag menace Honey in the manga

Comparing the original comics to the TV series, we find the anime begins faithfully but takes a sharp left turn somewhere in the middle of Europe. Blazing its own trail, the story is sometimes dicated by the writers and sometimes by the show's early cancellation - an extended American sequence involving Hollywood, Old West cowboys and Indians, and Chicago gangsters was excised. The storylines where Honey Honey becomes a judo champion in Japan and Honey's adventures on the Titanic also got axed. Thankfully, the manga's original ending among the jungle tribes of Africa also did not surface to embarrass us all on television.

The Great Honey Honey Dynamite Chase

The animation itself is a mixed bag. Kokusai Eiga-sha ("Movie International Company") produced animation utilizing a wide variety of sources involving a wide variety of skill levels, from beginning students to seasoned veterans. A list of their series reads like a secret history of Japanese animation - the J-9 series BRYGAR, BAXINGAR, and SASURAIGAR; the treasure-hunting ancient astronaut series ACROBUNCH, highspeed robot sportscar GALVION, Mission Outer Space SRUNGLE, ecological disaster robot series BALDIOS, Greek mythology comedy LITTLE POLLON, motorcycle racing drama FUTARI DAKA, robot boy comedy DOTAKON, and their own version of Little Women, FOUR SISTERS OF YOUNG GRASS. Like most other Kokusei Eiga-sha series, HONEY HONEY is now available for distribution from Enoki Films. HINT HINT EVERYBODY, RELEASE THIS SERIES ON DVD ALREADY.

episode 22 Honey

HONEY HONEY itself is typical Japanese animation television; clunky in parts but zippy when deadlines and budget allow it to flourish. Episode 22, "Snowbound Castle", was the high-water mark for the show; character designs are kawaii-ed up, animaton becomes fluid and expressionistic, and things just get cartoonier in general.

Yes, it's sharp.

After its CBN broadcast HONEY HONEY vanished into the mists of time. Sony Home Video reportedly released the first four or five episodes on VHS, along with other 80s titles like Curious George and "Video 45s". I've only seen evidence of the first episode myself. More than two decades later the Sony release remains the only legacy of HONEY HONEY in the United States (it was more popular in Europe, as are all Japanese cartoons). In Japan the show failed to capture an audience; perhaps a little too old fashioned for a 1981 audience, who probably asked the question we have asked, why is a 1966 manga JUST NOW getting a TV anime show? What's the deal with that? As anime fandom grew in the United States few remembered HONEY HONEY; unless you were paying a lot of attention to basic cable on Sundays in the middle of the 1980s it simply did not register. Even LEO THE LION got a few public-domain home video releases in later years, but nobody wanted to deal with HONEY HONEY. "Sound International Corp" disappeared, my letters of inquiry unanswered.

As a matter of fact I do own this cel.

In this era of total availability, where everything has DVD box sets or torrents, it remains an elusive quarry. But in a way, that fits the series perfectly - we're still chasing HONEY HONEY.

Episode guide: some of these are from the American titles and some of these are translated or transliterated from the Japanese. If you have every episode of the series in English with the title cards intact, please drop me a line.

1. The Cat Ate the Diamond

2. Much Ado About Water

3. See Naples and Escape

4. SOS Alpine Express

5. The Red Arrows of Berne Forest

6. Hamelin is Full of Cats

7. The castle of Lovely Cats

8. Windmill Vane Phoenix

9. Only One Can Be our Sun Princess

10. Cinderella Tonight

11. The Witch House of Orleans

12. Circus Rooster

13. The Blue Hurricane of Monte Carlo

14. Cathedral Bells Ring

15. Smile, Madrid

16. Fortress of Gibraltar

17. World's Best Sponge Cake

18. Lily's in Big Trouble!

19. Honey Run! 20 o'clock

20. Secrets of Honey

21. Honey Kidnapped

22. Snowbound Castle

23. The Great Science Fiction Chase

24. Prince Menace

25. Lily Sold

26. Magic Departure

27. India Flying

28. Flora's Great Flowers

29. Hello, Goodbye, New York (last episode)

special bonus: Honey Honey in Hollywood! Spot the cameos.

