Lum-A-Day 005 - Sakura, Raving Beauty of Mystery / Virus in Distress

January 5th, 2009 by Brack

Ataru is trying to hide from Lum when he runs into a beautiful woman, who faints in his arms. However it is ruse, the beautiful woman is a Shinto priestess who plans to use to Ataru’s unlucky nature to draw out evil spirits that are ailing her.

This is the introduction to our next main character, Sakura, the niece of Cherry, the wandering monk we met in episode 1.

Anyway, she manages to transfer the spirits onto Ataru in some nicely animated scenes (the colour design on the spirits is great), and that’s the end of that story.

—

The second story involves the students at Tomobiki High getting excited about a “real babe” who’s coming to start work as the new school nurse. This is, of course, Sakura.

Ataru, not having learnt his lesson from the first story is still lusting after her (as are all the other male students. And possibly the animators too). However once questioned by his classmates, he starts to relive the terrors of the first story.

The boys in 2-D soon start to fake injuries to get to visit Sakura. Ataru however is starting to feel genuinely ill from the evil spirits possessing him, so the Stormtroopers rush him to the nurse’s office.

Then it all gets very complicated and silly. Due to Ataru’s possession by a disease spirit, real diseases get upset and infect the school in bizarre ways. It was also what was making him lech over Sakura when she first came into the school. This is learnt when Lum uses a gizmo to make one of the diseases grow so it can tell them. Yes, germs can talk if sufficiently large.

Sakura then successfully exorcises the spirit when her robe slips and the spirit catches a glimpse of her cleavage, leading to the spirit leap out of Ataru’s mouth in lust. The boys of class 2-D then proceed to kick the spirit in. The diseases are happy too, now the spirit is gone they can get back to acting liking the flu viruses they are, and proceed to infect the school.

The final irony is that now cured of the disease spirit, Ataru begins acting in exactly the same way as the spirit, chasing Sakura round the school, much to Lum’s chagrin.

Sakura’s a sort of character you don’t seem to get nowadays in the shows that can trace their heritage back to UY. The sexy adult woman character, if there even is an adult character, now seems to get written as a parody of sexiness, Saori Shikijo in Mahoromatic for example. Sakura’s humour doesn’t come from her being sexy in an exaggerated way, it’s from other characters’ reaction to it and a number of other personality quirks, which we will see in later episodes.

—

Sakura is voiced by Machiko Washio, who is, I believe, now more famous for her role on the TV series Ooku than her anime voice roles. Sakura seems to be her main anime performance of note, with most of her career being in the theatre (she was part of the New Literary Theatre Company from 69 to 89) and television drama. Also worth noting she does have role as the similarly named Midori Washio in Oshii’s Red Spectacles, as well as playing the mother, Tamiko, in his Gonsenzo-sam Banbanzai OAV series.

Episode 5 is once again a Yu Yamamoto scripted episode. The storyboards and direction on the first story are from Mamoru Oshii and animation direction is from Hayao Nobe.

The second story has Motosuke Takahashi (Supercar Gattiger, The Wonderful World of Nils)  storyboarding and directing with Mami Endo on animation direction.

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J9 Overload!

January 4th, 2009 by Brack

So, today’s L-A-D post mentions Yu Yamamoto, creator of the J9 series of mecha shows that I though I was completely unfamiliar with. So I thought I’d check their openings.

Turns out I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with them.

Galaxy Cyclone Braiger

I’ve seen the above opening animation in MAD videos collecting Yoshinori Kanada animation, so presumably it contains his work.

Galactic Gale Baxinger

Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger

This third series involved Lupin III creator Monkey Punch on the script and manga adaptation. It was based on Around The World In 80 Days. There’s another post for another day - 80s sci-fi based on classic literature. The bastard love children of World Masterpiece Theatre and Yamato.

—

Can’t say the mecha designs are setting my world of fire in all of these, but the Kazuo Komatsubara character designs look great. All the openings are fairly stonking too. I’m guessing in order to see these in anything resembling English, you’re going to have to go the HK bootleg route.

