Sangokushi vs. Sangokushi: Nothing "Romantic" About This Encounter, That's For Sure!

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a story that has had many adaptations... so, so many adaptations. However, when it comes to Japan, most adaptations tend to avoid outright calling themselves what the story is actually called over there: Sangokushi Engi, or just Sangokushi for short. There are all sorts of understandable reasons for that (being able to copyright an original title, not wanting to create confusion with said source material, etc.), and when it comes to various media there tends to be one "definitive" Sangokushi adaptation, at least when it comes to using the original title. The novel... well, that's the OG. For video games there's Koei's iconic grand strategy series. For manga there's Mitsuteru Yokoyama's 60-volume adaptation. For live-action TV there's China's iconic 87-episode series from 1994. As for anime, though, that's where things can get a bit interesting. The reason for that is because the word "Sangokushi", or at least "Sangoku", is seen in a few different anime's titles, like Koutetsu Sangokushi, the various SD Gundam adaptations of the story, Saikyo Bushouden Sangoku Engi, & Yokoyama Mitsuteru Sangokushi (the anime adaptation of Yokoyama's manga). However, there are in fact two completely different anime productions that dared to call themselves nothing more than "Sangokushi", and when you take production time into account they were even in production at the same time, at least for a period.

In other words, it's time for both sides to create teams of three, one from each kingdom, & see which one stands tall over a not-so-unified China!

In Japan Romance is a highly beloved tale, so the idea of adapting it into anime back in the 80s, which (to my knowledge) had not been done yet at that point, was likely taken as a big deal. Therefore, it's not all that much of a surprise that when the first (still existing) anime adaptation of Romance debuted in Japan, it was given some special treatment. Namely, on March 20, 1985 Nippon TV aired the made-for-TV anime movie (also sometimes referred to as a TV special) Sangokushi on its Wednesday Road Show program. There is apparently a TV anime special from 1982 also called Sangokushi, produced by Studio Sangosho & Tezuka Kikaku (no relation to Tezuka Productions?), but it looks to have become lost media & information about it is extremely scarce. Anyway, WRS ran from 1972 to 1985 & was the Japanese equivalent to something like NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies & its many imitators (before the home video market this was how people could watch hit movies at home), and would be replaced with Friday Road Show on October 4, 1985, which NTV still airs to this day. This movie would get re-aired in March of 1986 on FRS in order to get viewers ready for its sequel, Sangokushi II: Amakakeru Otoko-tachi/Soaring Manly Heroes, which first aired on FRS on August 22, 1986. Produced by NTV for 150 million yen (though this amount might only be for the first film?), these movies were animated by Shin-Ei Animation, the studio best known for Doraemon & (later) Crayon Shin-chan, both of which are still in production to this day. These movies also credit themselves as being adaptations of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Sangokushi manga that was still running at the time, to the point that Hikari Production is on the copyright for them, but aside from telling (portions of) the same source story they really aren't, especially visually. These two movies would find themselves fans, such as Masami Tsuda, who'd later go on to be the creator of the manga His & Her Circumstances. However, possibly unbeknownst to Shin-Ei & NTV at the time, there was actually another anime adaptation of Romance in the works while these two movies debuted on TV in Japan, though this wouldn't finally appear until years later.

