Rokudenashi BLUES 1993: Kansai Calling to the Faraway Sons...

Masanori Morita is probably the biggest-name Shonen Jump mangaka you likely never heard of.  The man started as an assistant to Tetsuo Hara (of Fist of the North Star fame), and in early 1988 he debuted as a mangaka with the title Rokudenashi BLUES ("Rokudenashi" roughly translates to "Good-for-Nothing"), which is essentially Jump's yankii/delinquent manga.  Rokudenashi is the story of Taison Maeda, a delinquent with a heart of gold who wants to become a pro boxer.  Unfortunately, Taison is not always the smartest guy, so he makes stupid mistakes like not knowing that there's an age limit to becoming a pro boxer or that he can't get into fights, which are normally attracted to him, or else his license can get revoked.  Ultimately, Rokudenashi BLUES is not so much a sports manga but rather a delinquent manga with some bits & hints of boxing added in at times.  Still, Rokudenashi debuted in the early days of Jump's "Golden Age", where the readership eventually surpassed that of 6 million due to the success of titles like Fist of the North Star, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Yu Yu Hakusho, & Slam Dunk, and the manga lasted throughout the entire era, ending in 1997 with a total of 42 volumes; just to explain, Jump's "Golden Age" effectively ended after Dragon Ball's end in 1995 (where readership dropped roughly half a million), followed by Slam Dunk's end in 1996 (where the readership dropped two million!), and nowadays Jump averages slightly above three million (which is where it was during the days of Ring ni Kakero & Dr. Slump).

Since then Morita continued on with the 24-volume manga Rookies, which followed a high school baseball team made up of delinquents whose dream was the reach Koshien, and now he's working of Beshari Gurashi, which is about up-and-coming comedians.  Even though Rokudenashi BLUES was very popular, it never received a TV anime adaptation, and with JoJo getting a TV anime this October Rokudenashi now becomes the longest Jump manga to never receive a TV anime; I can't say for sure if it's the longest manga in general to never receive a TV anime, though.  That said, it did get two anime movies.  The first one was a 30-minute feature in 1992 that adapted the beginning of the manga & was first shown during a Toei anime festival before getting a VHS release; this movie is pretty hard to find for someone who doesn't live in Japan & it never received a DVD release, but maybe one day I'll be able to see it.  The second movie came out the next year, is likewise called Rokudenashi BLUES 1993, and is a feature-length movie that also later received a VHS release, but likewise never received a DVD release.  It is unavailable in English, but is it worth hunting down?  Hell, is it even good for newcomers to the franchise?  Well, if you're the adventurous type then this is worth checking out.

Taison & his older brother Fujio left their home in the Kansai region a couple of years ago to live in Tokyo, partially for their own dreams but also due to the family business.  One day the two see a newspaper ad that is addressed to them, saying that their father is ill and it's signed by their little brother Youkou.  The two highly doubt that their father is sick but decide to take the trip, especially since Taison's school is already taking a field trip down to the Kansai region.  This trip, though, will force Taison to put some closure down regarding his family, his old friend Naoto Watanabe, and his ex-girlfriend Haruka, as well as make him put more faith in his relationship with his "kind-of-maybe" present girldfriend Chiaki.

The greatest asset to Rokudenashi BLUES is its cast, which is filled with zany-yet-relateable characters, all of which are memorable in some fashion.  Always backing up Taison are his best friends, Katsuji & Yoneji, who are seemingly willing to take bullets for their friend; Chiaki's best friend Kazumi is Katsuji's girlfriend & easily the biggest mouth of the group; Koheiji Nakata is the self-professed rival to Taison & is always ready to think up some plan to make Chiaki his, usually to the chagrin of his friends Hiroyuki & Hironari; Ioka is a rough teacher who is ready for any opportunity to catch Taison getting into a fight & potentially expel him, and for this trip he utilizes stool-pigeon Nakajima, a student who loves to toss his long hair around; Kondou is a friend to his students, who call him Masa-san, and during this trip accidentally gets the art teacher Ms. Asano to fall in love with him after forcefully stopping her manipulative ways with men.  All of these characters are just so memorable and always entertaining to watch, since they all mesh so well together, and this is part of the appeal of delinquent titles: The larger-than-life characters and their interactions.

