Generation of Chaos III ~Toki no Fuuin~: Here's How We Roll Down South!

Funny how the logo uses "III", but the katakana uses "3", huh?

Released in April of 2003, Generation of Chaos III ~Toki no Fuuin/Seal of Time~ marked some changes (both present & future) in the Neverland series of Idea Factory games.  It was the first to not take place on the traditional continent that all of the previous games had taken place on, instead taking place on the Old Continent to the South, it was the last game in the GOC series to feature a traditional RPG mode (from GOC IV on the focus would be on the simulation mode), & it was the last game in the series to get a prologue OVA, which came out in December.  Luckily, it's the best of the GOC OVAs, mainly because it actually focuses on telling a story.

The Kingdom of Radia had been the ruler of the Old Continent for quite some time, but that would all change when the Kingdom of Zenon decided to go against them, promising things like "freedom" & "equality" (though, in reality, it was more of a military state).  Though Radia originally was able to fight them off, Zenon eventually started getting the upper hand, even injuring Radia's king to the point of near-death in battle, and Radia has been forced onto the small Nordic Island.  Prince Alfeld Falbrosse was visiting the grave of a friend who died in battle when a small group of assassins try to kill him, but Wells Middle, another of Alfeld's friends, helps save the prince.  Together with Teefa, Wells' sister, Alfeld & Wells have to lead Radia after the king dies in bed...  And the discovery of the resting place of a sealed power by Rare Burtoning, one of Radia's commanders, might be the starting point of the kingdom's comeback.

Whereas the previous two Generation of Chaos OVAs were nothing but blatant promotion for their respective games, GOC III goes one step further & actually focuses on telling an complete introduction story.  The first episode (or "Session", as the OVA calls them) focuses on introducing the main characters as well as giving a scene to Onyx Oddnel, the Zenon commander who lead the failed assassination attempt, to help give an actual identity to each of these characters.  Whereas the other GOC OVAs would simply stop at this episode, which ends with the king's death & Alfeld rallying the troops, GOC III has a second episode which introduces Rare and focuses on a raid on a Zenon-owned castle that Radia needs in order to start searching for the sealed power.  This second episode alone gives the story much more meat to it than the barely-there introduction of the previous two stories, as it allows the characters to be shown in more than simply a case of "Hi, we're the main characters".  The raid scene also gives some actual action & battle, which was sorely lacking in the previous two OVAs, not to mention some surprising amount of blood spurts (Odd, considering how the Neverland games are all about war & battle, right?).  Strewn among these episodes, though more in the second, are little hints at a larger story, which works nicely as a way to remind people that the game will answer these questions.

The characters themselves are also much more interesting than the previous leads.  Alfeld is a very smart individual, knowing his place as a benevolent prince (& later king) but also wanting to be a leader in battle, while Wells is more of an instinctual person, & the resulting chemistry between the two feels very natural; granted, Roze barely got any showing but these two put Erile to shame.  Teefa & Rare are more simple in their personalities, Tifa being the simple but caring mage & Rare being the battle-hardened female commander, but even they end up having more personality than the likes of Roji & Lifile.  Onyx, & his lover Myuri, get the least amount of focus in this OVA, but Onyx makes his presence felt by the end, & Myuri helps bring about the cliffhanger that, appropriately, ends this OVA off with a sense of "Play the game to continue".  This is still a prologue OVA, afterall, but the fact that an actual story is told here still makes it more worthy of watching than GOC Prologue or GOC Next: Chikai no Pendant.

The animation itself is still limited in most moments (again, Idea Factory is a game company first), but overall it still exceeds that of the other OVAs.  The backgrounds are still mostly CG, but the animation here just looks very nice, blending in well enough with the backgrounds (though there are still some moments where the CG distracts), and it's honestly kind of hard to tell if the animation itself is cel animated or if it's digital, or if the digital-ness just hides itself well, which is a much-needed improvement over GOC Next's obvious digital style.  The music is also obviously taken from the game, but this time the music is much more fitting & simply better overall; people who played GOCIV on the PSP will also recognize the battle music being used during the raid scene.  The opening & ending themes are both performed by Sae, who is simply an excellent singer & her songs just blend in with this world perfectly.  The OP, Wing, is a nice, upbeat song that really showcases Sae's singing ability, & the ED, Discover, is a slower song that works well as an uplifting song of hope.  Episode 1 also features an insert song, Hechitashiho by Sae, that's played during the short flashback that shows how Wells & Alfeld's friend died in battle, and it's different in style from the OP & ED by being a very slow & more somber piece, fitting for the scene it's used in.

The cast is also worth mentioning, as they all pull off solid performances.  Alfeld is played by Daisuke Ono (Midorima in Kuroko's Basketball, Cancer Manigoldo in Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas), who plays the character perfectly by mixing together benevolence & leadership while also being more laid-back when needed.  Teefa is played by Ai Shimizu (Suzuka in Nanoha, Mitsuki in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere), who does a fine job as the inexperienced but helpful young mage.  Reah is played by Yuka Shioyama (Kiwi in One Piece, Claire in Ar Tornelico), who likewise does a fine job as the experienced warrior.  Onyx is played by Tetsu Inada (Todou in Zaizen Jotaro, Mr. 1 in One Piece), who at first sounds a little too old for the character, but the more you hear him the more he sounds just fine.  The best performance, though, comes from Kenji Nojima (Jade/Jaeger in Kinnikuman Nisei/Ultimate Muscle, Michiru Shinba in SKET Dance), who plays Wells.  Nojima simply puts in a ton of energy into Wells, whether he's being serious, laid-back, or even sad, and that makes Wells comes off as the best character in the entire OVA; it's easy to see why Wells is the only character from GOC III to be featured in a multi-company crossover title by Idea Factory (2006's Chaos Wars [released in North America in 2008]), and Nojima's energy-filled performance is one of the big reasons.