Honey also visited Japan. Trigger warning: white girl in kimono

-Dave Merrill

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Under The Western Influence

This year at AWA and at Anime North back in May, I did a panel all about Japanese cartoons based on Western works; two hours of me showing clips and talking about them, and only occasionally resorting to making stuff up. Seeing as how it's been weeks since I did a column here, I need something I can throw up pretty quickly. So here goes! My panel - and this column -  is by no means a comprehensive or complete overview - just anime I happened to have on hand that was at least vaguely interesting to look at and worth talking about for five or ten minutes. Since I first did this panel in Canada, I started off with some Canadian content.

Written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1908, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES became a worldwide success, especially in Japan. If you are Canadian or watch PBS in the States you're already familiar with the story and/or Megan Follows. If you aren't, it's about a young orphan girl who's adopted by a middle-aged brother and sister on a farm on Prince Edward Island. Expecting a boy, the pair soon overcome their initial reservations and Anne becomes a member of the family.

"Akage No Anne" was produced by Nippon Animation Company in 1979 as part of their World Masterpiece Theater series, with animation by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Nippon Animation is airing a Anne prequel - "Hello Anne - Before Green Gables" right now as part of the House Foods World Masterpiece Theater. Currently unavailable in the English speaking world, the failure of the American "anime industry" to rake in cash by releasing this series is proof of massive brain damage on somebody's part.

FABLES OF THE GREEN FOREST is another show Canadians are more familiar with than Americans. This anime series, originally titled "Rocky Chuck", was based on books written by Thornton W. Burgess, eminent conservationist from Cape Cod, who over the course of his career wrote more than 170 books and 15,000 newspaper columns. His characters Sammy Bluejay, Johnny Chuck, Polly Chuck, Peter Rabbit, Chatterer Squirrel, Paddy Beaver, Grandpa Frog, Uncle Billy Mouse, and Joe Otter were introduced in his first novel, Old Mother West Wind, published in 1910. The anime series was produced by Zuiyo Eizo (the predecessor to Nippon Animation). America got exposed to the anime incarnations Chatterer The Squirrel and pals through the good offices of ZIV who dubbed this series in a haphazard and whimsical fashion.

The TOM SAWYER anime, based on the Mark Twain book actually written by Samuel Clemens, was a World Masterpiece Theater series produced by Nippon Animation in 1980. Dubbed for American home video, it was released by Just For Kids to an indifferent market. Not nearly as surreal as the Hanna-Barbera Tom Sawyer that featured live-action Tom, Huck, and Becky Thatcher being chased by an animated Injun Joe. Other World Masterpiece Theater series include Swiss Family Robinson, Rascal The Raccoon,  Dog Of Flanders, Remi, Hans Christian Andersen stories, the anime based on Hector Malot's En Famillie (Perrine Story), Pollyanna, Peter Pan, Daddy Longlegs, Von Trapp Family Story, and Lassie. No, not Lassie's Rescue Rangers. Just Lassie.

Toei's 1980 TV special LITTLE WOMEN wound up getting dubbed for America by Harmony Gold. Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott written in 1867, it's the story of four New England sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy who come of age during the American Civil War. You know how one of the characters in the book dies of tuberculosis? Not in this movie. There was also a Little Women anime series (whimsically named "Four Sisters Of Young Grass") from Movie International in 1981, and a Nippon Animation World Masterpiece series in 1989. 

HEIDI is naturally based on the popular children's book by Johanna Spyri about a Swiss orphan who goes to live with her hermit grandfather in the Alps. Animated as part of Nippon Animation Co.'s Worldwide Classics series, with direction by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata; the pair have a great time animating the endless expanses of Swiss Alps and bright blue skies. There is a Heidiland theme park in Switzerland where yodelling is enforced by law.

Zuyo Eizo HEIDI's US VHS release from Mike Nesmith's Pacific Arts

SINDBAD, being an adventure character whose appeal has lasted centuries, is a natural to become a Japanese cartoon. The character originates in ancient Middle Eastern tales of an intrepid sailor from Basra. The classic English version is from Richard Burton's 1001 Nights. No, not THAT Richard Burton, the other one. The movie THE ADVENTURES OF SINDBAD is a Toei film released in 1962, dubbed by god knows who, and a staple of public domain home video.