But that's only the people from Teiken High School that are on the field trip!  There are plenty of other memorable characters in this movie, too.  From a rival school comes Shimabukuro, a true rival of Taison's who wants nothing but to defeat his rival, but when push comes to shove he's there to help Taison out.  Rounding out the story are the Kansai characters: Taison's ex Haruka is a fairly obvious opposite to Chiaki by being very outgoing and honest to her feelings whereas Chiaki is more quiet; Naoto is just as tough as Taison & harbors some bad feelings towards his friend since Taison never told anyone about the move to Tokyo except for him, and he wants some closure himself; Youkou is the youngest Maeda sibling and is the instigator of this whole family meeting, mainly so that he can get revenge on Taison for leaving his little brother unable to chase his dream of becoming a pro baseball player; finally, Monson is the patriarch of the Maeda clan, and is a monk who you don't want against you, as his sons readily know & become reminded of.  Yeah, the fights are cool to watch, but it's the characters that really sell this movie.

Just to clarify, this movie adapts what one can call the "Kansai Calling" story arc, which lasts from early in Volume 8 to early in Volume 10 (Volume 8 is titled "Kansai Calling").  Volume 8 itself is just the varied mini-adventures Taison & the gang get into during the trip, while fighting off some Kansai students who Taison accidentally got involved with, and the movie covers most of this stuff in the first 30 minutes.  The rest of the movie combines the two major stories told during this arc: The story behind Youkou & the story behind Naoto & Haruka.  By combining these stories, though, a couple of major changes are made, mainly in that the role of Kansai student Shibata, who kidnaps Youkou due to unresolved issues between him & Taison, becomes lessened due to the movie making Naoto the leader of the Kansai students, whereas Shibata was originally the leader in the manga and in the movie he becomes a second-in-command who loses that past of unresolved issues.  The other major change is that Nakata becomes slightly more involved in the abduction of Youkou, whereas in the manga he only has big importance during the Naoto/Haruka story.  I can understand the idea of combining the stories together, though, and it does work out pretty nicely storywise as well as adding something that the manga didn't have: An actual final fight between Taison & Naoto.  This fight is a very well done one at the end of the movie, and really works in ending any tension that they two had between each other due to Taison's move to Tokyo.

The movie was directed by Hiroyuki Kakudo, who is normally a storyboarder & episode director, but he does a really good job here, keeping the story moving with little to no points where the movie drags on.  The script was written by the duo of Shun'ichi Yukimuro (both Dr. Slump TV animes & the original Ashita no Joe anime) & Yoshiyuki Suga (B't X & also the original Rokudenashi BLUES movie), and like I said earlier these two did a great job in combining two otherwise unrelated stories into one, with only a few unfortunate losses.  The music is mostly comprised of really great old-school rock-style tunes, which really fit in with the style of Rokudenashi, so I must commend Kimio Nomura, whose only other anime credit seems to be the Tales of Phantasia OVA.  Both the character designs & animation direction were handled by Masami Suda, and he does a really good job adapting Morita's rough, tough-guy style into a softer anime style, but this is no surprise since Suda is the go-to man for this style of manga art (see Fist of the North Star & Zaizen Jotaro).  The opening theme is WILD SIDE OF ROCK'N ROLL by Diamond☆Yukai, credited as D.YUKAI, and it's a great, high-spirited rock song that complements the title just as well as the background music.  The ending theme is Niji no Kanata ni by Diamond☆Yukai, and is a slower-paced song that does a great job in calming the viewer down after the high-impact climax & oh-so-sweet ending.  There is also an insert song heard early on, Rokudenashi ni Love-Call by Sanae Harikawa (the voice of Chiaki), and it's inclusion is due to a music box that Chiaki gives Taison early on; the music box plays a quaint instrumental of the song and it work well for that use.

Even though this is the second movie, it uses a different cast from the original movie.  Taison is voiced by Hiroaki Hirata (Wild Tiger in Tiger & Bunny, Sanji in One Piece), and he does a great job both in Taison's super-rough moments as well as his calmer moments.  Naoto is voiced by Ryusei Nakao (Mayuri in Bleach, Freeza in DBZ), and he does a great in job in making Naoto first seem like a villian but then you realize that he's just a tough guy with some need for resolution.  Kazuki Yao voices Nakata, and he almost steals the show at times due to his appropriately over-the-top delivery that fits Nakata perfectly.  Ryo Horikawa voices Youkou, and he simply mixes together his Andromeda Shun voice with some hints of his more deeper-voiced performances fans recognize him by, and it really works.  Honestly, it would take too long to cover everyone, so I'll just end this by mentioning the likes of Hikaru Midorikawa (Yoneji), Tsutomu Kashiwakura (Katsuji), Tessho Genda (Ioka), Daisuke Gouri (Kondou/Masa-san), Yuusaku Yara (Fujio), & Shouzou Iizuka (Monson).