It's no contest: Generation of Chaos III ~Toki no Fuuin~ is the best of the Generation of Chaos OVAs, bar none.  In fact, it could likely be the best anime production to come from Idea Factory, with it's memorable characters (Wells, especially), original setting (no other Neverland game has since taken place in the Old Continent), & actual focus on telling a proper introduction story rather than simply showcase some characters & hope it gets people interested in playing the games.  Out of the original three GOC entires, GOC III is the one I wish we got the most, as it no doubt refined the gameplay styles the original two games featured to its best version before getting changed to how GOC IV & V played, and the story does seem like the most interesting one of them all.  In fact, from what I could tell, GOC III is the most well-liked & received of the first three GOC games.  This game (& Wells' appearance in Chaos Wars) wouldn't be the last time this entry would be seen, though.  In September of 2007 Idea Factory released on the PS2 Generation of Chaos Desire, which was a remake of GOC & GOC Next but with the gameplay style of GOC V.  Two months later the game was ported to the Xbox 360 under the title Apocalypse: Desire Next.  Not only did this port receive an extra "Apocalypse" story but a remake of GOC III, using this new style, was released as DLC for the game.  In terms of OVAs, though, GOC III marks the end of this series in animated form, but this isn't the end of Idea Factory animes featuring "of Chaos" in the title...

Generation of Chaos "Double Feature": Prologue to Somethings(?)

I remember when seemingly everyone hated Idea Factory...  Less than ten years ago many RPG fans outside of Japan loved calling them horrible developers who made nothing but "shovelware"-esque crap, and seemingly were ready to rip apart anyone who actually liked their games.  Now, Idea Factory has been able to "redeem" themselves through titles like the Record of Agarest War & Hyperdimension Neptunia series, and the North American release of Hakuoki has shown people that they definitely know their visual novels.  Personally, though, I've always been a fan of Idea Factory, even when everyone else hit them like a piñata.

Idea Factory was founded in late-1994 by ex-Data East employees & would enter the video game business proper with early 1996's adventure game Yaku: Yuujou Dangi, but they didn't really make their mark in the industry until late-97's Spectral Force, the debut title in Idea Factory's Neverland series (not to be confused with the Peter Pan world).  Neverland is a world that is in seemingly-continual war & the most expansive of Idea Factory's creations, featuring numerous games, stories, characters, lore, & backstory.  Spectral Force's main appeal was that it was the spiritual successor to 1996's Sega Saturn cult-classic Dragon Force by J-Force, a tactical RPG where the player commanded full-on armies into battle (IF was able to get some of the people from J-Force at this point, hence the similarities between games).  Long story short, the Neverland series was IF's main money maker in their first few years, but IF wasn't content with just making games...  They wanted to make their company a multimedia force.

And now we finally get to the point of this post: Idea Factory anime.  In late-1998 IF released their first anime production, a two-episode OVA based on Spectral Force, which ADV actually licensed & released in North America in the early-00s on VHS & DVD (IF's first "entry" into North America).  IF would continue making their own anime up through 2005, with almost all of them being made simply for the sake of promoting their games.  With the advent of digital fansubbing most of these Idea Factory animes have been subbed and with the IF/Sting collaboration PSP game Generation of Chaos (6): Pandora's Reflection being released in North America this week I think it's a good time to take a look at some of these titles, starting with a "Double Feature"!

In 2001 Idea Factory brought Neverland to the Playstation 2 with a new series, Generation of Chaos.  To go with that IF made a DVD called Generation of Chaos Prologue, which told two short stories that would act as an intro for people who would be interested in the new game.  The first story is about Chiffon, a young man who was once the legendary champion at monster fighting (a Pokémon-eqsue tournament), but once he hit 14 he started to become unable to talk to & command his monsters; now he's down to just one, a gigantic hiyoko bug, and instead of putting it down he wants to take it to a forest where it can roam free.  Taking a break in a large town outside of the forest Chiffon decides to get his hiyoko a snack, but when the hiyoko goes crazy it's up to Chiffon to stop it.  The second story is about Roze, young female mazoku/demon who lives with her little human sister Emilia and works in the local town as a seamstress.  While working one day she notices smoke coming from her house, and when she hurries home she sees nothing but a massive fire, and Emilia is dead inside.  An armored demon named Ashley Roff tells Roze that humans who fear demons did this to her home & that in order to stop any more suffering she must rise up & fight.

