SF Shin Seiki Lensman: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hollywood...

Born on May 2, 1890 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Edward Elmer Smith was studying food chemistry at George Washington University in D.C., where he'd get his masters degree in 1917 & a PhD in 1918, and it was during his time at GWU that Smith would start writing his first serialized science fiction story. With the help of Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of an old University of Idaho classmate-turned-neighbor, Smith would write the majority of what would later be 1928's The Skylark of Space, which is now often considered to be the very first space opera; Smith wrote the sci-fi adventure bits, while Garby handled the romance bits. Smith would write two sequels to Skylark in the first half of the 1930s (& a fourth entry would be Smith's final work before his passing in the 60s), but in 1934 a story by Smith titled Triplanetary was serialized in Amazing Stories magazine, the same place Skylark had been serialized in. A few years later Smith would then serialize the story Galactic Patrol in Astounding Stories in 1937, which would mark the start of the sci-fi series "E.E. 'Doc' Smith" would be most known for: Lensman. Three sequels to Galactic Patrol would get made between 1939 & 1948, followed by Triplanetary being reworked to act as the official start of the Lensman series in 1948, with a straight-to-novel story written in 1950 that acted as the link between Triplanetary & Galactic Patrol, and the entire series (as well as Smith's catalog, in general) has been cited as major influences for everyone from "The Dean of Sci-Fi Writers" Robert A. Heinlein to George Lucas to J. Michael Straczynski. It's even the inspiration for two Boston-based sci-fi cons, Boskone (which dates back to 1941) & Arisia (which started in 1990).

After E.E. "Doc" Smith passed away on August 31, 1965, at the age of 75, his family & estate has continued to manage Smith's literary rights, and there have been numerous attempts to adapt Lensman into film, most recently one that died in 2014 (due to Universal Pictures balking at the costs) that Straczynski himself wrote a couple of script drafts for. One attempt got extremely close to truly happening in the 80s... only to be beaten to the punch by Japan.

As detailed in a post from 2019 based on information sourced in large part by the late SF writer Frederik Pohl, a close friend of the Smith family, after the success of Star Wars in 1977 the Smith family was eventually able to make a deal with "a major studio" to produce a series of big-budget Lensman films, and everything was seemingly ready to start entering pre-production... until a video tape showed up on the Smith family's doorstop. You see, back in the 60s publisher Kodansha got the rights to republish the Lensman novels in Japan, having acquired those rights from the US publisher at the time, Berkley Publishing Corporation (now Berkley Books), which was given permission by the Smith family to license out international rights on their behalf; everything checks out, so far. The people at Kodansha, in turn, were interested in producing an adaptation of Lensman themselves, and according to how Japanese copyright & licensing worked at the time Kodansha felt that it had the right to make such an adaptation, at least as long as it stayed in Japan. Apparently, most non-Japanese companies didn't question this at the time, since such adaptations were Japan-only & wouldn't make their away abroad, similar to how big name actors used to secretly take Japan-only commercial gigs. Now, to Kodansha's credit, they claimed to have informed Berkley about their intention to produce an adaptation... but apparently Berkley never bothered to let the Smith family know about this; whoops! Therefore, right as everything was set to be signed for a big-budget "Hollywood" production of Lensman to get started, the Smith family (allegedly) suddenly got a video tape showing early work that was being done for a feature-length anime film adaptation of Lensman, which Kodansha had seemingly sent over as a courtesy; a similar thing allegedly happened with Alexander Key & the Future Boy Conan anime back in the 70s.