Rokudenashi BLUES 1993 is a great anime adaptation of the Kansai arc of the manga.  It tells the major parts of the story while giving it its own spin in some ways, making it worth watching if you've already read the scanlations of the manga that are out.  For newcomers its lack of English subs makes it a harder sell, but if you are willing to go that extra mile then this is worth hunting down, as there is a raw out there digitally.  Unfortunately, it's a really rough raw, with some fuzziness in the video, especially noticeable when paused, some extremely minor moments of tracking issues, some burns marks in the top-right corner near the end, and even a few moments where you see "Hi-Fi Video SP" in the top-left corner at the end.  Yes, this is a VHS rip, as there is no LD or DVD out for it, but you can definitely get better quality from a VHS tape.  Still, the chances of this getting a DVD release, even in Japan, looks to be slim, and the raw is still extremely watchable with very clear sound, so I say that it's worth the treasure hunt.

Tough (a.k.a. Shootfighter Tekken): Just Living Truly is a Battle

Tetsuya Saruwatari is a mangaka known for his crazy action mangas.  In North America Riki-Oh is known for its crazy violence & cult-classic live-action movie & Dog Soldier is known to be one of those titles that's so crazy-violent & insane that you'll either hate it or love it.  But the manga Saruwatari is most known for in Japan is Tough, which chronicles the battles that Kiichi Miyazawa ("Kiibo" for short) goes through in his goal to become the proper successor of Nadashin Shadow Style, a secret assasination art.  Recently it was announced that Tough will be ending soon, but I'm not going to be talking about that title, per se.  Rather, I'm focusing on the original title that Tough is a sequel to: Koukou Tekken-den Tough (officially translated as "High School Exciting Story Tough", even though it actually translates as "High School Iron Fist Legend Tough"), where Kiibo is a high-school student and training with his father, the previous successor of Nadashin Shadow Style.  In 2002, while the original Tough manga was finishing up, AIC & Spike (now a game company) teamed up and made a three-episode OVA based on the first major storyline in Tough.  How is this OVA and does it hold up roughly ten years later?  It's great and, yes, it definitely holds up.

Kiibo & his father Seiko (Kiichi calls him "Oton" for short) are training, with Kiibo repeatedly not being able to quite take on his father evenly.  What Kiibo doesn't know, though, is that Oton once fought the the legendary pro-wrestler Iron Kiba in a death match; Kiba had been taking on all sorts of fighters, from all ranges of styles, in order to prove the superiority of professional wrestling.  During the match Oton took out Kiba's left eye, and ever since then Kiba has been waiting for the right moment to get his revenge.  After getting into a scuffle with one of Kiba's wrestlers, Kiichi sees how tough and dangerous a pro wrestler can be, and Kiba puts a "target" on Kiichi by telling all fighters that if they can defeat someone who uses Nadashin Shadow Style then they can take on Kiba himself.

Almost right away you can tell what the main appeal of Tough is: Hardcore fighting, specifically of the grappling type; traditional fighting is still used, as there are palm thrusts, punches, & kicks, but the major focus is distinctly on grappling and submissions.  Kiichi has three main opponents, Kiyomasa Samon, Shingo "the Reader" Aoi, & Iron Kiba himself, and all three focus on grappling for a submission and/or slamming Kiichi into unconsciousness.  This OVA is also not afraid to be violent, as there are shots where hands are punched, resulting in the webbing between the fingers being busted open (complete with the bone showing), blood flows regularly in every fight, and even the submissions shown look downright painful to be in for even one second.  Luckily, the title also throws in a fair share of comedy, with Kiibo being sarcastic, his friends being blunt to the point of comical, & even the heavy use of blood is made fun of in an early scene in episode 2 where Yoshiki Takaishi, who was trying to kill Kiichi, forces a knife out of his side with his muscles, before realizing that the knife was keeping the blood in and a giant spray of blood spurts out, resulting in Kiibo calling an ambulance for Takaishi.  Of course, the comedy is only there to complement the rough fights, so I think it goes without saying that this title won't appeal to those who don't like violent fighting.

That's not to say that there isn't any character development, though.  Throughout the OVA you really do get a feel for what Kiibo's priorities are, Oton's stern but loving care for his son comes through really well, and you even get to understand Iron Kiba's motivations by the end.  There's also a sub-plot going on where a news reporter and her chief keep trying to get the full story between Kiba & Oton, but this plotline really doesn't go too far outside of giving some more detail behind some of the characters.  Still, Saruwatari knows that crazy fights can only go so far, and he does a great job at keeping the characters memorable and the story engaging.