As prologue stories go Generation of Chaos' aren't too bad.  Chiffon's story is a little simple & silly, but it works as a story of maturing & starting a new page in one's life; the idea that only kids can command monsters also makes for an interesting jab at Pokémon.  Roze's story is also simple but it does a good-enough job at getting her involvement in the GOC story out there.  Unfortunately, these two stories are in no way properly balanced, with Chiffon's taking up most of the 25 minute-ish timeframe, and Roze's barely covers a third of the total time.  The even odder thing is that, for those who don't know, Chiffon is a major player in Spectral Force's story, as he is the warrior who defeats the Demon Overlord Janus & starts the First Neverland War, which is what the Spectral Force series covers.  GOC, on the other hand, covers the Second Neverland War that happens roughly 20 years after the first war ended, so seeing a story about a young Chiffon here is a little odd, especially since it overshadows the story of the actual main character of GOC, Roze.

Another thing to bring up is that, since Idea Factory is a game company first & foremost, the animation itself isn't the most ideal.  Chiffon's story is made up of nothing but foreground animation in front of CG backgrounds, and the CG itself looks like how one would think early-PS2 CG would look, i.e. it doesn't age all to well.  Roze's story is all traditional animation, though, and holds up somewhat better, but this OVA wasn't exactly made to be a looker.  Overall, Generation of Chaos Prologue is okay, but I do wish that it actually focused more on the actual main character of the game rather than put more focus on a character that wouldn't even be as young as he is shown in his story.

Like most of the Neverland games, Generation of Chaos was a success, so in 2002 Idea Factory released a sequel, the number-less Generation of Chaos Next.  Though it is technically a sequel to the original GOC, Next stars a brand-new cast & tells a new story rather than simply continue off of where Roze's story left off.  Erile is a young knight-in-training in the Fredbarn Empire in the northern part of the New Neverland Continent, and he has a nice friendship with Roji, the princess.  Erile & Roji's feelings turn into love for each other, which means that Erile would end up becoming king if the two marry, but Lifile, the captain of the guard, disapproves of this relationship.  Lifile feels that Erile is too weak & inexperienced to become king and he encourages Erile to stop their relationship.

GOC Next's prologue, subtitled Chikai no Pendant/The Pendant of Promise, is nice in that it's all about one story, which allows it to actually develop slightly before ending, but overall the story just isn't as good.  Erile & Roji being in love isn't a problem, but the idea of Erile becoming king isn't even brought up until Lifile mentions it to Roji, and her answer is essentially a non-answer.  When Lifile brings up being king to Erile, he just gives a very simple "I'll learn alongside Roji", which isn't exactly a good answer to warrant one becoming king.  It all comes to a head when an invading army comes to Fredbarn, and with Erile realzing that he still has a way to go before being worthy of Roji he tells her that it's just not going to work right now before heading into battle.  Unfortunately, Erile's mind is still on Roji during battle, and when Lifile tells Erile to leave, that's exactly what Erile does!  Really, the idea of a main character running away from his problems isn't exactly encouraging one to play the game.  Interspersed within the OVA are a trio of flash-like shorts called Poro & Saemon, which revolve around a girl named Poro & her robot doing nothing much outside of being blown up; my guess is that Poro is in Next's game story, but these shorts are useless.

As for the animation, GOC Next is an odd duck, featuring another mix of traditional animation in front of CG backgrounds, but while the original GOC OVA looked like older-style animation, Next definitely is all digital, resulting in the OVA looking sharper but not quite as "natural".  The fact that the animation also cheapens out more than in the first OVA, or at least it doesn't hide it quite as well, doesn't help either.  Overall, GOC Next isn't quite as good as the first GOC OVA, both in animation quality as well as actual prologue story.

In terms of music, the two are very similar in that they both sound like video game music, and I'm 100% positive that they are video game music; nothing really bad, but nothing really memorable.  At the very least, both OVAs feature great opening & ending themes; GOC's OP, The Place of Happiness by Nana Mizuki, & ED, Kono Sora no Mukou by Mami Kingetsu, are both memorable songs, with the opener being a fast-paced J-Pop song worthy of repeat listens & the ending being a nice slow piece; GOC Next's OP, Love & History by Nana Mizuki, is similar to Mizuki's previous song by being another fast-paced production, though not quite as good as GOC's, & the ending, We Will ~Bokutachi no Eien~ by Junko Noda, being a somewhat more generic J-Pop song, but it works well enough.  Rounding out the cast across both OVAs are the likes of Yuka Imai (Chiffon), Mami Kingetsu (Roze), Junko Noda (Erile), Nana Mizuki (Roji), & Hiroshi Kamiya (Lifile).

It's easy to see why I put these two Generation of Chaos OVAs into a single "Double Feature" post, and that's because neither of them are really worth reviewing on their own.  I can't really say anything about the games themselves, because I've never played either of them due to a lack of English translation, but these prologue OVAs aren't exactly anything amazing.  GOC was able to get my interest slightly, but that's because the stories told in its OVA do a nice job at focusing on "less is more", whereas GOC Next's prologue really didn't do much in making me care about its story.  A shame, too, because I enjoyed playing Idea Factory's fighting game Spectral vs. Generation (co-developed with Chinese developer AMI), and that game shows off some nice bits of extra character; for example, Erile supposedly gains a spirit-like being that helps him in battle, similar to a Stand in JoJo or a Soul in Shaman King, and the Next OVA gives no indication of that ever happening.  Also, the GOC OVA includes a promo for the actual game, showcasing a "simulation mode" that's likely similar to the army battling gameplay that GOC becomes known for from the fourth game on as well as a "RPG mode" that is more like a traditional J-RPG, but featuring a fast-paced battle system that looks similar to that of Valkyrie Profile.  The games sound way more interesting than these OVAs, so I'm not sure if I can call these "successes" in their goal of getting people interested in playing these games.