Needless to say, according to this version of events, everything blew up in the Smith family's faces. The major studio immediately backed out of the deal, as it wanted full control over the Lensman IP when it came to adaptations & felt that the anime film (which was looking very promising, visually) would be competition that it didn't want to deal with. While the Smith family was understandably furious about the loss of their big Hollywood deal, they tried to make lemons out of lemonade by at least giving the anime film their blessing & allowed it to see completion & release in Japan, with it premiering in theaters on July 7, 1984 (about six months after Triplanetary's 50th Anniversary) as SF Shin Seiki/Sci-Fi New Century Lensman; they even allowed the production of a 25-episode TV anime reboot... but that's for next time. In the end, the Smith family was not really pleased with the end result, feeling that neither anime was accurate to the original stories at all, but had hoped that all of this would simply be an errant blip that'd stay in Japan, would never be seen again, and after a little bit they could try again for that Hollywood deal; an annoying rough patch, sure, but live & let learn. Unfortunately, it was now the mid-80s & the idea of recording to VHS had become ubiquitous, so copies of the Lensman film & TV anime were starting to appear at American sci-fi conventions throughout the 80s (i.e. places were the earliest form of American anime fandom gathered), having made their way over from Japan, which in turn allowed word of its existence to spread. Not only that, but Kodansha (or possibly co-producer MK Company) would then later make a deal with Harmony Gold to allow both the film & TV anime to see official English release outside of Japan, all seemingly done without the Smith family's knowledge or approval; that's not good! Harmony Gold would produce an edited dub version of the film under the name Lensman: Secret of the Lens, while some of the early episodes of the TV anime were edited together into a dubbed film titled Lensman: Power of the Lens, & both seemingly only ever managed to see release via some TV broadcasts around 1988/1989, similar to the Galaxy Express 999 TV special dubs HG produced in 1986.

Retrospect in Retrograde: Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Well, it's certainly been a while since this segment last happened, hasn't it? To be fair, last year I was pretty busy due to the entire year having a recurring theme to it, so I simply didn't really have time to fit in a re-review for an anime I originally reviewed based solely off of memory back in the blog's early days. However, that wound up working in my favor, as at the end of last year one of the few anime remaining that's eligible for a Retrospect in Retrograde re-review received a new home video release, one that included something that didn't exist back when I first reviewed it. Therefore, before I move on to the stuff that'll be the subjects of Reviews #299 & 300, I think it's time for me to finally return to another of my earliest reviews here (Lucky #13, to be exact!) & give it a second go-around... and this time around it'll be based on an English dub that I seriously never thought would ever happen back in early 2011!

The eyecatch is nothing more than black with the logo in the corner,
so here's the iconic final shot of the OP sequence.

By 1996 mangaka Nobuyuki Fukumoto was already a bit of a star in the industry, though admittedly more of a cult star. Having made his professional debut back in 1980 Fukumoto wouldn't really hit it "big" until 1989 when he debuted the mahjong manga Ten: The Nice Guy on the Path to Tenhou, followed by its prequel Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into Darkness in 1991, which told the early days of a supporting character who was already a legend in Ten; in short, Fukumoto's forte was gambling manga. While some of his works would receive live-action movie adaptations in the 90s, namely Akagi & 1992's Silver & Gold, anime was understandably not something one would expect of his work, due to the subject matter, but in 2005 that all changed when Madhouse, VAP, & NTV debuted a late-night TV adaptation of Akagi. The Akagi anime did surprisingly well for a late-night anime, hitting as high as 4% in the ratings (in today's landscape that'd put it just below the iconic Chibi Maruko-chan!), so it was decided that Madhouse would follow up Akagi with another adaptation of a Fukumoto manga, one that wasn't quite as focused around mahjong (at least, not until way later on).