One might wonder, though, if this OVA is good for newcomers or if it's solely for the fans.  Well, admittedly, some early parts are kind of glossed over; for example, Kiichi's friend Kuroda is shown to be a friend right away, and the fight that they had previously that resulted in them becoming friends is shown as a flashback for roughly one minute.  At the same time, though, there really aren't any slow moments in this title, as the pace maintains a good speed and never really goes into a lull.  I can't say for sure how long the Iron Kiba story arc lasts in Tough, and with the manga being 42 volumes long I can probably say that it's only the beginning, but even if a couple of parts do seem glossed over I still feel that this title would at least be a good introduction for newcomers; the original manga was partially brought over by Viz, but chapters were skipped over in the release, & scalations only go so far.  The Tough sequel manga, on the other hand, is generally caught up with what's out in Japan, so watching the OVA first and then going straight to the later Tough manga is probably the easiest way to get into this series.

Outside of the cool fights & pretty memorable characters another big selling point is the animation, which is just amazingly smooth & detailed.  AIC really put a lot of effort in making this title look amazing from an animation standpoint, and even now it still looks great.  Characters' faces get into crazy styles, brought to you by Fuminori Kizaki (director of both Afro Samurai animes), the fights are smooth & fast, even when submissions are locked in, and everything just looks amazing.  It's kind of shocking that this OVA was directed by someone who hasn't done that much overall direction, but Yukio Nishimoto (director of The Galaxy Railways, but generally a storyboarder & animation director) does a great job here.  The music is done by Kou Nakagawa, who did the music for Basilisk, Miami Guns, & Shonen Onmyouji, and he really brings about a Hollywood-esque feel to this OVA; the music just really sounds like something you would hear in a Hollywood action film, and it really works for this title.  There is no opening theme, but but the ending theme is Private Emotion by Lapis Lazuli (which was lead by Hiroshi Kitadani, of JAM Project & One Piece's We Are! fame), and much like Nakagawa's score Lapis Lazuli's hard rock style just fits perfectly with Tough.  In fact, they even did an insert song, Get Over the Limit, that fits in just as well; hard rock just works really well with Tough.

The cast also does a really good job, and I mean this for both the Japanese & English versions so I'll be listing both at the same time.  Kiibo is voiced by Mitsuo Iwata (Jay in Ehrgeiz, Mike Sounders in GaoGaiGar) & Mike Sinterniklaas (Guy in GaoGaiGar & founder of dubbing studio NYAV Post), and both actors pull off a similar style of Kiibo but with slight differences, with Sinterniklaas' version being a good bit more sarcastic & joking, while Iwata's take is more serious, but not much so.  Oton is voiced by Masakatsu Funaki (Fei-Long in Street Fighter II - The Motion Picture) & Dan Green, and both take are very similar; tough & deep, but still caring and soft on the inside.  Iron Kiba is voiced by Norio Wakamoto, who pulls off the role with no trouble, & Sean Schemmel...  Yeah, Kiba is voiced by Goku, but it's not like you wouldn't notice it, as Kiba sounds nothing like Schemmel's Goku.  I really like to be surprised by actors, & Schemmel's performance as Kiba really makes me glad to know that there is more to the man than just Goku (& Gaston from Berserk, since he did those characters in a similar style).  Shingo Aoi, Kiibo's second opponent, is voiced by Takehito Koyasu & Alvaro J. Gonzalez, and here is where I really have the say that I prefer Koyasu's performance; Koyasu makes Shingo sound crazy & psychotic, which is how he's portrayed somewhat, while Gonzalez's take sounds more like your usual bad guy, which Shingo really isn't.  The Japanese cast is rounded out by the likes of Tomokazu Sugita (Kuroda), Fumihiko Tachiki (Samon), & Miyuki Sawashiro, while the the English dub is rounded out by the likes of Tom Wayland (Kuroda & also ADR Director), Rachel Lillis, & David Moo.

The Tough OVA was licensed by CPM back in 2004, who released in an awkward way.  They renamed it as Shootfighter Tekken, likely to try to fool people into thinking it was related to the video game series, & the released it one episode at a time.  I can understand the reasoning behind doing one episode at a time, since each episode is 45 minutes long, meaning that it would either be one episode at a time or everything at once, but at the same time this title was always going to be a niche; it's action, but it's brutal & more of a MMA-style, which wasn't all that popular yet.  Nowadays, this title could be a bit of a cult hit, especially if you could get it on a channel like Spike (sheer coincidence with the company that helped make this OVA, right?).  CPM's translation was also a bit weird, as they called Nadashin Shadow Style "Nanshin Shadow Style", and they oddly subbed Kiichi's nickname as "Keybo" and not "Kiibo"; granted, the second thing is a bit of a nitpick, but the Nadashin/Nanshin thing is just weird, as this also applies to the dub & I think even Viz's manga release used the "Nanshin" translation.  Finally, for some reason only episode 3 features anamorphic widescreen video, while the other two are letteboxed;  oddly enough, it looks like Japan only got two DVDs (& VHSs) released, so I'm almost thinking that, somehow, Japan didn't get the last episode yet we did.  The good thing, though, is that this OVA is still downright cheap to purchase, as you can buy the complete collection release, which comes with a paper-thin artbox, brand new for only $10 online.

