This will likely be me assembling thoughts in public, rather than me proving an hypothesis. And when I say the 1990s, I may actually be talking about 1988-1995. There might be a need to take few steps back to get a view of where TV anime was pre-Evangelion and how it got there. Lets start with an observation – there’s a period of TV anime that is definitely overlooked in Anglophone fandom. Well, OK there’s multiple periods if you want to look at pre-Animage anime, but the fact there’s this period in the early to mid 90s that seems to be completely off most folks radar fascinates me. Even people who champion OAVs and movies from that era seem uninterested in the TV output from that time.
Here’s some observations of why that might be, shot through the prism of a man who loves Urusei Yatsura too much. There was obviously a leak from the talent pool who had been working on early 80s TV anime once OAVs took off. Then once the economic bubble burst you had a money shortage too. So you had shows that were less visually interesting than what had gone before and what was available on OAV or in the cinema.
Then there’s the question of exposure. The so-called “anime industry” of the time generally wasn’t licensing many current (or current-ish) TV shows for video release. Without broadcast exposure, a VHS only release of a TV show wasn’t viable. You had some of the Kitty shows coming out from Viz and AnimEigo, but not much of anything else. Some shows slipped through into English through companies who tend not to be considered part of that same industry for whatever reason.
Here’s the show from that era that probably had the biggest impact on a certain age group of UK anime fandom and my segue into today’s topic…
Samurai Pizza Cats was the name for Saban’s release of the 1990 Tatsunoko/Sotsu show Kyatto Ninden Teyandee. It aired originally in the UK on the Saturday morning format Motormouth (or possibly What’s Up Doc? Pretty sure it was Motormouth though as What’s Up Doc‘s thing was WB cartoons). On the surface you might assume it’s just a funny animal show, and it is, but if you want to see what it really is, you only have to look to the toys.
It’s basically a feline themed Musha SD Gundam.
SD Gundam had been around since the mid-80s, with the Musha SD Gundam concept coming a little later before properly launching in ’87. More importantly for the anime output of the 90s, the first SD Gundam OAVs came out in 1989. There’s also some Saint Seiya influence in the armoured look of Samurai Pizza Cats’ heroes, and one could argue in the ever more ludicrous exaggerated decorations of the Musha Gundam line. And in searching for images for this post I also see a lot of NES, SNES and Game Boy games so I wonder if the SD aesthetic also tied into the popularity of those games consoles.
The result of this conflagration of successes was that 1990 was full of stumpy robots and their stumpy armoured friends.
Mashin Eiyuden Wataru (88-89) Sunrise
Mashin Eiyuden Wataru 2 (90-91) Sunrise
Chou Mashin Eiyuden Wataru (97-98) Sunrise
Unless anyone can point me to something earlier, I’m going to declare this a key work in the development of these shows, as it’s very much a combination of the aesthetics of SD Gundam and Saint Seiya. You can see the original opening here. While it’s clearly an evolution of Super Robot Galatt‘s approach, the robots of Wataru are a happy medium of Galatt’s comically spherical robots and human proportioned robots. Worth noting that Urusei Yatsura and Dragonball alum and future Monkey D. Luffy, Mayumi Tanaka provides the hero’s very recognisable voice here.
Remember what I speculated about videogames having a part to play in the continuation of this aesthetic? Well the PC Engine Wataru game was infamously released in the US as KEITH COURAGE IN ALPHA ZONES, complete with compulsory westernisation of the video game art. It’s things like this that make me thankful we grey imported Japanese PC Engine games (and games magazines) in the UK, rather than waiting for the TurboGrafx-16 to hit the US.
The show comes from director Shuji Iuchi, screenwriter Ouji Hiroji, and character designer Toyoo Ashida. Yes the same Toyoo Ashida who directed Fist of the North Star. His character design work is very different from what you’d expect if you based your expectations on the sort of shows he directs.
The three also worked on…
Mado King Grandzort (89-90) Sunrise
Which slotted in between the first two Mashin Eiyuden Wataru series. Wataru mecha designer, Kazunori Nakazawa isn’t credited on ANN for this show, but returns for the Grandzort OAV sequels and the aesthetically similar Lord of Lords Ryu Knight in 1994. It continues the head band wearing warrior + SD robot theme of Wataru, with the added gimmick of the robots transforming from giant heads. And bunny people who live on the moon. Check the openings here. Your future One Piece actress playing a young boy here is Youko Matsuoka (Alvida).
Given his history with dumpy looking robots, I wonder if Ouji Hiroji had any say on the look of mecha in his later multimedia success Sakura Wars, which had similar proportions but a more “realistic” approach.
Momotaro Densetsu Peachboy Legend (89-90) Knack
Momotaro Densetsu Peach Command (90-91) Knack
Based on the Momotaro Densetsu RPG series from Hudson Soft, the first is a historical comedy where the super deformed heroes wear armour that makes them look like they are cosplaying SD robots, much like the Samurai Pizza Cats. The second does away with even that pretence and shifts the action to outer space. Looking at plastic model kits from the franchise they look like straight up SD robots. In fact I’m sure Sheffield Space Centre used to have some in stock during the mid-90s.
Edokko Boy Gatten Taro aka Tasuke, The Samurai Cop (90-91) Studio Pierrot
Here’s a great example of a forgotten show. Directed by Takeshi Mori (Otaku no Video, The Skull Man, Vandread), there is next to nothing in terms of images for it on Google Image Search. Its ostensibly an Edo-era comedy, presumably with some parody of Edo police stories like Mito Komon. More importantly it has stubby robots in its supporting cast!
The official English page is here.
Karakuri Kengo Musashi Lord (90-91) Studio Pierrot
Another Pierrot show mixing the historical and stunted growth robots. It seems pretty much a blatent attempt to cash in on Musha Gundam’s popularity. With the added bonus of Masako Nozawa (Son Goku) in the lead role. The official English page for the show is here and you can check it’s opening theme here.
NG Knight Lamune & 40 (1990-1991) Asatsu/Ashi Productions
The first of the Hiroshi Negishi & Satoru Akahori two letter series (NG Knight Lamune, KO Century Beast Warriors, SM Saber Marionette, VS Knight Lamune). If it seems formulaic, it’s arguable that they are working out the formulas here. Or at least reworking them into evil formulas that still permeate the industry today. The concept of the show owes a lot to Mashin Eiyuden Wataru, though the human transported into a fantasy world was hardly original in 1988. Add to that elements of Time Bokan. Then taking into account the “harem” genre, adjust the genders so there are more cute girls and sexy women than men. Finally, make one character homosexual and you have the formula that served Satoru Akahori well for the next decade. And continues to serve other creators to this day (I’m looking at you Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya!).
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That’s all the TV stumpy robots and people/animals dressed as stumpy robots I could find in 1990. Certainly there’s others later in the decade and I may return to them in later posts. There might even be ones I’ve not uncovered from this year – Perrin had a colouring book from some show I’d never heard of a few Minami’s back that certainly would fit in if it’s not one of the shows above. But I think this was the year the trend hit critical mass.
Not sure if it’s a 90’s or 80’s show, but I hope you don’t neglect “Shippu! Iron Leaguer”. It’s a funny little show very much in the vein of what you described here. Great article!
completed samurai pizza cats kits were sold in the uk as action figures while it was airing, too! and it must have been motormouth, what’s up doc was a few years later.