Debuting in early 1996 in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine, Kaiji would go on to become the most iconic work in Nobuyuki Fukumoto's entire career, with a current total of 91 volumes across six series, the most recent of which debuting in 2017 & is still running, though it's been on hiatus since 2023. The series details the trials & tribulations of Kaiji Ito, a man who is constantly self-destructive when it comes to money yet when put into life or death games of chance (with absurdly high financial payouts) is capable of seemingly impossible turnaround victories. On October 3, 2007 a TV anime adaptation of the first manga run (Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, which ran from 1996 to 1999) debuted on NTV under the name Gyakkou Burai/The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, and adapted the entire initial 13-volume run in 26 episodes. When I originally reviewed the Kaiji anime back in February 2011 the show was still only really available via fansubs, outside of a short-lived "blink & you'll miss it" official English subbed stream on Joost (yeah, that service didn't last long), with a second season adapting the second manga run soon to debut in Japan. However, in July 2013 Crunchyroll announced that it was adding both seasons of Kaiji to its catalog, followed by Akagi getting added later that September. Meanwhile, 2008's One Outs, which was done by much of the same staff at Madhouse, got ignored seemingly because it wasn't based on a Fukumoto manga; ironic, since now some of that Madhouse staff is reuniting for a Lair Game adaptation.

Then, in late 2020, Sentai Filmworks announced that it had licensed both seasons of Kaiji for home video release (alongside a streaming option on its own Hidive service), with a sub-only BD boxset collecting both seasons together coming out in April 2021. Later, at Anime Expo 2022, Sentai announced that it would be dubbing Kaiji into English (though the announcement never seemed to clarify just how much of it they were dubbing), with the dub coming out in chunks starting later that November. Hidive would eventually offer the dub for all of Ultimate Survivor by the end of 2023, but it would take until December 2024 for Sentai to give Kaiji a new home video release, this time a dual-audio BD box set containing only Ultimate Survivor; there has been no word as to whether or not Season 2 (Against All Odds) will get similar treatment. Still, while I did review Kaiji: Against All Odds shortly after it originally finished airing in September 2011, so it's technically not eligible for an RiR re-review, I can at least give Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor a new watch, this time via the English dub, and see if the praise I gave it in that original review remains true, over 14 years later.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 2

When comprising this list of license rescues for more "modern" releases, so to speak, I literally just went to the ANN Encyclopedia's list of "Video Releases" & looked through everything it had from 2010 to 2015. The end result, unsurprisingly, was initially a massive list of titles due to this being the era of FUNimation re-releasing tons of old ADV & Geneon titles under the S.A.V.E. label (though some did get the Anime Classics label) after both of those companies went under, Sentai Filmworks & Maiden Japan releasing a bunch of various anime from the 00s for the first time ever via DVD boxsets (so as to create a catalog, after ADV's demise), Discotek Media's rise into the fan favorite it currently is, and so on. Not just that, but some of the releases from this era have still managed to either stay in print or simply remain available for close to MSRP (hence why I didn't include something like Trigun or Matchless Raijin-Oh), while others at least have managed to stay available via streaming to this day (hence why I limited those to just three, across both halves). Simply put, A LOT of anime came out in the first half of the 2010s, and especially a lot of older titles that back in the day would have simply been ignored (hell, I even wrote a piece wondering if an "Era of Old-School" had come about back in 2012), so whittling a list that seriously initially totaled somewhere in the 30s to just 12(-ish) was a little tricky, but I think the ones I wound up with were some of the strongest picks I could find.

So let's start off the second half of the 14th license rescue with a title that, many would argue, should NEVER be unavailable in English... even if its licensing scenario is a bit convoluted.

Debuting back in 1989 in Fujimi Shobo's Dragon Magazine & originally running until around 2000, though it did return for a bit in 2018 & 2019 (plus various spin-off series from 1991 to 2011, & a bunch of manga), the light novel series Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka (story) & Rui Araizumi (art) is often considered one of the all-time greatest fantasy franchises to come from Japan. It details the adventures of Lina Inverse, a powerful but immensely vain sorceress, & her friends as they travel the world & take on all manner of evil... all while also being a bit of a zany comedy. Likewise, the various anime adaptations of Slayers are also cited as some of the greatest anime of all time, with the 1995 to 1997 trilogy of TV anime (Slayers, Slayers Next, & Slayers Try) specifically being mentioned. When it comes to English releases, Central Park Media initially started releasing the first Slayers TV anime from 1996 to 1998 on both VHS & LD, with Next & Try later coming out in 1999 & 2000, respectively; Fox Kids even planned on airing the show on TV, but found it too much work to edit for TV standards. All three shows would then get re-released on DVD in the early 00s, before CPM's rights seemingly expired, resulting in FUNimation getting the license to Slayers TV in mid-2005, upon which all three seasons would get re-released via DVD boxsets in the late 00s, culminating in a "complete" boxset containing all three seasons in mid-2009.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 1