The Tough OVA is only going to appeal to a niche audience who likes brutal & crazy fights that don't go into the supernatural, but what you do get is an OVA with great production values that still stand up well ten years later, and the fact that it has both a great Japanese cast as well as a very impressive English dub it's well worth watching twice.  And if you're still hankering for more Tough you can always look for the sequel manga; it starts off with a big surprise regarding a main character and goes into a more MMA-focused direction, but it's still an awesome battle manga.

The Early Days of Late Night Anime Part 2: Good, Bad, Popular, Obscure... It's All Here!

In Part 1 we looked at Those Who Hunt Elves & Eat-Man, the original two "modern day" late night animes, and then looked at how TV Tokyo expanded on this concept by looking at what the Monday & Wednesday equivalents offered up through 1998.  Now in Part 2 we finish this look, and to start let's go back to the original Thursday 25:15 slot quickly...

While Hareluya II BØY & Maze TV were airing on Mondays & Wednesdays, respectively, the show that immediately followed Eat-Man was Hyper Police, which ran from April to September of 1997.  Really, Hyper Police is simply a forgotten title whose only real gem is likely the fact that Kenji Kawai did the music for it; Image Entertainment did license and release the entire show on DVD from 2002-2003, back when Image actually did anime somewhat regularly.  Okay, maybe if you're a big fan of half-human/half-animal people then you might be interested in this title, as the entire cast is done like that; the general fan ratings I can find seem to be above-average, too.  Following Hyper Police is VIRUS, known to the rest of the world as Virus Buster Serge, which ran from October to December of 1997.  Being a Masami Obari title Virus Buster Serge is generally known as something you'll likely either hate or at least enjoy somewhat for its "Obari-ness", though I don't think anyone really "loves" it, but if you are interested in checking it out it's still a big catalog title for Manga Entertainment: The DVD collection still seems to be in print, it's available digitally on PCs and consoles, and it even got TV airtime on SyFy's now-defunct late-night "AniMonday" block.  Whether being so readily available is a good thing comes down to personal taste...

While Virus Buster Serge generally has a mixed response, what came after it is generally a much more liked series: Outlaw Star.  Running from January to June of 1998 Outlaw Star got a big break in North America three years later in 2001 when it got TV airtime on Cartoon Network.  Even today, Outlaw Star is still fondly remembered, and Bandai Entertainment even admitted upon their bowing out of the industry that it was one of their best-selling animes of all time.  Honestly, though, even if the show ends up being forgotten to an extent as time goes on, I don't think it's insanely-memorable opening theme, Through the Night by Masahiko Arimichi, will ever be forgotten.  The original late night anime slot had only two titles during 1998, and after Outlaw Star came Shadow Skill - Eigi, the TV adaptation of Megumu Okada's battle manga of the same name; ANN says that it's a sequel to the two OVAs that predate it, but I can't confirm that.  Manga released the OVAs back in 2001, but the TV series wouldn't come over until 2005-2006, when ADV licensed and released it on DVD.  From what I've seen of it Shadow Skill is a really good action series, and it's still in print so if action tickles your fancy then I say go for this show.  After Shadow Skill was a non-anime series called face4/4, so maybe TV Tokyo was losing interest in late night anime at this point, or maybe they were trying something different, but either way at this point we get into 1999, so we'll stop here.

When TV Tokyo decided to expand on their late night anime venture, not only did they add more days, but they also made the Thursday slot into an hour-long block by having new anime air right afterwards, replacing non-anime show Model Factory.  This is the Thursday 25:45-26:15/1:45-2:15 AM slot, and it debuted with HAUNTED Junction, which aired from April to June of 1997; while the other time slots were showing six month-long shows, this slot went with a three month-long show.  HAUNTED Junction was licensed by AnimeVillage.com back in 1999 and released on VHS, followed by a DVD boxset release in 2000 when the company became Bandai Entertainment.  This anime mixed together school life with supernatural happenings, with the main characters being the Student Council who are supposed to handle all supernatural problems, all in a comical way.  Hell, this show even went into somewhat taboo territory for TV anime by featuring a main female character who is a shotacon, i.e. she's attracted to little boys.  I've generally heard good things about HAUNTED Junction, honestly, and it does sound silly enough to be entertaining.