In the early 80s the production company Shinano Kikaku, formerly (& literally) Soka Gakkai Public Relations Bureau, started production on its own anime adaptation of Romance, hiring Toei Animation to do the animation itself. After 10 years & a budget of 1.5 billion yen, ten times the cost of NTV & Shin-Ei's movies, Shinano Kikaku would finally release Sangokushi Part 1: Eiyuu-tachi no Yoake/Dawn of the Heroes in theaters on January 25, 1992. Yes, much like NTV's movies this was also a multi-part production, three parts this time instead of two, but unlike those movies this trilogy of films were released in theaters on a yearly basis, with the second film, Part 2: Choukou Moeyu!/The Yangtze Burns!, debuting on March 20, 1993, & the third film, Part 3: Harukanaru Daichi/Distant Lands, on April 9, 1994. The first of these films would actually see an official English release as well, as Streamline Pictures would license, dub, & release Dawn of the Heroes in the 90s under the title Great Conquest: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, even hiring the late Pat Morita to act as the narrator for the dub; Streamline's dub, though, did also cut down the film to 120 minutes, from its original 140 minutes. In 2020 Discotek Media, during its now defunct working relationship with Enoki Films (which handles international licensing for these films, on behalf of Shinano Kikaku), would re-release Great Conquest on double-disc DVD, with the first disc including Streamline's cut down dub & the second including the original uncut Japanese version with English subtitles for the first time, though the other two films would never see official release in English; this would also be the final DVD release Discotek would ever do, as they've only released on Blu-Ray since.

So, with two different anime movie series calling themselves "Sangokushi", which one comes out without rival: NTV or Shinano?

Vaizard: You Only Get One Shot, Do Not Miss Your Chance to Blow; This Opportunity Comes Once in a Lifetime

On June 5, 2001 director & general manager of Enix's publishing division Yoshihiro Hosaka, namely that of its various manga magazines (Shonen Gangan, G Fantasy, Monthly Stencil, etc.) left Enix & founded publisher Mag Garden. Hosaka, alongside Gangan's second editor-in-chief Yoshihiro Iida, felt that Enix had been changing the focus of its manga magazines for the past few years in ways that were not beneficial to their business, & that the company didn't pay any mind to their feelings on the matter. Therefore, Hosaka decided to found his own manga publisher & Iida joined him to act as editor-in-chief... and in turn a bunch of loyal mangaka decided to also ditch Enix & join up with Mag Garden, while a similar scenario happened around the same time which resulted in the founding of Ichijinsha; this has since been colloquially referred to as the "Enix O-Ie Soudou/Enix Family Dispute" in Japan. Understandably, Enix saw this as Mag Garden poaching talent from them, as the departures (to both Mag Garden & Ichijinsha) saw ~80% of Gangan Wing's current roster of mangaka leave at once, while it hurt Monthly Stencil so badly that Enix had to cancel the magazine entirely. In the end, Mag Garden & Enix came to an agreement in March of 2002 that saw Enix promise to not interfere with Mag Garden's business in return for Enix owning 50% of Mag Garden's shares, the ability to appoint two non-executive directors to Mag Garden, receive original planning & production credits on the manga that did initially come from Enix, & receive 10% of the retail price of said manga until Mag Garden got listed on the Japanese stock exchange; the later Square-Enix would eventually sell all of its shares in Mag Garden in 2005.

Obviously this was color in the tankouban,
but ADV Manga greyscaled it.

While talks regarding the terms of the agreement were happening Mag Garden launched its first manga magazine, Monthly Comic Blade, in February of 2002 & of the 21 manga that appeared in Comic Blade during that year 10 of them were transfers/sequels from Enix's magazines. Of the remaining 11 original serializations from 2002 only two of them would end within just a year or so of serialization. The first, van-ditz by Kazusa Saitou (one of the mangaka who jumped ship from Enix), was in Comic Blade's debut issue but would stop after only four chapters in mid-2002, though technically it was considered put on "hiatus", rather than be an actual cancellation; that being said, van-ditz has never returned from hiatus. Meanwhile, debuting in the December 2002 issue of Comic Blade, Gohou Kensei/Sacred Treasure Guardian Vaizard was the 21st manga to debut in the magazine, the last one in 2002, & was the serialized debut for Michihiro Yoshida, only the second mangaka in Comic Blade's history to have absolutely no prior relationship with Enix, following Wataru Maruyama with Desert Coral in Blade's very first issue; Yoshida had previously won the Comic Blade Manga Award Grand Prize for his one-shot Saila ~Ano Hoshi no Umi ni~. However, just barely over a year later, in the January 2004 issue, Vaizard came to an end after only 14 chapters (across three volumes), becoming the first of Comic Blade's initial year of titles to come to an actual end; in fact, Vaizard never got the cover of Comic Blade to itself, not even for its own debut! Coincidentally, Vaizard ended the same exact issue as Ritz Kobayashi's own debut serialization, Fatalizer (which only lasted five chapters), but where Kobayashi would eventually find success with the mahjong manga Saki in 2006... Yoshida was never heard from or seen again.