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Lum-A-Day 004 - Kintaro from the Autumn Sky / Gonna Live Like a Man!

January 4th, 2009 by Brack

This is one of my least favourite episodes, so excuse the sparse nature of this post. If I remember correctly it’s fairly close to the manga. Certainly the meshing of modern-day, myth and sci-fi is something that Takahashi was aiming for more than Oshii was.

—

Ten and Lum find Kintaro (and his bear) in a carp streamer. The best gag in this first story is Lum assuming Kintaro is Shinobu’s little brother based on his hair cut. Kintaro has lost his people, who turn out to be an extra terrestrial pre-school class, and he was in the streamer because their spaceship looks like a carp.

Actually it looks like there was another good gag. When they visit a rocket launch site and mistake the lauch controls for a videogame. The unbridled energy with which they ignore the scientist and just bash buttons was a funny bit.

They find the carp ship, Ataru hits on Kintaro’s teacher and goes with her to the space ship. Only to find that the other kids are all (literally) monsters. And then Kintaro wets himself. HILARITY.

—

The second story involves the alien kids going on a field trip to earth. The teacher’s idea of famous sights on Earth is rather mundane, showing off telephone poles and dustbins. Kintaro demands more interesting sights, so Ataru suggest they go to an Earth preschool class.

The Earth kids however are not impresed and bad mouth Kintaro as being old news. Kintaro gets upset at being compared to Earth’s Kintaro, and decides to show Earth’s children a “true way of living”. The only problem being he doesn’t know what that is. So he does some research, and it turns out that the true way is to go Oni hunting, and tries to attack Ten.  That doesn’t work out so he decides to go on a journey to live like a man. Later on the news we learn that he and his bear are rampaging across Japan committing armed robberies.

—

Kintaro is played by Masako Nozawa. That’s right. Son Goku. Not to mention Son Gohan AND Son Goten in the various Dragonball shows. On top of that she was also the voice of Tetsuro in Galaxy Express 999, Rascal in Rascal the Raccoon, and a whole load more. But really, Dragonball and Galaxy Express are going to cast a huge shadow over both your career and everyone elses. Iconic stuff.

The screenplays for this episode come from Yu Yamamoto (Braiger, Baxinger, Sasuraiger), who as we shall see was responsible for a lot of these early episodes.

The first story is storyboarded and directed by Kozima Tamiko, with animation direction from Hayao Nobe. The second is storyboarded and directed by Masuji Harada, again with with animation direction from Yuji Yatabe.

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Lum-A-Day 003: The Coming of Rei, the Handsome Shapechanger / Die, Ladykiller

January 3rd, 2009 by Brack

Oh crikey, the misanthropy here. Pretty much everyone comes across either shallow, hateful, spiteful, idiotic, desperate or a mix of all of them in these two episodes. I’d forgotten just how mean UY’s humour could get.

In the first of these stories, Rei, Lum’s ex-fiance, comes to Earth to win Lum back.

A handsome idiot (idiot may be giving him too much credit), both Shinobu and Ataru’s Mother fall for his good looks. However he has a problem, when he gets mad he turns into a giant tiger-cow.

The story features Lum at the most vicious and cold hearted we’ve seen her so far, going so far to claim she’s pregnant to get rid of both Rei and Shinobu. Likewise Shinobu and Ataru’s Mother are portrayed as incredibly shallow, with Shinobu claiming Lum should be happy with just Rei’s good looks despite all his other character flaws and Mrs Moroboshi fantasizing about running off with him.

It all culminates in a silly duel that involces Rei and Ataru sitting in a lightning storm in metal helmets.

—

The second story is far stronger, built around a chase sequence of the sort that would become something of a trademark for the show. Also 3 of the Stormtroopers (Megane, Chibi and Kakuragi) make an appearance.