After that came Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy, which aired from July to September of 1997.  This is the story of a boy named Techno, who has lived in a bomb shelter all his life, but when he decides to leave the shelter and join normal society, he instantly falls in love with Hitomi Matsuzawa, who he immediately calls "Daisy"...  Unfortunately, Techno is incredibly socially awkward and his actions do often reach stalker-ish behavior.  From what I saw of Daisy years ago, it's not a bad show by any means, but it definitely is about as awkward as it's main character is around the girl he blindly loves.  I will give the music two points, though: It's opening theme, Girl Friend by Side-One, is simply awesome (probably too awesome for this show), and it's ending theme, One More Chance by Yukie Nakama, was also used as the ending theme for Mega Man X4 in Japan, likely making it the only song to be featured by two completely unrelated anime & game titles in the same year.  Following Daisy was the return of the originator with Those Who Hunt Elves II, which told the continuing elf-stripping adventures and aired from October to December of 1997.  Starting off 1998 was AWOL-Absent WithOut Leave-, which aired from January to April...  Honestly, the less said about this abomination of an anime the better, as I already brought up what sucks about this title in my "Animes I'd Love to Review" list.

One of the quirky things about late night anime is that the difference between two shows in the same time slot can be so utterly massive.  Case in point: Sentimental Journey, a series of romantic stories which aired from April to June of 1998, which followed the (attempted) terrorist-fighting story of AWOL.  Sentimental Journey is an anthology show, with each episode starring a different female lead and their tale of first love; Media Blasters licensed and released it straight to DVD boxset back in 2004.  In yet another case of giving viewers something completely different, what followed Sentimental Journey was Night Walker - Midnight Detective, a mystery/horror show starring a private eye who is also a vampire which aired from July to September of 1998.  Though CPM treated it as a 12-episode TV series when they released it on DVD back in 2003, Night Walker TV was actually an eight-episode sequel to a four-episode OVA.  This anime is also fairly well-received from what I can tell, and I must admit that I do kind of want to check it out one day.  Finishing up 1998 for this time slot was another originator's return with Eat-Man '98, which aired from October to Decmeber.  Again, the original Eat-Man anime was 99% inaccurate to the original manga, so '98's focus was to be as accurate as possible, and this show did it by adapting four stories from the manga as well as creating two original stories, that may or may not have been co-written by mangaka Akihito Yoshitomi, which aimed at maintaining the style of the manga.  As a giant fan of the manga I do prefer '98 over the original anime, but both are so different in execution that I feel that watching only one is a disservice.  From what I could tell, the time slot only lasted for two more shows after Eat-Man '98: Legend of Himiko, which had a manga adaptation done by Oh! Great, & A.D. Police, the TV reboot of the Bubblegum Crisis spin-off OVA.  After that the trail completely ends, so I'm going to guess that the slot ended for the time being, at least for anime.

But what of the original time slot?  Did that ever return to anime after face4/4?  Why yes it did, though it didn't stay solely anime-related.  face4/4 ended in March of 1999 and was followed by Betterman, the odd-but-interesting spin-off of GaoGaiGar, which was then followed by Excel Saga, which I think needs no real introduction.  Excel took the slot into 2000 but was followed by SPORTS BEAT, another non-anime show. That didn't last too long, though, as the slot would get a solid stream of anime afterwards: Argento Soma (now mostly forgotten), NOIR (the original "girls with guns trilogy" show), Kokoro Library (an early case of a "moe" anime, or at least "cute girls doing cute things", and has yet to be licensed), & Aquarian Age.  At this point it was 2002, and following Aquarian Age was the second half of Shin Shutsudou! Mini-Skirt Police, another non-anime show.  After Mini-Skirt Police ended in September of 2003, though, the idea of the slot itself was moved over to Friday nights, ending roughly six years of (mostly) late night anime.

Naturally, though, TV Tokyo is not the only station to do late night anime, but most of the other stations didn't join in until a bit later.  NTV tried their hand at it from October 1997 to March 1998 with the Berserk TV anime, but didn't actually start doing late night anime normally until 2000.  Fuji TV did join the movement in 1998, but their treatment of the shows was generally considered rough, with fairly inconsistent placement that resulted in some weeks featuring two or even three episodes of a single show in a row, and in 2004 Fuji TV decided to stop doing late night anime in the "infomercial" style; in Spring of 2005, though, they debuted the noitaminA block, which is still running to this day.  TBS joined up in 1998 with their "Wonderful" block, which debuted with a re-airing of 1995's Ping Pong Club before debuting a new title with the hilarious Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoiyo, Masaru-san!, which shamefully remains unlicensed, and TBS still does some late night anime to this day.  TV asahi, though, is hard to find an actual start for, as this station mostly airs anime during more traditional time slots, and the earliest late night anime I can find for this station dates back to about 2003 or 2004; for example, Ring ni Kakero 1's first season in late-2004 was a late night anime for TV asahi, likely the second late night Shonen Jump anime after Hareluya II BØY, but before it was non-anime programming.