Yeah, Vaizard is the one & only (serialized) manga ever made by Michihiro Yoshida, and it's essentially impossible to find any additional info about Yoshida, beyond this one manga & their initial one-shot, as there's a Nihon University professor/researcher whose name uses the same exact kanji, but is pronounced Norihiro Yoshida; hell, even Mag Garden's own online listing for Vaizard misspells Yoshida's name as "Norihiro" in katakana! However, just months after its seeming cancellation in Japan ADV Manga included Vaizard in its absurd March 2004 press release where it announced 37 different manga & manhwa that it planned to release in English, and on November 23, 2004 the first volume of Vaizard would see release in English; obviously, Vaizard was part of a larger package deal that included various Comic Blade manga. Unfortunately, despite its short length, ADV Manga would never release another volume of Vaizard, leaving it to the absolute dredges of obscurity... except for the fact that Volume 1 of Vaizard wound up coming out right as I was starting to buy & read manga in late 2004. As a relative newbie to the medium I came across Vaizard, bought that first volume, found it fun & enjoyable, though bummed when no more of it ever saw release in English, and it's always remained in the back of my mind for the past 20+ years. So, after seeing that first volume at an anime con dealer's room a couple of years ago (alongside a bunch of other "one-&-cancelled" ADV Manga releases), I decided to rebuy it... and then I later managed to buy Volumes 2 & 3 from Japan via Suruga-ya & its constant free shipping campaigns.

Now I own all of Vaizard, allowing me to finally read the entirety of one of my earliest manga ever, so let's see how Michihiro Yoshida's one & only (serialized) manga fares over 20 years after it ended. As Eminem once said, "If you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment; would you capture it or just let it slip?" In this case Michihiro Yoshida played the role of B-Rabbit, and while they seemingly wound up blowing it they at least took grasp of the moment... but does that mean that there's absolutely no merit at all to their one & only manga?

An Introduction to Romance of the Three Kingdoms... in Anime Form

The Han dynasty was a powerful & influential era of Chinese history, and by 100 AD/CE had more or less ruled over the country with little to no truly dynasty-shattering moments since its formation in 202 BC... minus the Xin dynasty that usurped control from 9 to 23 AD/CE, at least. However, following the death of Emperor He in 105 the Han would slowly but steadily decline, as a string of Han emperors following He would all be too young to truly take command right away, resulting in older relatives becoming the de facto rulers, which in turn would result in the actual emperors making political alliances with senior officials & eunuchs to take back control from their greedy elders. This eventually led to the populace starting protests, culminating in what would be known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184, where Zhang Jiao, leader of the Taoist movement the Way of Supreme Peace, managed to accumulate a following of several hundreds of thousands & revolted against the Han. Current ruler Emperor Ling, in turn, decreed that local Chinese governments would supply soldiers to assist the Han generals in taking down the Yellow Turban Rebellion... and this decision would act as the spark to an eventual era of civil war, one where China itself would over time be split up into three powerful kingdoms, an era that wouldn't end until 280, when the Jin dynasty managed to take command of a re-unified China.

