Twelve Anime Theme Remixes & Covers That Surpass the Originals Part 1

Think of your favorite anime of all time, and one of the things you'll definitely think of are their various opening & ending themes. With the former being the way to get your attention grabbed & the latter being the way you prepare to return to real life, the "OP" & "ED" are an iconic duo of anime series that are rarely broken apart, and where too many iconic songs in the mind of anime fans come from. Still, sometimes the original version of a song isn't always the "best" or most iconic version. After all, everyone knows of "Fly Me to the Moon" through Frank Sinatra, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Bayonetta, but few give credit to Kaye Ballard, who performed the song first. For a more recent example, new anime Great Pretender is using Freddie Mercury's cover of "The Great Pretender" as its OP, with the original song by The Platters seemingly being forgotten. So I think it's only natural to wonder if this can apply to anime themes, too. Are there any remixes or covers of anime OPs & EDs that are, arguably, better than the originals?

Well, I have twelve that I'll certainly argue in the positive for, so let's start with the first six.

"I'll Trust You Forever" [English Version] by Yoshifumi Ushima
(Mobile Fighter G Gundam OP2)
While its over-the-top, shonen manga-influenced style is no longer truly unique in & of itself in the annals of the Gundam franchise (see: the various Gundam Build series), 1994's Mobile Fighter G Gundam remains a strong favorite for many, one that has arguably aged better than some of its more popular & "mainstream" entries, like Gundam Wing. Part of that love comes from its outstanding soundtrack, both in Kohei Tanaka's multifaceted & orchestral score, as well in the theme songs, particularly Yoshifumi Ushima's OP themes. Ask anyone who's even slightly familiar with G Gundam, and it's almost a guarantee that they'll all instantly be familiar with 1st OP "Flying in the Sky", especially since that was the song that was used for the show's entire run on Toonami. However, while that song is tons of fun & makes for great singing along, I'd argue that the 2nd OP, "Trust You Forever" is the stronger overall song. By coming in halfway through, Ushima (who also wrote, composed, & arranged both themes) was able to put a stronger thematic message in "Trust You Forever", telling about how you'll always have your friends & loved ones to rely on when things get rough, and that pain & scars are simply the means by which you become stronger. I mean, it even works extremely well as an acoustic song, as Hironobu Kageyama & Masaaki Endoh once proved.

Mach Go Go Go: Restart: Go? 号? 五? 5? 剛? GO!!!!!

From the late 60s through the 80s, Tatsunoko Production became one of the most celebrated & iconic anime studios in the industry, delivering one notable anime series after another. From Hakushon Daimaou to Gatchaman to Casshan to Time Bokan to Gold Lightan to Mospeada to Zillion to Shurato, "Tatsu's Children" became known across the world in one way or another. Come the 90s, though, it was decided to reboot many of these properties for a new generation, most of which via OVAs, with the end results being pretty mixed. 1992's Tekkaman Blade TV series was overall great, though sometimes a little slow. 1993's Casshan: Robot Hunter OVA was decent but felt truncated at only three episodes, while the Time Bokan: Royal Revival OVA was nothing more than a silly celebration of the comedic franchise; fun, but nothing substantial. 1994's Tekkaman Blade II & Gatchaman OVAs were both good on the whole, but each felt like they were meant to be longer. As for 1996's New Hurricane Polymar OVA, it was most definitely cut short, feeling more like only Episodes 1 & 3 of a four-episode series; yeah, it's about as rough as that sounds, but at least it looked really cool.

These 90s reboots came to an end in 1997, which also marked the 30th Anniversary of the anime that originally put Tatsunoko on the map: Mach Go Go Go.

For those unfamiliar, the original Mach Go Go Go debuted back in 1967 as Tatsunoko's first color anime (& second anime, overall), based on the racing manga of the same name by the studio's founder, Tatsuo Yoshida, that ran in Shueisha's Shonen Book, the precursor to Shonen Jump. While it wasn't an instant hit in Japan (though it averaged around 13.9% viewership, which is nothing to sneeze at), it became a mega hit abroad when Trans-Lux licensed it for North America, where it got dubbed into Speed Racer. While Speed Racer went on to receive its own "New" 13-episode continuation in 1993, Tatsunoko didn't actually do anything new with the property for decades, minus the occasional cameo here & there. Originally planned to run for 52 episodes, this new TV series of the same exact name, unofficially titled "Shin/New Mach Go Go Go" in Japan, wound up getting cancelled early, only lasting 34 episodes of a planned 52. Speed Racer Enterprises, which at the time owned the rights to anything "Speed Racer", produced an English dub pilot for this new series, titling it Speed Racer Y2K... because it was the end of the 90s. It never went anywhere and was almost "lost", if not for being included in at least one super-obscure release.

Then in 2002, DiC got a hold of the show, even getting it aired on Nickelodeon as Speed Racer X, before suing SRE over television & merchandising rights; it only adapted 13 episodes. After Tatsunoko got the complete rights back to everything Mach Go Go Go & Speed Racer following a lawsuit with SRE in 2013 (I swear that this is the last lawsuit I'll bring up), FUNimation licensed everything Tatsunoko produced in 2015. The end result of all of this came in the form of the Speed Racer Collector's Edition, released on November 7, 2017, which contains all of Speed Racer on DVD & Blu-Ray, all of the original Mach Go Go Go with English subtitles on DVD & Blu-Ray, & all of the 1997 reboot on sub-only DVD, now under the name Mach Go Go Go: Restart; don't worry about the latter not being in HD, as even Japan only has an SD-BD release. Unfortunately, this absurd release has all of the discs in fold-out sleeves that are housed within a horrifically life-sized bust of Speed's head (at least Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast found a use for it), and currently remains literally the only way to see either of the original Japanese versions; yes, FUNimation isn't even offering either Mach Go Go Go anime via streaming, which is ridiculous. At the very least, said Collector's Edition has been such a bomb of a release that Amazon is still selling it at just shy of $100, only 1/3 of the MSRP, which is actually a good deal for essentially three shows, two of which are on both Blu-Ray & DVD; you can just hide the bust in a closet, like I do.