Just to clarify, I don't claim this to be 100% complete knowledge of the early days of late night anime.  I just thought it would be interesting to take a look at the first two years of a type of anime programming that many of us now rely on for new shows.  Within those first two years of TV Tokyo programming the only anime to be unlicensed is Hareluya II BØY, and even taking the entire timeline I could find into consideration the only other unlicensed anime is Kokoro Library.  Even from its start late night anime has been very essential to the North American anime industry, and I always feel that it's important to understand the beginnings of something before you can truly appreciate it.

The Early Days of Late Night Anime Part 1: TV Tokyo's Innovators & Experiments

Nowadays, seemingly most of the anime that airs in Japan is via late night airplay, i.e. from 23:00/11:00 PM-4:00 AM. Sure there are shows that air in the morning, prime time, & probably even some in the afternoon, but late-night is where anime has found a very consistent home. But there's one main reason why late night has been the home of anime for nearly 15 years: Home video sales. Though there was anime that aired in late night time slots before, like Sennin Buraku in 1963-1964, Lemon Angel in 1987, and Super Zugan in 1992, they were all titles aimed squarely at adult audiences who were likely to be up at those late hours in the first place. Late night anime as we now know it came about in the mid-90s with the end of the OVA boom that started up back in the mid-80s with Dallos; as less people bought anime that was specifically made for VHS & LD, anime studios had to think of a new way to get the attention of potential buyers.

Well, to make a complex story short & easy, otaku were watching late night televised radio programs done by seiyuu (commonly called "aniraji", a combination of anime & radio), so TV producers & anime studios thought that maybe that audience would be interested in watching anime made specifically for those late time slots, and therefore they would likely be interested in buying the home video release that would come out shortly after the show was fully aired. Essentially, the short OVA was expanded into a late night anime "infomercial", and it's been like that since 1997. But I'm not here to talk about the history of late night anime, especially since that requires going into anime that airs on UHF channels, subscription channels like WOWOW, and Pay-Per-View. Instead, just for the hell, of it I'm going to take a rough look at what aired in those first two years (i.e. 1997 & 1998), and I'm going to focus specifically on TV Tokyo's offerings, since they were the first to do late night anime as we know it. But in order to get started, we have to go back to late 1996, which is when the very first "modern-day" late night anime aired, and that title was...

Those Who Hunt Elves, which took the place of live-action variety show MEN-Ki, which starred comedian Unlucky Gotou.  Yu Yagami's story of three humans & one Type 47 tank that get transported to a world filled with elves whom they must strip in order to find the five fragments of the spell that can take them back home was the first late night anime of its kind, airing every Thursday from 25:15 - 25:45/1:15-1:45 AM...  And with such a ridiculous premise there's no way it could have ever aired on any other time slot, even if the stripping is more comical & not risqué at all.  TWHE aired from October to December of 1996, and after that ended in its place came a show that was nothing like it at all: Eat-Man, which aired from January to March of 1997.  I've brought up the original Eat-Man anime a couple of times on the blog, and it really seems more like, instead of wanting to adapt from a popular manga, director Koichi Mashimo had these short stories he wanted to tell, and Eat-Man's Bolt Crank was just the perfect figure that he could tell these stories through; an artistic & esoteric title like this wouldn't have ever been picked up for a normal time slot.  Now, while the show is excellent in its own way, this didn't really please fans of the original Eat-Man manga who wanted an actual adaptation, but it was still a reaction that meant that people were watching these brand-new shows, so naturally TV Tokyo decided to expand this whole late night anime idea by not only having something air after this time slot, but to also use this original time slot every Monday & Wednesday; from what I could find, late night Tuesday & Friday weren't used for anime yet.  Because of this we now get four slots to talk about, so let's start with what looked to be the shortest-lived slot, Wednesday.