Like I said, I've been a fan of Idea Factory for a number of years, and before NIS America released the PSP port of GOC IV in 2006 I had been interested in playing some of their games strictly because of these two OVAs, especially after seeing the very nice character designs & serious fantasy world.  Yeah, seeing them again these two OVAs aren't anything great (in fact, GOC Next's is pretty below-average), but they did get me interested in this company, and all these years later I'm still a fan, having purchased, and enjoyed, games like Chaos Wars, Generation of Chaos (IV), Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos (V), & Spectral Force 3, among others.  That's not say that I'm done with looking at Idea Factory anime, though...  Not by a long shot, especially since there is one more Generation of Chaos OVA out there.  Luckily, though, this next one is two episodes, allowing for an actual story to be told.

Twelve Older Animes That Deserve License Rescues... Overloaded!! Part 2

Now it's time for Part 2 of this license rescue list, so let's get right into with more Urban Vision!

Much like how Fist of the North Star has seemingly had a bit of a resurgence in popularity, something similar could be argued for Golgo 13.  Sentai Filmworks surprised many by licensing the first half of the 2008-2009 TV series, not to mention dubbing it, and promised to do the second half if sales were good.  Even more surprising was when Sentai later confirmed that they would be doing the rest, though the unfortunate earthquake & tsunami Japan suffered delayed the arrival of materials.  Alongside Golgo TV, though, was Discotek Media licensing The Professional: Golgo 13, the very first anime adaptation of the famed sniper.  A 1983 movie directed by the legendary Osamu Dezaki, The Professional was also groundbreaking for being one of the first anime to use 3D CG; sure, it was a horrible-looking helicopter, but it was still groundbreaking.

The focus of this entry, though, is the 1998 OVA "sequel", Golgo 13: Queen Bee.  While not considered quite as good as the original movie, Queen Bee is still considered a solid Golgo production, and UV's dub for it even features some interesting cast choices, like John DiMaggio (Bender in Futurama, Marcus Fenix in Gears of War) voicing Duke Togo himself.  I am fairly confident that as long as The Professional sells well for Discotek (the fact that it's the best release the movie has ever gotten should help) they will evetually do Queen Bee, but I do hope they announce it soon...  This OVA goes anywhere from $20-$65+ over at Amazon right now!

Here's another d-rights title, but this wasn't originally released by Bandai, so it gets its own spot on the list.  ADV was always a company known to try out some risky titles, and while some of them did gain a fervent fanbase that didn't always equal sales, and that's what happened to Princess Nine.  This 1998 TV series was about Ryo Hayakawa, the daughter of a legendary pitcher, who hopes to lead her high school's baseball team all the way to Koshien, proving that girls can be just as good at the sport as guys, if not better.  I personally remember hearing tons of praise for this show back when I was first really getting into anime, which apparently also had a great dub, and I have wanted to check it out.  Unfortunately, getting it all for a good price back then, let alone now, is tricky.

The six singles ADV originally released vary in price from pretty cheap (~$5) to pretty expensive (~$60), but in an age of boxsets buying singles isn't as attractive anymore.  The good news is that there is a boxset for the show...  The bad news is that it is insanely overpriced on the second-hand market, ranging from $70-$180!  Yeah, I know that sports anime is essentially dead-on-arrival anytime one is released here in North America, but considering that this show already has good subs, a supposedly good dub, and even a group of fans that would likely love doing some free promotion so that others might get interested in checking it out I would say that Princess Nine at least has some things going for it.  Glad that I'm one of those weirdos that doesn't really watch sports, yet is perfectly fine with watching sports anime, right?  I mean, honestly, I have not been able to find any good, solid, & definitive reason why sports anime is such a money drainer here in North America, especially since CrunchyRoll seems to do well with them.

Remember when I mentioned that there would be another "bad-good" entry?  Well, here it is, and boy is this an infamous one.  Originally released slowly from 1989 to 1994, Angel Cop was the creation of Shou/Noboru Aikawa & Ichiro Itano, while also involving other known names in the industry, like Nobuteru Yuuki (character designs) & Yasuomi Umezu (animation director), and the end result was a hyper-violent sci-fi story of a lethal special forces unit, with some pretty harsh words in regards to other countries & religions.  I think Justin Sevakis (who "suggested" this in the same way Zac "suggested" Dracula in Part 1) said it best in his Buried Garbage article:
"To date, I have not heard either of them talk about this title or their reasons for making it, but most people would find their original intentions to be pretty offensive. In the end, it's discovered that the top levels of Japanese government have sold out to the Jews that took over America, and having successfully plundered Vietnam and Iraq for the sake of money, these Jews are going to turn Japan into Asia's nuclear waste dump.

Yes. That makes no sense, is patently anti-American, anti-Semitic, ethnocentric, Japanese imperialist, vile, and above all, dumb."