SINDBAD ARABIAN NIGHTS is a Nippon Animation Company series from 1975 and stars Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba together again for the first time! 1001 NIGHTS - produced by Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Productions- is one of three animated films aimed at an adult market in the late 1960s and early 70s that wound up bankrupting Mushi. I have an English trailer for this film but have never seen a full dubbed version.

from the 12-minute "Wizard Of Oz"

L. Frank Baum's WIZARD OF OZ has been animated by Japanese folks on at least four occasions. One of them is a mere twelve minutes long. The Toho version released in 1982 stars the voices of Lorne Greene and Aileen "Annie" Quinn. I think we wrote about that one already.

Based on the Russian fairy tale, TWELVE MONTHS is a Toei/Soyuzmultfilm coproduction released in 1980. Anya is sent out into the cold woods to collect flowers in midwinter by the evil queen, but is saved by the twelve spirits of the months of the year. The somber, fantastical characters and cool color scheme are close to Toei's other 1980 film, Towards The Terra.

THE WILD SWANS, a Toei film from 1977, is a complicated Danish fairy tale about a king with 11 sons and 1 daughter. Our clueless widowed king marries an evil stepmother who turns the boys into swans. Daughter Elisa escapes swanification and must complete various impossible tasks and endure hardship to return her brothers to normal. Another swan-themed fairy tale anime, SWAN LAKE is that great ballet and is also a Toei film from 1981 that reportedly was the first co-production between Marvel Comics and Toei. No seriously, it says so right here in the November 1980 issue of Comics Reader. Fred Patten wouldn't lie!

the anime that dares to ask 'who's your Daddy?'"

DADDY LONGLEGS is based on the 1912 novel by the American writer Jean Webster, Mark Twain's grand-niece. Originally published in Ladies' Home Journal, this tells the story of an orphan girl whose tuition at a women's college (based on Vassar) is sponsored by an anonymous benefactor. The novel takes the form of letters written by Judy to her mystery man. Will the friendly, handsome uncle of one of her classmates turn out to be Judy's mysterious Daddy Longlegs? Hint: yes. This anime version was produced by Tatsunoko in 1979 and dubbed into English in the 1980s by 3B Productions (Tranzor Z, Starbirds). There is a later TV series by Nippon Animation Company released as part of their "World Masterpiece Theater" series.

CALL OF THE WILD - Obviously from the Jack London novel, this Toei television film is surprisingly brutal in its depiction of the rough life in the North. Also features a ninja dog.

FRANKENSTEIN the anime! Loosely based on the Mary Shelley novel, this plodding, tedious adaptation is enlivened by rare moments of extreme violence. The new ending is not an improvement. Produced by Toei as a TV movie in the late 1970s and dubbed by Harmony Gold.

DRACULA SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED - this famous 1980 Toei telefilm is based on the Marvel Comics "Tomb Of Dracula" by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. The more fanciful notions of the comic book seem even more fanciful without Gene Colan's masterful artwork, and Dracula cockblocks Satan and eats a hamburger.

Yup, he's eating a hamburger. Deal with it.

So far the 1970s Marvel/Toei partnership resulted in Dracula at McDonalds, Spiderman with a giant robot, and Go Nagai sketching Luke Skywalker. Oh well, one out of three ain't bad.

THE YEARLING (aka "Fortunate Fawn"): the original Yearling novel was by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, was published in 1938, and was the story of Jody, a young boy living in central Florida around the turn of the century. His parents won't let him have a pet, but he adopts a fawn whom he names Flag. I don't know how the anime version ends. This World Masterpiece Theater series recieved a really odd anonymous English dub and was sold in dollar stores as "Fortunate Fawn". Fun fact: when the American film was casting in 1939 my great-uncle tested for the part of Jody. Didn't get it, though.

FUTURE BOY CONAN, part of Nippon Animation's "World Masterpiece" series, this was based on the juvenile dystopian SF novel "The Incredible Tide" by Alexander Key, who also wrote "Escape To Witch Mountain". The original book is, as I recall, deadpan and grim, with Conan and Lana fighting to survive in a much less jolly world than we'd see in the anime series. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, this is perhaps the finest 26 episodes of any children's science fiction cartoon ever made by anyone ever.