From what I could find on Japanese Wikipedia, where most anime pages feature a neat table of what aired before & after it on TV in that time slot, TV Tokyo's Wednesday 25:15 slot didn't last long for anime, showing only three titles.  The first was Maze, the expanded 1997 retelling of the 1996 OVA about a girl who gets transported into a fantasy world and every night she turns into a lecherous man.  Again, this title likely wouldn't have been accepted in any other time slot and it was even longer than the two shows that predated it, airing from April to September of 1997.  After Maze would come Next Senki Ehrgeiz, which is still one of my most-read reviews (likely due to confusion over the name it normally goes by), and here is where we get a case of an anime that didn't really need a late night slot.  Yeah, Ehrgeiz's animation is low-budget, but nothing about the title itself really comes off as something that would have kept it from airing on a more traditional time slot; if anything, Gundam X's poor reception on TV Asahi just a year ago likely made TV Tokyo hesitant to put a mech anime on a similar slot, so Ehrgeiz went late night, airing from October to December of 1997.  Finishing this slot off is El Hazard: The Alternative World, the last entry in the El Hazard series, which aired from January to March of 1998.  In this case, putting the show on late night was likely done simply due to the fact that this was a sequel to the OVAs that pre-dated it, which themselves were an alternate telling of El Hazard: The Wanderers, which aired on TV back in 1995-1996.  At this point the series was already made for the otaku audience, so even if the content wasn't anything different from the normal time slots, the fanbase was watching at late night.

Unfortunately, there are no good pics of HARELUYA II BØY's video release, so a poster will do

TV Tokyo's Monday equivalent anime slot, which took the place of non-anime show Ganbaru!, did last for a bit longer, and here we finally see titles that were never licensed for release here in North America.  Just like Maze, the anime adaptation of Weekly Shonen Jump's HARELUYA II BØY aired from April to September of 1997, and is likely the very first Jump anime adaptation to air at late night.  Normally, Jump anime adaptations tend to be very friendly to traditional time slots, but HARELUYA is essentially a delinquent title, and I honestly think that HARELUYA is the only delinquent anime TV series, since other big delinquent titles like Rokudenashi BLUES & Crows only went as far as anime movies & OVAs; yeah, Beelzebub can also be considered a delinquent title, but Beelzebub is also a gag title, which does get regular time slots.  Also, HARELUYA is a great example of how late night anime also acted as great promotion for music artists; Eat-Man did it first by having opening footage that was literally nothing but credits while the opening theme played, but HARELUYA took it the next step by not only having it's opening theme, both ending themes, and six (!) insert songs all be by the same group, but the first ending's video footage was literally nothing but the actual group playing their song, music video-style; luckily, after about three episodes or so, the producers realized how silly this was and decided to have the first half of the footage be scenes from the episode that played, leaving the music video for only the second half, and the second ending theme footage was all about the show.  Right after HARELUYA II BØY came the Vampire Princess Miyu TV series, which aired from October of 1997 to March of 1998.  I haven't seen this show myself, but hopefully the show used its late-night slot to maintain some of the darker elements that the original OVA seemed to have; the fact that it was directed by Toshiki Hirano, the same man who directed the original OVA, should only help it out.  After Miyu came Nazca, which aired from April to June of 1998, was licensed and released in North America by Geneon Entertainment back in 2000 (when they were still Pioneer), & was promptly forgotten.  Already it's getting kind of obvious that the Monday slot was used for more experimental stuff, and what came after Nazca just proves it all the more.

Yeah, the psychological series serial experiments lain aired in this Monday time slot, airing from July to September of 1998, and is likely the most well-known title that has come from this slot.  I think many people know about lain, so I don't think I need to talk about it, so instead let's move on.  It's kind of hard to follow off of lain, but St. Luminous Mission High School more than likely tried, airing from October to December of 1998...  What, you never heard of St. Luminous Mission High School?  I can't blame you if you haven't, as it has easily one of the most generic titles in the history of anime; I haven't seen it myself and, from what I can tell, it's essentially a harem anime that mixes in a missing person mystery.  It also features an extremely early song from Ali Project as its ending theme, though you wouldn't know it at first listen since it sounds nothing like what an Ali Project song has sounded like for the past, oh, ten years.  Really, listen to it for yourself and see how weird it is to hear Ali Project sound "normal".  From what I could tell, the Monday slot would continue into 1999 with Space Pirate Mito, season 1 of Jubei-chan - Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch, and then Season 2 of Space Pirate Mito (released in North America under the title Aoi & Mutsuki: A Pair of Queens), before I literally saw a "?" after Mito Season 2.  So I'm going to guess that this Monday slot, with all of its experimental titles, also saw its end after October of 1999, when Mito Season 2 ended.

And that ends Part 1 of this look at how "modern-day" late night anime got its start.  Out of what was covered only two titles never saw a North American release, and in Part 2, which will focus on what came directly after Those Who Hunt Elves & Eat-Man on Thursdays, we're going to see that we honestly got most of these early entries in late night anime.  Remember, late night anime didn't exactly become a big thing yet and, for the most part, TV Tokyo was alone in doing this for the first two years, which is why I decided to focus on 1997-1998.  See you in Part 2.