Time is never ending, always moving, and we are helpless against it. When it comes to anime fandom it means that those who stick with the medium for the long haul will only get older over time, while new & younger fans get created & discover things for themselves. Simultaneously that also means that what was once a brand new release will, inevitably, become old, outdated, & even go out of print, possibly never to be seen again once it sees release (or even re-release). I bring this up because at the end of this year The Land of Obscusion will turn 15 years old, i.e. this place (like myself) is oooooooooooooooooooooold... at least in terms of fandom, because I'm not even 40 yet. However, that also means that there are now anime releases that while I was writing stuff for the blog in its earliest years were "new" are now long out of print... which means that they're now eligible for the license rescue list! Therefore, let's look at 12(-ish) anime that were last released in North America between 2010 & 2015, i.e. the first five years of the blog's life, that are now out of print (& on the more expensive side to get, if not absurdly so), could benefit from a new release in some way beyond simply being easily available & affordable again (new content to be offered, upgraded video quality, etc.), and (aside from three) aren't even available via streaming right now.

Do any anime fans 15 years or younger even read this blog? Maybe, maybe not, but it's time I make the majority of the people who actually do read my ramblings feel old!

The mangaka collective known as CLAMP is one of the most beloved groups in all of manga, and while the members of CLAMP have changed throughout the decades the quality of their work has (for the most part) remained relatively high. They truly made their name throughout the 90s with titles like RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon, Magic Knight Rayearth, X, & Angelic Layer, so by the early 00s they were already essentially legends when they debuted ×××HOLiC in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine in early 2003. Pronounced simply as "Holic", as the x's are meant to represent the various "holics"/addictions that people can be found as having, the manga follows Kimihiro Watanuki, a high school student who can see various spirits & the like, something he finds very intrusive in his life. After finding a mysterious shop run by Yuko Ichihara, a seeming witch who can grant wishes, Watanuki asks Yuko to grant his wish of removing his ability to see spirits. Yuko accepts, but only if he works for her as her assistant, which in turn results in Watanuki being sent on various jobs involving the supernatural. ×××HOLiC is also strongly connected to another manga CLAMP debuted in 2004, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, mainly by way of the latter's deuteragonist, Syaoran. The ×××HOLiC manga technically ended in 2011, after 19 volumes, but in 2013 CLAMP debuted ×××HOLiC Rei, a sequel that hasn't gotten anything new since Volume 4's release in 2016, though CLAMP seemingly still considers ×××HOLiC Rei as simply being on hiatus, not outright halted; both manga series have been fully released in English, initially by Del Rey Manga, & later by Kodansha Comics.

Souten Kouro: “Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao Arrives”

Born sometime in 155 AD/CE in Qiao County, Pei state (now Bozhou, Anhui), Cao Cao was a purported descendant of Cao Shen, a Western Han statesman, & the son of Cao Song, who had managed to buy himself into the position of Grand Commandant for less than half a year under Emperor Ling, with some accounts stating that buying political offices with money was a policy that Ling had allowed during his reign. Growing up Cao Cao was known to be very perceptive & even manipulative, though some also didn't regard him too well as a child, due to his habit of roaming about on his own & not caring much for what others hand in mind for him. At one point Cao Cao visited Xu Shao, who was known for his ability to "appraise" others, and while Xu Shao initially refused to appraise Cao Cao he eventually relented, with there being two versions of what he said: Either "You're a treacherous villain in times of peace and a hero in times of chaos," or "You'll be a capable minister in times of peace, and a jianxiong in times of chaos," with a jianxiong being one who is willing to do anything to succeed (or, in literary terms, an antihero). This assessment would effectively describe the man Cao Cao would become in life, especially during the events that would lead to the creation of the Three Kingdoms of China, as while he was immensely loyal to those who trusted in him he was also one who showed no hesitation in screwing over others if it meant he could find benefit from it. As Cao Cao is quoted as saying in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, "I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me."