Ataru, Megane, Chibi and Kakugari find Rei in a Beef Bowl shop pining for Lum. They tease him until he “cows out” attracting Lum and Ten’s attention. It turns out he’s learnt enough Earth language to be able to propose to Lum. Of course being a glutton, his proposal is that she should cook for him for the rest of his life.

Lum, Ataru and the Stormtroopers tease him some more and he goes berserk, kicking off the chase scene. As he chases them he keeps mistakenly saying his proposal to every woman he bumps into. Ten meanwhile gives the Moroboshi’s address to the enamoured women, their indignant boyfriends and the shop owners whose livelihoods the rampage has ruinied.

By the end Rei has proposed to Shinobu and Mrs Moroboshi too, and the Moroboshi’s house is under siege from all the people Ten has tipped off.

And then the episode ends, because once again, putting everything right wouldn’t be right.

By now the strength of the show’s music is becoming clear. There’s recurring scenes like “chase”, “mock soap opera melodrama” that are used over and over again. These are given a musical short hand by using similarly recurring musical cues behind the scenes. And they fit the moods of scenes very well.

—

Both episode were written by Izumi Itirou, who I can find very little about. The first story was storyboarded and directed by Keiji Hayakawa (Chikkun Takkun, Spoon Oba-san) with animation direction from Hayao Nobe.

The second episode once again has Mamoru Oshii on storyboard and direction duties and Mami Endo on animation direction.

It’s clear the Oshii/Endo stories are the strongest so far in terms of animation. Lots of imaginative shots, executed adeptly.

Rei is voiced by Tessho Genda, who amongst his credits is the voice of Batman in the Japanese dub of Batman TAS and Batman: Gotham Knight, Inspector Gadget, Foghorn Leghorn, Ryu in Akira, Umibozu in City Hunter, Suppaman in Dr Slump, the godlike narrator in Ippatsu Kiki Musume, D in Project A-Ko and Optimus Prime/Convoy in the Transformers franchise.

Chibi is voiced by Issei Futumata, who’d go on to take the lead role of Yusaku Godai in Maison Ikkoku. Other roles include Kinkotsuman in Kinnikuman and Mikiyasu Shinshi in Patlabor.

Kakuragi is voiced by Shinji Nomura, whose only other role of note is Yoshikazu Aihara in Yamato.

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Lum-A-Day 002: Mail From Space — Ten Arrives / Mrs Swallow and Mrs Penguin

January 2nd, 2009 by Brack

During a lightning storm, mail arrives in the form of a peach (a reference to Momotaro). Inside the peach is the next main cast member - Ten.

Ten is Lum’s “cute” baby cousin. However appearances are deceptive and it’s soon clear that he is a manipulative brat, just as dysfunctional as any other cast member. He spends the episode buttering up Lum, Ataru’s mother and Shinobu, while bad mouthing Ataru and setting him on fire with his flame breath. Ataru’s Dad in the meantime just tries to ignore yet another houseguest and read his paper.

As will become a common occurance, the first story in this episode ends with the Moroboshi’s home being blown to kingdom come…

A fairly typical example of how these early two story episodes work - the first story acts as an introduction to a new character, giving you who they are and the basics of their personalities. Then the second episode is more of a straight story with them in it.

Ten is voiced by Kazuko Sugiyama. Her other famous roles include “Jun the Swan” in Gatchaman, “Heidi” in Heidi, and “Akane” in Dr. Slump. More recently she’s been “Dante” in Fullmetal Alchemist.

—

The second story is what got me hooked on the series. It’s an exercise in comedic escalation that takes full advantage of a cartoon’s ability to hit the reset button for the next episode. It also establishes class 2-D’s classroom as one of the frequent sets of the show.

Ten feeds a swallow some extra-dimensional candy, causing it to grow. Shortly a “penguin” shows up in Ataru’s classroom (there’s generic teacher at present, we’ll get named recurring teachers later in the series). The attempts to catch the penguin cause chaos throughout Tomobiki High School. Ten shows up and the secret of the penguin is revealed - it’s the swallow, enlarged by the space candy.

