Redshift #26

Welcome back! Here’s your latest round-up of attention to older anime around the internet. We’ve been at this for a year now, so thank you very much for your interest if you’re reading this, whether you’ve been here from the start or have only just dropped in!

As usual, remarks from Feez are in blue and those from Thaliarchus are in red.

This site started because I wished a resource like this could exist so that I could use it myself. I’m sure we do a very imperfect job, and we’re always expanding our net to try to catch what’s happening out there, but I’m still pleased with what we’ve done so far. As an unexpected bonus, I think we’ve both learned new things, and indeed learned of anime which we didn’t know existed before!

It’s also been heartening to see just how active the various communities gathered around older anime are: when you see the odd post in isolation it’s easy to get the impression that things are moribund, but when they’re pulled together matters look rather different—this post details, for example, translation efforts on more than twenty older anime titles. Here’s to a successful second year of indexing!

Blogging

Heisei Etranger carries a new translation of a weighty interview with art director Hiromasa Ogura, who’s worked on a long and impressive list of titles (possibly ANN’s is the best list available in English?). The interview originated at the website for the film Tomcat’s Big Adventure (1992) and that film is its major topic, but there are digressions on other projects such as Royal Space Force too. Tomcat’s is something of a white whale: as we’ve noted before on this site, it was made by a remarkable staff and is by all accounts worth seeing, but has never been released beyond a few individual screenings. Since we last mentioned the film there’s been a bit more activity among fans to promote interest in it, which is now being coordinated at this Twitter account.

Austin’s also translated the afterword from the novelisation of GoShogun: The Time Étranger. The novel was the work of Takeshi Shudou, who wrote the film and handled series composition and about half of the screenwriting on the GoShogun TV series too. (He would go on to work extensively on Pokemon anime during that franchise’s initial boom years, if you’re looking for a more recent anchor point!) This is not just a brief comment on the novelisation alone, but rather a self-deprecating reflection on GoShogun as a whole, and it’s well worth a read.

Cries in Newtype, meanwhile, carries a translation of a recent interview with the mechanical designer for Zambot 3, Riyoji Hirayama. It’s very cool to learn that the crescent moon on the Zambot’s head was added to its design despite an unwritten rule of keeping things symmetrical. Rioji also mentions in this interview that Tomino would redraw many of the storyboards he’d hand to him. I find this interesting because it indirectly corroborates what producers have said about Tomino during his time on Turn A Gundam, and that was twenty years later. He must be very particular about how he likes scenes to be framed.

Our cup runneth over with translations at present, in fact, because sakyuuga memo has a translation of a recent conversation with Mamoru Oshii which touches on Angel’s Egg and Gosenzosama Banbanzai, among other things!

Over at Juve-Niall Delinquency Niall has a new instalment in his trip through City Hunter, examining The Secret Service (1996). This was quite a late manifestation of City Hunter, a title we’re used to thinking of as a late-eighties staple, and it’s nice to see Niall helpfully contextualising this against currents in action film in general in the mid-nineties.

Mike Toole’s latest column is a trot through the history of anime which revolve around helmet rugby American football.

Andrew Osmond’s put a print article he wrote about Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors (1945) up online.

At Animehead’s Retroworld Craig has a new post about the early Mamoru Oshii title Dallos (1983). For understandable reasons writing about Dallos tends to focus on how it fits into Oshii’s career or how it’s a particularly early OVA (especially if you ignore pornography), so it’s nice to read something which gets into what might be likeable about Dallos in and of itself

The Great OAV Watch reaches Wild 7 (1994), Macross Zero (2002), A Kite (1998), Apocalypse Zero (1996) and Wanna-Be’s (1986).

B0bduh’s episodic coverage of Ojamajo Doremi treats episode 47 and episode 48; his series on Princess Tutu, meanwhile, has reached episode 20. By the way, if you for some reason want clearly formatted, detailed credits for every episode of Doremi, check out the new posts here.

Finally, on Twitter MartyMcflies has been putting out scans of various unusual soundtrack materials, and I rather liked these images from a reworked Xabungle soundtrack album.

Podcasting

Dynamite in the Brain’s series of podcasts determining which anime are truly ‘famous anime’ turns to consider anime from the distant year of 2004.

The Retro Anime Podcast has a new episode reviewing two early Toei films, Hakujaden (1958) and Anju to Zushiou Maru (1961).

The Anime Nostalgia Podcast reviews Combustible Campus Guardress (1994).

Anime Feminist’s series of podcasts covering Escaflowne concludes with instalments about episodes 14–20 and episodes 21–26.

Translation

• Manga Nihon Emaki (episodes various, resurrected from VHS tapes of a UHF TV broadcast in Hawaii; Skaro)
• Ganba no Bouken 19, 20 (Senritsu)
• Dragonar 33 (/m/subs)
• Getter Robo 35 (/m/subs)
• Gutsy Frog 15 (Gutsy)
• Be-Bop High School 7 (Saizen)
• Baby and Me 19 (Saizen)
• Ninku 46 (Saizen)
• Yawara 29 (Saizen; BD)
• Yume no Crayon Oukoku 41, 42, 43 (Square; no release posts but check usual trackers)
• Kindaichi Case Files 136 (Kindaichi Lovers)
• Attack No. 1 85–7 (Old Castle)
• Tezuka’s Tales from the Old Testament 1–3 (Orphan)
• Ultra Nyan (theatrical version; Orphan)
• Eguchi Higashi no Nantoka Narudesho! (Orphan)
• Granzort 10, 11, 12 (GANGO)
• Red Baron (1994) 8 (SubsDeLaRosa, primarily from the Spanish, no release post)
• Chikkun Takkun 1 (SES)
• Dr Slump and Arale-chan 75 (SES)
• Patalliro 20 (aarinfantasy)
• Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken 28–31 (tenshi)
• Yume kara, Samenai (EmeraldDay)
• Crayon Shin-chan 17 (buriburi)

Luurah need QCers, if you like obscure giant robots.

What we’ve been up to

Feez — I recently watched the Captain Harlock Arcadia of My Youth film. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s somber, deep, and emotional, and powered by its atmosphere. I’m watching Endless Orbit SSX next to prepare for Super Robot Wars T, and I’m interesting in diving into more Leiji Matsumoto works afterwards!

Thaliarchus — I recently sampled some first episodes. Record of Lodoss War didn’t really grab me, though its art has come through fantastically on bluray, and I suppose I could see how it might’ve been a big deal when seen in the early nineties! Mospeada was much less pretty but much more my kind of thing, so I might pursue that show at some point. Speaking of first episodes, with the turning of the year comes a new iteration of Precure and, rather oddly, the latest one has an aesthetic borrowed from old free-wheeling raygun space fiction, with nods to Urusei Yatsura in some of the ED’s visual motifs. Which I think is rather neat, if surprising!