CAPTAIN FUTURE - based on the 1940 pulp series written by Edmond Hamilton. Curtis Newton was raised in a secret moon base by a an artificial man, an intelligent robot, and a brain in a tank. Obviously he became a space-travelling hero battling evil and injustice throughout the solar system. This 1978 Toei TV series was really popular in Europe. Hamilton's "Star Wolf" became a live-action TV series in Japan in the early 1980s.

LENSMAN was loosely modelled after the seminal SF pulp series by Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith, PhD (food chemistry). The Lensmen are top agents of the Galactic Patrol, civilization's only defense against the Boskone pirate society. The Lens endows its wearer with telepathy and the ability to control minds of lesser strength. The battle between civilization and Boskone escalates until planets, stars, and black holes are used as weapons. The series began in 1936 and continued through the 1940s, with a final book in the series appearing in 1965.

The anime film was one of the first uses of computer animation in a Japanese anime production - not THE first, but close - and was followed by a TV series that hewed slightly closer to the original novels and had a kicky, piano-driven theme song. Other anime adaptions of American SF classics include the Sunrise STARSHIP TROOPERS, an amazingly dull adaptation of a really great book.

The famous Swedish comic strip MOOMIN about the Moomintrolls and their bucolic pastoral existence has been animated on about thirty or forty separate occasions. Mushi Productions, TMS, TV Tokyo, and lots of European studios have all collaborated on different Moomin animated series. There is also a Moomin theme park in Finland, and the shops of three continents are lousy with Moomin toys, dolls, cell phone charms, you name it. The version I have was dubbed into English in Wales.

Other Western-influenced anime titles mentioned were the Toei films PUSS IN BOOTS and ANIMAL TREASURE ISLAND and SUPERBOOK - based on the book WRITTEN BY GOD!!- Tatsunoko's ANIME OYAKO GEKIJO / PASOCON TOABERU TANTEIDAN ("personal computer travel detectives") series from the early 1980s was commissioned by Pat Robertson for the Japanese market, dubbed and shown on various Christian television networks. In the Ukraine, the anime inspired a live-action Barney and Friends-style children's program titled Superbook Club (with the robot Gizmo, or "Robik" in Ukrainian, as the mascot).

Yes, I'm completely aware there are tons of anime titles I have completely neglected to mention, including HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and the Toei LITTLE MERMAID and many others, including that one that's your favorite. Please feel free to fill up the comments about how I "forgot to mention" these titles, because I love it when you do that, and I'm also never ever sarcastic.

-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 Org world, please consider joining our Patreon!

what I did on my vacation

Been a few weeks since anything new popped up on the old Let's Anime. Why is that? Huh? It's because the end of summer is traditionally a time for reflection and contemplation, a time for spiritual and philosophical renewal, and also a time to squeeze in a little vacation. Which is what we did.

So we went to Tokyo and took a lot of pictures and did some sightseeing and bought a lot of neat stuff, and that's part of why there hasn't been any new Let's Anime action here. Another reason is the upcoming Anime Weekend Atlanta, happening September 18-20 in the Cobb Galleria Center and Renaissance Waverly Hotel in what is technically the city of Atlanta!

As one of the founders and a continuing bad influence I naturally have many important duties at AWA, one of which is the late Saturday night event known as "Old School Classroom". This video-room event is basically a clip show featuring snippets of those crazy old Japanese cartoons that have all the kids excited. This year's theme is "1960s" so that means everything from Astro Boy to Tiger Mask to Cyborg Big X to Cyborg 009. That event is going to wrap up with an entire episode of "Honey Honey", even though the cartoon is technically not from the 1960s. But it's my panel and I can do whatever I want.

Another AWA event I'll be at is the Sunday afternoon extravaganza known as "Thirty Years of Star Blazers". That's right, it's been thirty years since Star Blazers first burst forth upon American television sets, and we've assembled an all-star cast of fans and pros to talk about this seminal experience, including original Nova voice actress Amy Howard Wilson, Starblazers.com webmaster and comic author Tim Eldred, and other notables.

Friday afternoon I will be holding forth on a topic near and dear to my heart, a panel about Western literature that has inspired Japanese cartoons. This doesn't just mean Nippon Animation World Masterpiece shows, either! Lots of crazy stuff you never knew existed or didn't really feel the need to know existed awaits your eyeballs.