Then a truck full of real penguins crashes…








Sadly the swallow is now too large to feed her babies so Ten hatches a plan…

Things then escalate, until…

Nothing is resolved or fixed, because to do so wouldn’t be funny. It’s great.

As a firm believer that great cartoons come from taking a single idea, then escalating it to its logical extreme, I think this works wonderfully. The story only has one idea - “alien candy makes Earth creatures bigger” - but it takes that and runs with it. Without this one story I don’t think anime would have got its hooks into me the way it did.

—

Both stories were written by Shusuke Kaneko, a man with a ridiculously interesting c.v., porn, anime, Godzilla, the Death Note movies, he’s done it all.

Mail From Space was storyboarded by Yuzo Aoki (Lupin III Part III), directed by Masuji Harada (Obake no Q-Taro 1985) with animation direction from Yuji Yatabe (Thundercats).

Mrs Swallow was storyboarded & directed by Kozima Tamiko with animation direction from Mami Endo.

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Lum-A-Day 001 - I’m Lum The Notorious / It’s Raining Oil In Our Town

January 1st, 2009 by Brack

The first thing that hits you as the episode opens are those backgrounds! Specifically the sky, a hazy mix of oranges and blues, creating a wonderful after-school twilight. Both stories in this episode were directed and storyboarded by Oshii himself, with Mami Endo as Animation Director (she seems woefully under credited over on ANN, wikipedia indicates her heavy involvement in 80s Studio Pierrot titles.). They were both written by the late Hiroyuki Hoshiyama (creator of Round Vernian Vifam).

This first story in this episode introduces seven of our recurring cast.

Ataru Moroboshi, our “hero”. A lecherous 17 year old cursed with supernaturally bad luck. He has been chosed to represent Earth in an intergalactic game of tag against The Invader’s representative…

Lum Invader. The Invaders are based on the Oni of legend, dressed in tiger skin and with horns on their head. Due to a misunderstanding Lum finds herself betrothed to Ataru at the end of the episode, much to the annoyance of…


Shinobu Miyake, Ataru’s current girlfriend. The original intention seems to have been to make a love triangle between these three. However not enough time was given to establish Ataru and Shinobu as a couple, and there isn’t enough at stake to make Lum a threat. In fact due to Ataru’s personality, they both seem victims of his behaviour. The Ranma/Akane/Shampoo relationship in Ranma 1/2 can be read as an revised take on the same idea.

We also also get a brief glimpse of ascetic Buddhist monk Cherry, a diminutive, wizened old geezer who frequently proclaims doom for Ataru. More on him in later episodes. And finally, we meet both Ataru’s parents and Mr Invader, Lum’s dad.

This first story sets a lot of the tone for the series to come. Military vehicles in suburban Tokyo. Spaceships flying in the neighbourhood. Selfishness all around, from the Earth’s governments haranguing of Ataru, to Ataru’s lechery, to Lum assuming that a proposal must be for her, to Ataru’s mother wishing she’d never had him.

As I discussed a while back when I was talking about Sgt Frog and its relationship to this earlier work there’s a misanthropy to Rumiko Takahashi’s worldview that sets it apart from the bulk of anime comedy. It’s particularly true in these early episodes, where Lum’s own rough edges are there to be seen and she has much more mean and manipulative nature.

—

The second story at first doesn’t really involve Lum, but by the end the basic setup for the remaining 195 episodes is in place.

We open with the four characters that represent the biggest change in the anime to the manga, Lum’s Stormtroopers. We also get the first glimpse that Ataru’s school is pretty damn weird to begin with they have a Torture Club! And we get the example that, when angered, Shinobu possesses super human strength.

Anyway, back to the Stormtroopers. They have only a small role in the manga, but in the anime they are a big part of the main cast. Four of Ataru’s classmates (friends seems too strong a word) are basically Lum’s fanclub, they want Lum to be happy, however their motives are always less than pure. They are otaku for Lum, and they are terrible people. The worst of which is their leader Megane, a true monster of a character, given to making noble-sounding speeches fueled by teenage libido and appealling to Ataru’s worst nature.