In the late 200s, some time after the Jin took control, writer & historian Chen Shou would collect the history of the prior era of civil war into what is now known as Records of the Three Kingdoms, part of what's now called the Twenty-Four Histories of China. Then, sometime in the 14th century, writer & playwright Luo Guanzhong (or, at least, he's the one attributed) took Chen Shou's Records & retold the story of the "Three Kingdoms" in a more dramatic & romanticized fashion, resulting in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the first of what would be considered the six "Great Classical Chinese Novels". Starting at the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Romance focuses primarily on the three warlords who would come to form the titular Three Kingdoms of China: Liu Bei of the Shu Han, Cao Cao of the Cao Wei, & Sun Quan of Eastern Wu. Each of these three warlords had (somewhat) legitimate claims as to why they should be the one to rule over all of China, as Liu Bei was seemingly a blood descendant of Emperor Jin (who ruled from 188-141 BC), & all Liu Bei wanted was to continue the legacy of the Han. Meanwhile, Cao Cao never truly staked a claim over rulership, as he made sure the current Han dynasty was still intact during his conquests & was technically acting on behalf of Emperor Xian, mainly for political reasons. It would be Cao Cao's son, Cao Pi, who actually ended the Han dynasty & established Wei as a kingdom, following his father's death. Finally, Sun Family patriarch Sun Jian had managed to come across the Imperial seal after it was hidden away, which would technically give him power to make official decrees, but through a series of circumstances the seal would eventually wind up with Cao Pi, who used it to legitimize Wei's stance as the "true" successor to the Han. Sun Quan, one of Sun Jian's sons, would initially agree to serve as a vassal of Wei, but eventually broke free after Cao Pi ordered that Quan send his son Sun Deng to the capital as a hostage. Essentially, Liu Bei had the royal lineage, Cao Cao had the Imperial capital (& the Emperor himself), & the Sun Family had the Imperial seal (for a time, at least).

Romance is notable for fictionalizing many aspects of the historical figures & events seen within, like having Liu Bei make an oath of brotherhood with Guan Yu & Zhang Fei in a peach garden (while the three were known to think of each other as brothers in actual history, the peach garden oath in generally agreed to be pure fiction), as well as softening some of the less honorable aspects of the various generals & warlords seen throughout, i.e. romanticization. Romance of the Three Kingdoms remains an all-time classic of an epic novel (around 800,000 words across 120 chapters), and its reach across the world is immeasurable... especially in Japan.

A Look at (Some of) ADV Manga's "One-&-Cancelled" Releases

For as much as there is natural crossover between fans of anime & fans of manga, especially since many of the former are adaptations of the latter, they are still very different businesses, at heart. This is especially true in the North American industries of both, and that's why the English anime & manga industries are made up (for the most part) of completely different companies. There have been some exceptions throughout history, though, of an anime licensing company entering the manga business, or vice versa. The most notable one is Viz, which is a manga publisher first & foremost but also releases the occasional anime, but we've also seen Central Park Media, Media Blasters, Bandai Entertainment, & TokyoPop try their hands at releasing both anime & manga; Kodansha USA's also dipped its toes with some Attack on Titan OADs that came bundled with four manga volumes. Probably one of the most infamous attempts at double-dipping, though, would have to be ADV Manga, which was formed in mid-2003 as the manga publishing side of A.D. Vision, Inc./ADV, which was best known for its anime licensing side, ADV Films. At launch ADV Manga naturally focused on titles related to anime that ADV Films had released, like Gunslinger Girl, Those Who Hunt Elves, Full Metal Panic!, Azumanga Daioh, Najica, Darkside Blues, & Steel Angel Kurumi, as well as some stuff outside of their wheelhouse, like Demon Palace Babylon, Demon City Hunter, & Seven of Seven.

Then, as was kind of standard for the 00s English anime/manga bubble era... ADV Manga went kind of crazy & overindulgent.