Wow, could Mr. Aikawa be an angry person, or what?  So, naturally, Manga tried to hide as much of that message as they could in their subs, and Manga UK did the best they could to simply fill the dub with their usual (of the time) style of profanity & absurd delivery, making the English dub amazingly horrible & worth watching.  In fact, Justin loves stating how much he loves Angel Cop, and he has no hesitation in saying that Angel Cop is his most-wanted "bad-good" anime license rescue.  He only hopes that if it does get license rescued that the company doing so would, at the very least, add a disclaimer to their release:
"The views & opinions stated in Angel Cop are not the views & opinions of [Insert Anime Company Here]".

I love shonen action/battle titles, in case you couldn't tell from this blog.  Yeah, there can be a "sameness" to them, not to mention a lot of re-used tropes, cliches, etc., but these titles tend to be really enjoyable for me to watch.  The Law of Ueki, based on the Shonen Sunday manga by Tsubasa Fukuchi, is one of those shonen battle titles that both revels in what makes the genre work as well as does things different enough to make it stand out.  The story of young Kosuke Ueki & his entry into a battle between junior high students in order to determine the new "God/King" of the world initially gives off a generic view, but what makes Ueki shine is both in its willingness to poke fun at itself & the genre in general as well as its inventiveness when it comes to the powers that each student has.  For example, Ueki can turn trash into trees (recycling is an underlying theme in the title), while his friend Sano can turn towels into steel, and those are just the simpler powers!

Geneon, in their last days, tried releasing Ueki via singles while also having it air on imaginAsian TV, but they only got nine volumes in (out of what would have been thirteen) before being forced to close shop.  In 2009, during a distribution deal, FUNimation would release all of Ueki in one giant dual-audio boxset, but that one release would be the only time Ueki would get a complete release.  What if you didn't buy that Ueki boxset & still want to watch it legally?  Well, be ready to fork over $300-$350 over at Amazon, because that's what it's going for right now.  For some people Ueki might look a little too silly to take seriously, but this was definitely a title that just kept getting better & better as it went on, not to mention that the anime covers the entire manga story, so it's a giant shame that the anime is out-of-print & ridiculously expensive right now.  It could really use a recycling right now...  Yeah, I know, bad joke, but Hideyoshi might have liked it.

Go Nagai has a bit of stubborn relationship with North America, especially with anime.  Many companies have tried releasing animes based on the man's work but none of them seem to really sell, even though a number of them are well-beloved.  One that some people might forget is ADV's release of the anime adaptation of Devilman Lady from 1998-1999, which was re-named The Devil Lady for North America.  Devilman, alongside Mazinger, is Nagai's biggest-name work, & Lady was an alternate universe take on the story, but with the main character being female (Jun Fudo) instead of male (Akira Fudo).  The anime was yet another alternate universe take, telling a similar story as the manga, but going in its own direction as it went on.

Like I mentioned before, Nagai's works were sometimes well liked, & Devil Lady was one of those titles during it's 2003 singles release.  Those singles now go for fair prices (no more than $20 per DVD, usually), and even the 2004 boxset release isn't anywhere near as expensive as something like Princess Nine, though it still is kind of up there depending on the condition ($30-$100).  NIS America gave the recent Enma-kun anime a try & Discotek is digging into the Nagai/Dynamic Pro well with Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo, so there may be hope for The Devil Lady to see a re-release one day.  If anything, one might hope for the Devil's luck...  Please stop me, I can't help but makes puns right now!

To most (if not all) people, Vampire Hunter D is Hideyuki Kikuchi's masterpiece.  Even since 1983 the many adventures of the mysterious dhampir named "D" in the 13,000th century have been compiled in many novels, and are even being adapted into manga form so that more people can read them.  When it comes to anime, though, there are only two adaptations: The 1985 OVA based on the first novel & the 2000 made-for-America movie Bloodlust, based on the third novel (the 1999/2000 survival horror game for the Playstation is based on the same story as Bloodlust).  Streamline Pictures originally released the '85 OVA in North America back in 1992 theatrically & then it had a VHS release and some rotation on Sci-Fi Channel in 1993. In 2000 Urban Vision released a Special Edition, dual-audio DVD release of the OVA while they went around promoting their co-production Bloodlust.  Supposedly, the English audio that was made for Bloodlust was actually only meant to be a "test" & was planned to be properly cast with Hollywood actors...  No one bit on it.

With Urban Vision gone now many wonder what the future is for these VHD anime productions.  The '85 OVA should be no real problem, but Bloodlust was co-produced by UV, which might make licensing it now tricky.  The other potential issue with Bloodlust is that the Japanese dub (yes, the Japanese cast is the "dub", as it was animated with the English voices in mind) was made after UV's original DVD release in 2002; UV continually promised a "Special Edition" release for the movie that would be dual-audio, but it never happened.  In fact, North America is seemingly the only place in the world to have never gotten the Japanese audio; I have the UV release, but I bought a second copy when I was visiting family in Hungary, and even that DVD had the Japanese audio (plus a Hungarian dub!).  UV usually kept these two animes in print, but with them gone the prices have finally started to go up, with VHD going for $20-$75 & Bloodlust going for $40+.  Let's face it, though; Vampire Hunter D is too big of a name in anime for it to be left out-of-print forever.  One day those issues will be ironed out, and these two titles will see a re-release, and hopefully Bloodlust will finally be dual-audio here in North America.  I am 100% positive in saying that this license rescue isn't a question of "if", but rather "when".