In this story they are worried Lum has left Earth and attempt to summon her, instead they end up hailing a space taxi. They get the taxi to take them to the Moroboshi house. The fare? All of Earth’s oil supplies.

There’s a couple of narrative devices used in this episode that recur throughout the series, and having sold what I had of the manga a few years back, I can’t recall if they are unique to the anime. They are good though.

The first is having the Tomobiki neighbourhood housewives act as a Greek chorus to whatever chaos Ataru is causing. The second is using news reports to move the plots along, normally involving overly emotional TV presenters.

There’s also a shot that I recall getting reused a lot to great effect, a pan across the Moroboshi’s living room to reveal a lot of people sitting behind their table.

Anyway, by the end Lum pays the taxi fare and moves into the Moroboshi household, and we have the sit of our sitcom established! Teenage boy with unwanted alien girlfriend/wife.

—

Ataru is voiced by Toshio Furukawa, who was very prolific during the 80s and is still in demand today. He’d work with a number of the UY staff again as Asuma Shinohara in Patlabor. Other famous roles include Piccolo in Dragonball, Leon in Bubblegum Crisis, Taro in Dr. Slump, Shin in Fist of the North Star, Kai Shiden in Gundam, Ace in One Piece, Asura in Soul Eater, and so on. The dude has put work in.

Lum is voiced by Fumi Hirano and this is pretty much the role she is famous for, at least in the world of cartoons. She’s still doing non anime voice work, narration, radio and dubbing (she’s the voice of Sarah Jane Smith for the Japanese dub of Doctor Who!), as well as writing about the Tsukiji fish market.

Shinobu is voiced by Saeko Shimazu. Other notable roles include Yuri in Dirty Pair, Kodachi Kuno in Ranma 1/2, Megumi Ayase in Creamy Mami (another Studio Pierrot show that shared staff with UY), Miz Mishtal in El Hazard, and Four Murasame in Z Gundam.

Cherry is voiced by Ichiro Nagai. Similar “old man” roles he’s performed include Jigoro Inokuma in Yawara!, Konaki Jijii from GeGeGe no Kitaro, and Happosai in Ranma 1/2. He was also Dr. Sakezo in Yamato. Yamato is always worth noting.

Ataru’s Father is voiced by Kenichi Ogata. Notable roles include Prof. Agasa in Detective Conan, Father in ATASHIn’CHI, Myoga in Inuyasha, Genma Saotome in Ranma 1/2, and Analyzer in Yamato.

Ataru’s Mother is voiced by Natsumi Sakuma. The only other anime role of note I can find is Robotchi in Cybot Robotchi.

Lum’s Father is voiced by Ritsuo Sawa. He appears to be more famous for a variety of roles in the Kamen Rider franchise, though he has a lot of guest roles across many anime series.

Megane is voiced by Shigeru Chiba, who would go to be a frequent collaborator with Oshii as well as continue to be an in demand performer in his own right. He is Koichi Todome in Oshii’s Red Spectacles and Stray Dogs. Vanilla Vartla in Armored Trooper Votoms, Pilaf in Dragonball, Nezumi-Otoko in GeGeGe no Kitaro, Yotsuya AND Soichiro-san (the dog) in Maison Ikkoku, the suspiciously named Shigeo Shiba in Patlabor, Kazuma Kuwabara in Yu Yu Hakusho and Buggy in One Piece.

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Lum-A-Day - Introduction

December 31st, 2008 by Brack

So what better way to follow 10 Lupin films than to watch all of Urusei Yatsura?!?

Well that’s what I’m going to try and do next year. If I keep up a rate of one episode a day, I should be done by July 14th. Do I do the OAVs & Films? Well that probably depends on how much I like the Kazuo Yamazaki episodes as I’ve currently only seen Mamoru Oshii parts of the series. I’ll probably do Only You and Beautiful Dreamer at the very least, as I have them. And they are great.