And of course Friday night at ten PM you must not fail to attend JAPANESE ANIME HELL, the original crazy clip show highlighting the weird and wacky, the failures and the fantastics, the disturbing and the damned paraded across the screen for your entertainment.

So if you happen to be anywhere near Georgia in the next week, you owe it to yourself and to future generations to attend this year's Anime Weekend Atlanta! Once it's over I promise regular posting here at Let's Anime will resume with all possible speed. Isn't that right, Inflatable Prince Planet?

2009 is Showa 41 - listen along with CYBORG 009

Found in a MANDARAKE store in Tokyo by Tim "Starblazers.com" Eldred, this CYBORG 009 Asahi Sonorama single is, if you happen to be my brain, something that is constantly playing in the background at all hours of the day or night. I'm a big CYBORG 009 fan. I like the cartoony big-foot Shotaro Ishinomori style, I like the angsty, turned-into-fighting-cyborgs-against-our-will story, I like the bizarre monster combination enemy cyborgs they're thrown against, and most of all I like the fact that American fans of the show are thin on the ground so there isn't a lot of competition when it comes to grabbing CYBORG 009 toys or books at the anime cons (not that there's a lot of 009 stuff at anime cons these days).

As we will remember from the last time I wrote about CYBORG 009, the series is about nine people from all walks of life who are kidnaped by the evil Black Ghost and turned into cyborg soldiers with various powers and abilities. They rebel against the Black Ghost and spend three movies, three television series, dozens of manga volumes, and one Asahi Sonorama single battling for the peace of the world.

The cool thing about this disc is that it's from 1966 and uses the theme song and the basic story from the contemporaneous Toei feature- but instead of cheaping it out with production art from the film, the "book" part of this "book and record" set features all-new Ishinomori artwork. At least it's not artwork I'd seen anywhere before, and I think I'd remember seeing a lot of these illustrations somewhere in my, ahem, sizeable collection of 009 books and memorabilia.

Thanks to the miracle of my turntable and the Internet you can now listen to this Asahi Sonorama record your very own self! Side one is here and side two is here. Remember to set your computer to 33 1/3 RPM for maximum enjoyment!

So cast your mind back to 1966 and enjoy the story of Cyborg 009 and his comrades in cybernetic arms as they struggle to defend us against the Black Ghost! Feel free to sing along with the theme song if you know the words... I believe everybody can handle the first nine lyrics.

Spaced-Out Japanimation, Man

Back in the misty ages of the past - we're talking the 1990's- when the twin trip-hammer blows of POKEMON and SAILOR MOON had blasted an American pop consciousness already reeling from the art-house opus AKIRA and the cries of disbelief as entire divisions of college sophomores entertained their dateless peers with sensual, late-night screenings of LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND and NINJA SCROLL... there came a time when the Eighth Seal was opened and THE TRUTH was revealed to America's home video marketing executives.

This TRUTH was, of course, that we'd now reached a point in Western civilization where people would buy DAMN NEAR ANYTHING that had a Japanese cartoon character on it. I'm talking skateboards. "Hook-Ups" T-shirts. Comics drawn in the "manga style" by Americans. And, of course, videos! Videos of new anime releases, videos of anime movies, and videos of anime TV shows from twenty years ago that have been through the "public domain" mill so many times that the "public" is looking desperately around for somebody to take over the copyright just to get it out of the "$1.99 Movies" bin at the Wal-Mart to make way for Dorf golfing videos and remaindered copies of "Batman Forever".

But how to sell goofily-dubbed primitive Toei super robot cartoons to the sophisticated American retailer? One word - packaging.

And that's how Parade Video (distributor of, among other things, the incredible Peter Sellers film THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT) came to unleash SPACED-OUT JAPANIMATION on the world! Yes, SPACED-OUT JAPANIMATION, the amazing 4-tape set that satisfies ALL your Japanimation needs,as long as your Japanimation needs include "buying a Christmas present for that nephew who will NOT SHUT UP about something called "Japanimation". How many kids asked Santa for, say, GUNDAM WING or ESCAFLOWNE videos, and instead found SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION under the tree? Many a forced grin and a stammered "Thanks, Grandpa!" would be heard on Christmas morning that year, I can tell you!