Finishing up this entire list is the MacGyver of anime himself, "Master" Taichi Keaton.  Naoki Urusawa is such a well-beloved & celebrated mangaka, yet the anime adaptations of his works are notorious for never being completely released on DVD here.  Well, Pioneer/Geneon did in fact fully release an Urusawa anime over here (though Urusawa only did the art for the manga), but it likely bombed in all ways.  Master Keaton is about an insurance investigator for Lloyd's of London who gets caught in all sorts of adventures while simply doing his job.  His ingenuity & quick thinking in troublesome situations make him more than he seems, and it makes the anime obviously something that aims for an older crowd...  Which is all the more obvious why it likely sold horribly.  Luckily, Pioneer/Geneon's 2003-2004 singles release covered the entire 1998-1999 anime as well as its 1999-2000 OVA continuation, and it's dual-audio to boot!  Unfortunately, the show never received a boxset release, and while some of the eight singles are still available for a good price, others are getting into the $30, $60, & even $100+ range.

Yeah, Viz didn't release anymore Monster after that first set & AnimEigo didn't do more than one set of Yawara! (though AnimEigo indicated that was due more to licensing issues, because they wanted to do more), but I would like to think that the anime fanbase over here has aged enough that a re-release of Master Keaton could be worth it, especially if it was released across two boxsets.  Luckily, the show did get a Blu-Ray release in Japan in 2011, so there's even better video masters out there.  It is a long-shot, no doubt, but who better to get us out of a tricky situation than the man who can make MacGyver proud?

Well, that's the end of this "overloaded!!" variant of the license rescue list.  In this version we had baseball, "bad-good", Devilman Lady, your not-so-friendly dhampir legend, downers, & even super robots.  All in all, I say it was a good list, and here's hoping some of them can come true in time.

Twelve Older Animes That Deserve License Rescues... Overloaded!! Part 1

Considering how big Jump January was, I hope you all can understand me taking a week off.  Anyway, I'm starting to come up on another milestone for the blog: Review #100!  Yeah, Tsuukai: Comedy Heroes was the 90th review I have done for the blog, so any review coming up will be simply counting down to that triple-digit achievement.  Much like my preparation for review #50 (Gundoh Musashi) I have the title in mind for #100 planned now, and from what I can tell it's yet another absolutely horrible anime production, but it won't be anywhere near as long as Musashi; in hindsight, Crystal Triangle would have been an excellent choice, though.  In fact, the title I will be reviewing for #100 was actually already covered over at the Golden Ani-Versary, a blog that's celebrating the 50 years that have gone by since the debut of the original Tetsuwan Atom/Astro Boy anime in 1963, so there's a hint for what it might be.  Also, look forward to the essay I'm doing as a part of the celebratory gang this May, where I cover the year 2004!

*Art thou pleased, Mr. Tebbetts?*

All right, enough shameless promotion...  In the middle of last year I brought back my personal favorite of the many "Twelve Animes" lists, which was the license rescue list, and I was paid back by my readers with Part 1 becoming the fastest entry into this blog's Top 10 Most Viewed Posts.  Well, I think enough time has passed for another one to be made, and I had enough worthy picks this time that the twelve anime wall of entry had to be broken through.  Yeah, I never actually have only twelve animes in these lists, but can't I at least try to talk them up like they're something special?

Anime based on video games, especially fighting games, really run the gamut in terms of quality, ranging from horrid (Tekken) to average (Psychic Force) to pretty damn good (Street Fighter II: The Movie).  Among those are some underlooked gems, though, and Virtua Fighter fits that bill in both its original game form as well as its anime.  VF was not only the very first fighting game to use 3D models & polygons, but it still stands to this day as one of the most intricate & complex fighting games in the industry, with a focus on realism (read: actual fighting styles are used) & simple to play, hard to master gameplay (read: there's only three buttons, but there are tons of moves).  All of this results in a barely-there story, though (Kagemaru won the third tournament? When did that happen!?), so how do you adapt this into an anime TV series from 1995-1996?  Make it into a not-100% serious story that uses the game as a basis but otherwise does its own thing.

For many who saw the TMS-produced Virtua Fighter anime via its release by Media Blasters, both on dub-only VHS in 2000-2001 or dual-audio DVD sets in 2003 (years before sets were a regular thing), this unexpected execution was amazingly amusing & entertaining to watch, and a very solid dub by rarely-heard-in-anime Coastal Carolina (now known simply as Coastal Studios) only helped endear it to fans.  Hell, Justin Sevakis even included it in his Buried Treaure series!  Nowadays one can still get the two DVD sets for a fair price, so why is this being included on this list?  That can be explained by one reason: We never got the entire show.  All we got were the first 24 episodes, though that did tell a complete story.  In Japan, though, there was another 11 episodes made that aired right after those other episodes & acted as a second season-of-sorts.  From what I can tell, it was a more serious story that focused on Kagemaru, whereas the first story focused on Akira, Jacky, Pai, & Sarah.  For that reason alone I think Virtua Fighter deserves a license rescue, maybe releasing the first 24 episodes in one dual-audio set followed by a second, sub-only, set that finally gives the other episodes their very first North American release.  Hell, I would love to see a company try to fund a dub through Kickstarter, even if only partially; 11 episodes-worth of dubbing wouldn't be completely ridiculous to try to raise money, and I bet those North Carolinians over at Coastal Studios would love to do this show again.