In January of 2004 it was announced that ADV Manga had licensed "over 1000 individual volumes of manga and manwha for North American release", roughly double (if not slightly more) than what TokyoPop had planned to release in 2004 alone, though not all of these books were planned for release in that year by ADV Manga. Then, later that March, ADV Manga sent out a press release announcing all of the various manga it had recently licensed... ALL 37 SERIES!!!!! Yeah, in just a single press release ADV Manga had gone from "supplemental manga division of a major anime company" to "licensing more manga/manhwa than it could possibly ever handle", and by November of that same year it was already confirming three titles that were initially announced in that March press release had been cancelled after just one or two volumes getting released. Cancellations would continue to happen as ADV Manga went into 2005, resulting in only a small amount of titles seeing continual release, and after mid-2007 ADV Manga was quietly killed off, with only a small handful of titles being rescued by TokyoPop previously in 2006 (Aria, Tactics, & Peacemaker Kurogane) or by Yen Press later in 2009 (Yotsuba&! and Azumanga Daioh). Sure, ADV Manga's death was likely partially due to ADV's own disastrous partnership with Sojitz necessitating some stemming of the bleeding being felt by that point, as this was mere months before ADV would enter its death spiral in early 2008, becoming the "Zombie ADV" shell corporation that it continues to exist as to this very day, due to it seemingly having perpetual international rights to Kino's Journey [2003], Chance Pop Session, Elfen Lied, & (maybe?) Samurai Gun, all of which it co-produced. However, there's no doubt that ADV Manga would have died anyway once the 00s English anime bubble burst in 2008/2009, and in its wake is a multitude of manga that never saw complete English release... some of which only ever saw a single volume.

A couple of years ago at an anime con I came across a vendor that happened have a bunch of these "one-&-cancelled" releases by ADV Manga. I decided to buy them so that I would, one day, read them & see if they were truly not worth releasing more of or if they were simply innocent victims of an overindulgent & overzealous (now former) giant of the American anime industry. While these aren't all of the "one-&-cancelled" releases by ADV Manga I did manage to get six of them (technically seven, but I'll explain that at the end), which looks to be around half of the total amount, more or less. Plus, covering six manga in one piece is going to be long enough, as it is; maybe if this piece performs decently enough I'd be willing to cover the other half another time. I'll go over this sextet in English release order, starting with one of those three titles whose cancellations were confirmed in late 2004!

Obscusion B-Side: The IF Neverland Reportage: The Second Neverland War

Previously on The IF Neverland Reportage:

"Without a doubt, this was a time of experimentation from Idea Factory....but there's still a good amount of importance to be found here, at least with Spectral Blade, Suna no Embrace and, to a lesser extent, Kingdom of Chaos, when it comes to the overall lore & timeline of IF Neverland. Humanity, now wielding absolute power (&, in turn, becoming corrupted absolutely), have become the subjugators themselves... Understandably, this isn't sustainable & eventually something's going to break under the pressure, just as it did when Chiffon killed Overlord Janus."

After the year 2000, Idea Factory would pretty much become almost exclusively focused on video games that took place in the fantasy world of Neverland for the next few years, with mid-2001's Run=Dim as Black Soul for the Sega Dreamcast being the sole exception & that wasn't even developed by IF, instead being handled by Yuki Enterprise, which would later become Examu & is now Team Arcana. Indeed, from 2001 to 2003 Idea Factory would develop (in-house) & release eight different games in what would eventually be called the IF Neverland franchise, and that coincidentally matches perfectly with the next part of this multi-part "Reportage" I've been working on whenever I have the time. This also marks the point where Idea Factory started truly experimenting on non-Sony consoles, as while the PlayStation 2 winds up being the primary hardware of choice of Idea Factory for the next decade or so we do see Nintendo's GameCube & Microsoft's Xbox get some love this time around, too, with the latter even being the exclusive home to one of the games we'll be going over for this third part of The IF Neverland Reportage.

Also... we get some truly awesome theme songs for the games from here on out. Prior to this, I'd say that only truly "great" theme song for an IF Neverland game so far has been "Break Out!!" by Ai Maeda for Spectral Force: Lovely Wickedness, though I do give a shout out to Spectral Blade's OP ("Hateshinaki Tabibito" by The Permanents) for being a completely out of left field choice, but from here on out we truly get (for the most part) "banger after banger after banger after banger".