Sold through your snappier mall video outlets like the late, lamented Suncoast Video, SPACED-OUT JAPANIMATION stands as a testament both to the staying power of cheap, public domain video AND to a public's brief but intense love affair with those big-eyed Japa-heeno cartoons. Not to mention the "throw it all up there and slap a gradiated logo on it" design aesthetic of the 1990s, where minimalism and taste were abandoned in favor of FLAMES!!! and METALLIC SHEEN!!! If there isn't a van out there with this artwork airbrushed on the side, I can only ask "why not?"

Grandizer

And yet, SPACED-OUT JAPANIMATION is not without its charms. This 4-tape set devotes one tape each to the 1970s Toei series GRANDIZER, SPACEKETEERS, GAIKING, and STARVENGERS - all Jim Terry dubs from the seminal super robot TV package FORCE FIVE that entertained us all in the fall of 1980 when the world was young and we wanted nothing more than to climb into a flying saucer that jammed itself into a giant robot armed with "hydro-phasers" and "space thunder" like in GRANDIZER. Grandizer, or "UFO Robo Grendizer" as it is sometimes known, is of course the 1974 Go Nagai-created Toei anime series that picked up right where one of the MAZINGER series left off, as it stars MAZINGER's Koji Kabuto in a supporting role. Koji's well-known bad-assery is overshadowed by that of Grandizer's pilot, the even angrier and more destructive Duke Freed, whose entire planet was destroyed by aliens from Vega who have followed him to Earth to finish the job. Luckily, Duke Freed - or "Orion" as he's known in the West - has the super robot Grandizer with which to exact vengeance. 

Three pilots, three robots, no waiting: Starvengers

STARVENGERS, being a localization of the sequel to Go Nagai's GETTA ROBO, starts off confusingly as the damaged original Getta Robo is demolished and an unidentified fallen hero is mourned (GETTA's Musashi). But the series picks right up with a new super robot and enlightens us all to the possibility of 3 jet planes that combine to form three different super robots to battle the Pandemonium Empire, a horned race of devils, one of whom is apparently a Hitler cosplayer. Can't make this stuff up, kids. Well, somebody can. Just not me. 

Gaiking gets the "oriental restaurant" font for its title

GAIKING asks the anime question, what if an alien planet was destroyed by a black hole and the aliens attacked Earth which was defended by a giant robot space dragon that launched a horned super robot piloted by people dressed as baseball players? What if? What if the series was originally pitched to Toei by, yes, Go Nagai, who was to see it developed and broadcast without further input or approval or residuals, which would then sever his relationship with Toei for decades to come? And what if GAIKING managed to wring reasonably entertaining adventures starring the Space Dragon, the Gaiking robot, and his fellow dinosaur-mechas battling Zelons on Mt. St. Helens? What if, huh?

Hero, fat guy, mean guy, princess, Spaceketeers

SPACEKETEERS is the odd show out in this set, lacking the giant robots and legions of enemy mechanical brutes attacking Earth. A Leiji Matsumoto creation, under its original title SF SAIYUKI STARZINGER the series was yet another animated adaptation of the "Journey To The West" legend, dressed up with cyborg space warriors in well-armed space scooters, the impressive Cosmos Queen starship, and Princess Aurora, whose beauty entranced us all whether she was sporting her space miniskirt or her space prom dress.

Missing from the SPACED-OUT JAPANIMATION set is DANGUARD ACE, the series where Leiji Matsumoto really started working out his Velikovsky theories about tenth planets careening wildly through our solar system. But there's only room for 4 tapes in tha box; something had to go.

The benefit of a wide early 1980s home video release from Family Home Entertainment, the FORCE FIVE shows could be found in episodic and compilation-film versions in your neighborhood video rental shops. A few years later, incredibly cheap, poorly-transferred public-domain video releases of the same tapes, with new titles like "Robo-Formers" and "Zalo," began to appear in drugstores and discount shops across the land.