If there was one company who showed Yoshiaki Kawajiri more love than any other, it was Urban Vision.  They had a fair number of Kawajiri titles in their catalog, and to think that now only three Kawajiri titles are in print (Discotek's re-release of Demon City Shinjuku, FUNimation's re-release of X TV, & Manga's release of Highlander: The Search for Vengeance) is kind of sad now, especially since the third one isn't even Kawajiri's original cut (only in Japan), & a fourth one (Batman: Gotham Knight) doesn't even list Kawajiri in the credits for his own involvement!  In an interesting twist, Hideyuki Kikuchi isn't getting too much love here with anime, either.  Sure, his novels (specifically Vampire Hunter D & Wicked City) are in print, but in terms of anime adaptations, only Demon City Shinjuku is in print right now, and I think that should be rectified.

1987's Wicked City in particular has generally been in the shadows of the North American anime industry for almost as long as such a thing existed.  Streamline Pictures gave it its first North American penetration back in 1993 with a theatrical run, and then Urban Vision kept it in fans' minds with a dub-only VHS release in 1999, followed by a Special Edition, dual-audio DVD release in 2000.  To this day it is still considered one of Kawajiri's finest works (in fact, Kawajiri did such an excellent job that the original 35-minute cut was extended to 80 minutes & WC even made Kawajiri a known name), yet it hasn't had a release of any sort in 13 years.  Granted, it isn't exactly uber-expensive to buy right now ($20-$40 at Amazon), but for some titles simply being made easily available again can do a lot.  One can only hope that Demon City Shinjuku has sold well for Discotek Media, because if so Wicked City should be the next thing to grab.

I had to "steal" a picture from eBay, but that's how hard it is to find a good cover of this release...  Plus, it's Betamax

On my second license rescue list I included Mad Bull 34, a title known to be horrible, but that's part of why it was worth including.  Discotek seemed to agree, which is why in two weeks MB34 will be getting its very first DVD release here in North America, dual-audio for the very first time, at that!  So I think it's fair game for "so bad it's good" anime to be included in these lists as well, because only getting the very best is not a fair & honest look at what anime can be.  Case in point is this little co-production between Toei & Marvel, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, which is based on the Tomb of Dracula comic series.  It's bad...  Horrifically bad.  But therein lies the appeal, and Harmony Gold's dub only helps with its silliness.  The VHS release for this production is really hard to find, as not even Amazon or eBay have listings for it right now.  Also, by means of this eBay auction, I may have discovered the only anime to have ever been released on Betamax!  Can you name another anime that's been released on Beta?  Hell, do you even know what Beta is!? (By the way, good luck selling that for $100, seller)  Anyway, this entry in the license rescue list was kind of "suggested" by slight deception, since I simply asked Zac Bertschy & Justin Sevakis (Buried Garbage entry here) via Twitter on ANNCast what "bad-good anime" they would love to see rescued, & this was Zac's answer.  Great choice, Zac, and I'm sure Dracula would approve of my sly deception.

I really, really hope that Mad Bull 34 does well for Discotek, because if it does it certainly opens up a completely new wing of anime that can be looked at as "worthy of rescuing".  Imagine a world where titles like Mad Bull 34, Crystal Triangle, & Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned can be bought on dual-audio DVD (sub-only for Crystal Triangle), allowing older fans to entertainment themselves once again by poking fun at how amazingly bad & entertaining these titles are, & newer fans can even potentially join in on the fun.  I mean, come on, who doesn't want to see a wheelchair-bound descendant of Van Helsing try to chase down & attack a reluctant partner while his female compatriot pushes him along?  Hell, who doesn't want to see Dracula in a diner eating a hamburger!?

Okay, enough silliness.  It's time to get serious, and you can't get more serious than Barefoot Gen.  When most people think about an anime movie about the survivors of the atomic bomb, Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies instantly comes up, but right behind it is Barefoot Gen.  The recently-departed Keiji Nakazawa's semi-fictionalized story about his own experiences surviving the atom bomb & its aftermath (the names were changed, but the events were real) is probably one of the toughest mangas out there to read because of how somber it is, and the 1983 movie adaptation (also the debut work of Madhouse) is probably one of the hardest animes to watch, because it actually shows viewers the horrors of how people died via the dropping of the Little Boy bomb.  At Otakon 2011 my friend & I got DVDs signed by Madhouse co-founder Masao Maruyama, and my friend swears that when he gave his copy of Geneon's Barefoot Gen DVD release (which also features the 1986 sequel movie) to Maruyama for a signing, he saw the man almost tear up upon recognizing what he was about to put a marker to.  I have a copy of the DVD myself, as well as the first two volumes of the manga, but I am simply afraid to watch and/or read it...  I'm honest-to-God scared of what I'll see, even though I really want to experience this story.