So why do this, beyond the fact I’ve only ever watched the first 100 episodes? Well, this is the show that dragged me into the mire that is anime fandom back in 1995. I’d started buying Manga Mania to read Akira (before then I’d read my little brother’s copies), and it had convinced me to buy the first two volumes of Tenchi Muyo (that Pioneer had just released in the UK) and then to buy the first volume of Urusei Yatsura (Anime Projects’ release of AnimEigo’s translation). This was my introduction to subtitled anime, and combined with the detailed AnimEigo sleeve notes, I was already doomed. You know that line in LCD Soundsystem’s “Losing My Edge”? “Borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.” Well that’s a little like how UY is for me, between both the actual anime and those great sleeve notes, I’ve nostalgia for an early 80s surburban Japan I could never have experienced (I would have been 6 when the first episode aired in October 1981, and 10 when in finished in March 1986).

So what is Urusei Yatsura?

Simply put it’s the story of the unlucky, lecherous teenager Ataru Moroboshi who finds himself betrothed to the alien princess, Lum. This leads to him, his school, neighbourhood and family to encounter an never ending array of bizarre aliens and supernatural occurances.

It’s more than that though, if that was all it took to make a good anime then the vast horde of its imitators wouldn’t be so thoroughly dreadful.

What Urusei Yatsura had was talent. Based on Rumiko Takahashi’s hit debut manga, this was Mamoru Oshii’s breakthrough show, and in his role of Chief Director his fingerprints are all over it. It’s not 100% faithful, from an interview with Oshii in AniFantastique, Takahashi did not always see eye to eye with Oshii on the adaptation (I think he mentions this on the Beautiful Dreamer commentary too). Oshii trys to play down the fantastic and sci-fi elements and plays up the “mudane” elements, specifically the people and the places in Tomobiki, a fictional district of the suburban Nerima ward (see Nerima Daikon Brothers for more suburban fun). However there’s obviously some pull for the fantastic coming from Takahashi, and this tension arguably goes some way to making it all the better. And of course it helps that Oshii had a talented crew full of people, many of whom would go onto other notable projects (some with Oshii, some without).

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Top Ten Most Interesting Manga of 2008

December 31st, 2008 by Brack

Oricon’s Top 10 most interesting manga of 08

(via Greg@Arlong Park)

This another well rounded poll similar to the 2005 anime one TV Asahi did, pulling from various age (teens to 40s) and gender demographics rather than an online poll. So no vote rigging or otaku bias!

1. One Piece
2. Nodame Cantabile
3. Nana
4. Naruto
5. Hunter X Hunter
6. Bleach
7. Kuroshitsuji
8. Bloody Monday
9. Kimi ni Todoke
10. Saint Young Men

Outside of Bloody Monday, it matches fairly well with Oricon’s bestselling manga list. Notable absences include Fullmetal Alchemist, Boys Over Flowers, D.Gray-man, Pluto, Vagabond, Detective Conan, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Ookiku Furikabutte, Gintama, Ouran High School Host Club, REAL, Yotsuba&, xxxHOLIC & Detroit Metal City. Some of that can be accounted to infrequency of publication for some of those titles. And the ones left over arguably appeal to more to teens and under, rather than adult readers.

Bloody Monday doesn’t appear in Oricon’s bestselling manga list, however it has had a recent live action adaptation which may account for it’s presence in people’s minds.

Anyone want to bet Kimi ni Todoke & Saint Young Men get anime adaptations in the next couple of years? Saint Young Men seems like a perfect fit for the noitaminA slot.

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Happy Xmas!

December 25th, 2008 by Brack

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2008 Best Anime Openings - Keroro Gunso

December 22nd, 2008 by Brack

“Nante Suteki na Doyoubi” by KERORO Shoutai

For the 8th OP we have utter nonsense sung by the frogs themselves.

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