On first glance, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION would appear to be just another cheap, 6-hour speed public domain copy of a copy of a copy release of our old Force Five favorites. But the surprising fact is that, even though these tapes are recorded in the penny-pinching SLP 6-hour mode, the transfers are actually pretty good. Better, in fact, than the video quality of the bootleg DVD sets that are floating around. When we consider that the FHE tapes are starting to disintegrate because of their age, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION becomes a possible alternative to our other choice, which is the unthinkable possibility of never watching SPACEKETEERS ever again. And we can't let that happen.

SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION - exploitative bargain-basement video release? Signpost of a time when anime ruled the video stores? Or valuable part of your balanced Japanese cartoon collection? It's all these things... and more.

-Dave Merrill

(editor's note, 2017: The original Japanese Gaiking TV series has been released on DVD from Discotek Media. English-dubbed Gaiking, Spaceketeers and Danguard Ace compilation film DVD sets have been released by William Winckler. Grandizer and Starvengers remain spaced-out.)

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challenge to remember the go-bots

Back in May at Anime North I sat in on the "classic anime" panel, where the topic of conversation sort of meandered amusingly, and we were rude to kids in the hall (not THE Kids In The Hall, just some actual kids in the actual hall) who were interrupting our important discussion with their tremendously annoying squeals. At one point, discussing the way Japanese toys made it over to North America in the 1980s sometimes without benefit of TV series support or any familiarity with the shows in question -a topic I've covered here before-, my befogged brain twitched and served up a tidbit of memory of a certain toy. Released as part of the "Go-Bots" line of transforming robot toys, this plaything was actually from SPACE ADVENTURE COBRA, the Buichi Terasawa manga turned into the TMS anime series all about Cobra and his Psycho-Gun and the various sexy ladies that help him on his sexy outer space adventures. Wow, I hadn't thought about that toy in a long time, not since I was in high school working part time at K-Mart and killing time wandering through the toy aisle marvelling at how K-Mart was selling Xabungle toys and Dunbine toys and who knows what else.

At any rate a couple of weeks later we were rooting through an antique mall and lo and behold, there it was, the "Go-Bot" in question. Five dollars and an inane conversation with the clerk about it being a "Transformer" later, and it was mine! Proof my brain is still the boss!

Given the name "Psycho", this space-age sports car was a proud addition to the mighty "Go-Bots" line of toys. But if the "Go-Bots" were all poorly-animated sentient robots who transformed into vehicles for the benefit of chortling, easily amused preschoolers, then why are there two human shaped people sitting in the passenger seats?

That's because this toy was originally known as the "Psychoroid", the passenger vehicle of the definitely-not-for-preschoolers Cobra, a freebooting space adventurer with a powerful laser gun built into his left arm, a sexy robot companion, and a taste for the full-figured gals that exist only in the mind of Buichi Terasawa.

Bandai licensed the toy out to Europe who took out the missile launchers, renamed it the "Future Machine", and happily passed it on to America, who were pleased to get yet another transforming robot toy to cram onto the overstuffed shelves of toy stores across the nation.

With a few clicks and turns this sporty speedster becomes an amazingly clumsy robot that barely looks as if it can stand on its own, let alone help Cobra or the "Go-Bots" battle in the far flung world of the future.

Cobra inspired an interesting line of toys, as seen here captured in photos from "My Anime" magazine.

Who wouldn't want a toy of Cobra's utilitarian spaceship "Turtle", as well as a toy Psychogun to wear on their very own arm? The schoolyard bullies will definitely respect you once you start waving that Psychogun around.

Also released as "Go-Bot" model kits were two mecha from the Tatsunoko series MOSPEADA. One was an Alpha Fighter relabeled as good "Go-Bot" leader "Leader One", and the other was a Mospeada Cyclone bike renamed as "Go-Bot" villain "Cy-Kill". You know, because he's a motorcycle, and he's evil. That's the kind of subtle understatement we've come to expect from American cartoons of the 1980s. And yes, I'm aware "Go-Bots" were based around a Japanese toy line called "Machine Robo", except for the ones that were from "Diaclone", and that some of the "Machine Robo" toys became "Go-Bots" and some became "Transformers". And I totally do not care. Toy lines that aren't based on cartoons about Psycho-Guns and/or sexy space ladies are of no interest to me.

So, farewell to the "Go-Bots"! So long suckers! Give my regards to the "Rock Lords!"

-Dave Merrill

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