In the end, though, Cao Cao would not live to see the actual era of the Three Kingdoms, as he would pass away on March 15, 220 at the age of 66, having been promoted by Emperor Xian as "King of Wei" four years prior, though still working as a vassal of the Han dynasty. It would be Cao Cao's second son, Cao Pi, who forced Xian to abdicate the throne a little less than a year after his father's death, resulting in the creation of Cao Wei, which in turn would lead to Liu Bei & Sun Quan announcing the official formation of Shu Han & Eastern Wu, respectively. Wei's ultimate fate would come in 266, when Cao Huan (the fifth & final Emperor of Wei, & Cao Cao's grandson) abdicated the throne to Sima Yan, resulting in the formation of the Jin dynasty that eventually reunited China.

When it comes to Romance, Cao Cao is always portrayed as the primary antagonist of the story, as while he's not a "villain" his actions & worldview make for a direct clash with Liu Bei's more idealistic & benevolent nature, or Sun Quan's focus on honor & family. However, it is important to remember that Romance is a fictionalized take on the actual historical source text for what happened back in the day, Records of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou... so how would the story of the Three Kingdoms work out if one was to rely more on Records than Romance? In 1994 that would come about when the editor-in-chief for a manga artist calling himself "Gonta" asked "Why don't you try to depict Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a Broadway musical?", and while Gonta was a fan of stories detailing Chinese heroic legends, & knew of ancient China, he knew nothing about Romance. Gonta decided to give Romance a read but was put off early on by all of the embellishments, deciding instead to read Records, upon which he essentially decided "If you're going to embellish, then at least make it interesting". Therefore, with help from Korean writer (& former film director) Hagin Yi, the now King Gonta debuted Souten Kouro/Beyond the Heavens in the pages of Kodansha's Morning magazine in late 1994, a manga adaptation of the life of Cao Cao that took primarily from Records of the Three Kingdoms, but also some elements from Romance as well as the occasional original embellishment by Gonta & Yi; Gonta has admitted that making Cao Cao the main character was Yi's idea. Sadly, Hagin Yi would pass away from liver cancer on September 22, 1998, leaving King Gonta to continue making Souten Kouro on his own, and in late 2005 the manga came to an end after 409 chapters across 36 volumes, winning the Kodansha Manga Award for General Manga (alongside Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji) in 1998, the same year Hagin Yi passed away.

On April 8, 2009 a TV anime adaptation of Souten Kouro done by Madhouse debuted on NTV, replacing baseball/gambling anime One Outs, and in fact was produced by the same companies that had produced Madhouse's unofficial trilogy of gambling anime, i.e. VAP, NTV, & D.N. Dream Partners (Kaiji & One Outs only for that last one). The Souten Kouro anime would also be the final production ever directed by venerated animator Toyoo Ashida (Fist of the North Star, Vampire Hunter D OVA), & be Ashida's penultimate anime in general, before passing away in mid-2011 at the age of 67. So, after having reviewed various anime adaptations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms throughout this year, with the majority putting the focus on Liu Bei as the primary focal point (and one technically focusing on Wu), let's bring it all to an end with the sole anime Romance adaptation that dared to look at things from the perspective of probably the most divisive man of the era, Cao Cao of Wei. Yes, I know that there's one other direct anime adaptation of Romance, but there is no complete English translation for it yet... and I honestly feel like I've experienced more than enough anime Romance in a single year.