Streamline Pictures actually put the first movie out in North America in the mid-90s with an English dub (I can only imagine what parents thought they were going to show their kids when they decided to watch this), but when Geneon gave the movies their first DVD release in 2006 it was a sub-only release.  I honestly don't know why the DVD was sub-only, at least for the first movie (Gen 2 was never dubbed), but I'm going to guess that there might be the possibility of Streamline editing the movie for time first, no doubt to possibly keep kids from getting terrified, which would make a dual-audio release tough.  Unfortunately, such an important anime production has been out-of-print for years and now easily goes for $100+ "new" over at Amazon; "used" is actually more expensive!  Sentai Filmworks recently gave Grave of the Fireflies a new remastered re-release on both DVD & Blu-Ray, complete with a brand-new English dub (though the old CPM dub was also included), so one can only hope that Barefoot Gen will not be left ignored.  Sometimes a license rescue has to be done for more than just making money...  Sometimes it's about preservation & keeping a historically important production in print.

First off, a big thanks to NJ_ for suggesting this entry!

Aniplex of America may be doing just fine with their super-premium releases for shows like Garden of Sinners & Fate/Zero, but they were just succeeding where Bandai Visual USA had failed.  With Discotek giving Diebuster: Gunbuster 2 a re-release this May I think it's fair to start including BVUSA titles, and what better way to start than with Super Robot Wars?  SRW actually getting its own anime adaptation was a real-deal "coming full circle" moment, since the series itself started as a celebration of mech anime.  Oddly enough, though, the first SRW anime, simply titled SRW Original Generation The Animation, was a three-episode OVA series from 2005 that acted as a sequel to the original OG games on the Game Boy Advance; in true cyclical fashion, the story told in this OVA would then be adapted into game form with the release of 2007's SRW OG Gaiden for the Playstation 2.  It wouldn't be until 2006-2007 that an actual adaptation of the GBA games would be made, with SRW OG: Divine Wars, which adapted the original OG game's story & went with the interesting choice to have all of the giant robots be done in CG.

BVUSA released the OVA series & Divine Wars on DVD, with the OVA being a single 2-DVD set & Divine Wars was released across nine singles.  Unfortunately, BVUSA's focus was on releasing Region 2-quality DVDs at Region 2 pricing, so each of these sub-only releases were $49.95, and it's obvious to say that these releases sold poorly, which is probably being nice.  Nowadays, BVUSA releases are mostly even more expensive than they originally were, with the OVA going for $45-$65 at Amazon & each of the Divine Wars singles range anywhere from $35-$135.  A re-release that prices both of these productions at more reasonable numbers (like the OVA for $20-$30 & Divine Wars at $30-$45 per 12/13-episode set) would really make these titles much more accessible to people who are interested in seeing what SRW can offer when it's all original.  CrunchyRoll simulcasted 2010-2011's SRW OG: The Inspector, which adapted OG2's story, so it's obvious that people know of this series, and making two-thirds of it easier to get would only help this franchise out.

[2/28 Update: A few days late, but Media Blasters announced that they had license rescued these very two SRW animes, barely a week after this post went up!  Great news to hear, simply because it will be available again, this time for a fair price.]

Putting an end to Part 1 of this list is what I want to call the "Bandai/d-rights DVD Remainder".  I had mentioned this before, but for those who don't know when AnimeVillage.com, the company that Bandai would buy & turn into Bandai Entertainment, was starting out a number of the titles they licensed came from Japanese licensor d-rights, who isn't exactly an unknown name here in North America (hell, when Media Blasters re-released IRIA: Zeiram the Animation d-rights requested that their logo be on the cover & spine instead of MB's).  This d-rights line-up was made up of both Eat-Man animes (which were featured on the original list), Next Senki Ehrgeiz (which was featured on the second list), and two titles that make up the focus of this entry, hence the term "remainder".  What's that?  "What about AWOL: Absent WithOut Leave?"  I don't know what the hell you're talking about, and if you try to bring it up ever again, I might have to hurt something...  And I'm generally not a violent person! *twitch twitch*

Haunted Junction was the story of Saito High School, which is filled with all sorts of supernatural beings, and its Holy Student Council, who have to protect the school & its students from whatever trouble the supernatural bring about.  It's focus on oddball comedy & horror-themed hijinks made for an interesting title that still looks pretty original to this day, though it might have some competition from something like Is This a Zombie?.  Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is the story of a (bomb) sheltered technology prodigy named Techno & his continual attempts to gain the love of a girl he notices & names "Daisy".  This "love" story is meant to be an awkward one, showcasing Techno's attempts to try to make his "Daisy" fall in love with him, even if his methods aren't exactly "normal"; pure & honest, yes, but not normal.  Both Junction & Daisy are interesting by way of their concepts & even though AnimeVillage gave them VHS releases in 1999-2000, followed by Bandai giving them DVD set releases in 2001 (yes, straight-to-set releases in the early days of DVD!), I have to put them down along with the Eat-Man animes & Ehrgeiz as titles that do deserve license rescues.  Hell, John Sirabella agreed with me a few years back when he felt that "Eatman and the other ones are old D-rights titles which may eventually find a home".  Media Blasters may not be that home, but hopefully someplace will.  Yeah, the DVD sets aren't terribly expensive yet, but considering that Bandai's sets likely used the same masters as the VHS releases, there's a very good chance that better masters are out there that can be used now.  Sometimes you just got to cheer for the oddballs that dare to do something different.

Part 1 of this license rescue list has now come to an end.  Come back in a couple of days for Part 2, which will feature more Urban Vision, an underrated shonen fighter, another "bad-good" entry, & other surprises that truly make this list "overloaded"!!