So, for Review #250, let's see what there is to Mach Go Go Go: Restart... in all three of its forms.

Obscusion B-List: Forgotten Publishers, and the Interesting Games They Published

Video game publishing may not be an exact science, but some companies just seem to be more naturally inclined towards succeeding. All other game publishers, however, are continually stuck in a "shooting fish in a barrel" situation, trying their hardest to constantly find projects that look promising, funding them for release (or simply licensing [& localizing] them from other parties), & praying they'll make their money back on it. In many cases, a publisher will eventually just die out because it wasn't able to put out enough releases that managed to keep audiences interested enough to purchase. Now, sure, in some rare cases a publisher will somehow come back from the dead & give it another go, but that's more an exception than the rule; if it dies, it dies.

Think of this as a bonus entry!

That being said, while it's easy to argue that many game publishers have died out over the course of the industry because they simply didn't release enough "good" games, it's actually immensely rare to find a publisher that only ever released absolute dreck. Take, for example, a publisher like UFO Interactive, which originally started out back in 2000/2001 with a trio of curious releases on Dreamcast & N64 (the last of which is now a Holy Grail for collectors) before seemingly dying, only to then revive back in 2006 & still operate to this day. Over the years, UFO has released plenty of questionable stuff, like all of Data Design Interactive's infamously bad PS2 & Wii games (alongside Conspiracy Entertainment), but it's also released games that are well worth giving attention to, like Raiden III, IV, & V, Mamorukun Curse, Warriors of the Lost Empire, Milestone's Ultimate Shooting Collection, Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War, Elminage Original (on PSP, at least), & even Way of the Samurai 3 (on Xbox 360 & iOS, at least). But enough about UFO Interactive, though, because that publisher is still around. No, let's take a look at six forgotten publishers that have long left us, and see what cool or interesting games they left behind!

Panzer Dragoon (OVA): I Regret Everything!

For the first time since its inception, there will not be an E3 trade event for the video game industry this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world. While the Electronic Entertainment Expo has certainly lost its allure over the past few years, May 11, 2020 marks the show's 25th Anniversary, but this date also marks the 25th for some other stuff, especially in relation to this event. On the first day of the very first E3, Sega shocked the world by announcing during its presentation that the Sega Saturn, the new 32-bit console that had already launched in Japan the past November, was now on store shelves in North America that very same day, completely ignoring the originally announced launch date of September 2, 1995, a.k.a. "Saturnday". This was a giant gambit forced entirely upon Sega of America by Sega of Japan in an attempt to strike a preemptive blow to Sony & the PlayStation (as well as try to move on from overly bloated deluge of the Genesis, Sega CD, & 32X)... and it completely backfired on them. Third party publishers & developers felt slighted, as they were developing with Saturnday in mind, and the surprise launch only happened with four specific retailers, hurting Sega's relations with those not included; KB Toys infamously promised to never stock anything Sega ever again. Meanwhile, the PlayStation wound up selling more units in two days, following its American launch on September 9, 1995, than the Saturn had managed with its entire five-month surprise head start. The battle was already over before it even began for the Saturn in North America, especially since Sony's simple response to the surprise Saturn launch at E3 was to have SCEA President Steve Race simply utter the "Price Heard Around the World" later that same day.

However, there was a brilliantly shining light in the Saturn's ill-advised (though, in hindsight, desperately needed) early launch, as within that six-game launch lineup there was Panzer Dragoon.

The first game developed by Sega's Team Andromeda, Panzer Dragoon was the creation of Yukio Futatsugi, who conceived an on-rails shooter where you played as a man who rode a regal-looking dragon across a post-apocalyptic fantasy world heavily inspired by the works of Jean "Moebius" Girard (who even agreed to draw the cover for the Japanese release!). Compared to shoddy-looking ports of arcade hits Virtua Fighter & Daytona USA, or sports simulators Worldwide Soccer & Pebble Beach Golf Links, Panzer Dragoon felt like a revelation; even Sega AM7's fun platformer Clockwork Knight kind of paled in comparison. Unsurprisingly, Futatsugi's game was a hit, which resulted in two sequels up through 1998, a Game Gear "Mini" spin-off, and even a fourth entry for the original Xbox, once Sega moved over to being just a software company; fittingly, third game Panzer Dragoon Saga (a full-on RPG) was one of the last Saturn games released in North America. However, I'm not writing about the games & how cool they are, though you should at least play Orta on Xbox One; the PC port of the first game is included as a bonus. No, I've decided to remind people of what is easily the lowest point of the entire Panzer Dragoon franchise... The anime adaptation (though one can certainly argue that the R-Zone game may be worse).

I swear, the fact that this year is the 25th Anniversary of Panzer Dragoon is a total coincidence.

Retrospect in Retrograde: Next Senki Ehrgeiz

With this being the 10th year of the blog, I think it's important to look back at December 2010, the first month of the blog's existence, & see what I can do, in retrospect. B't X? I've since re-reviewed that. Fuma no Kojirou? Same with that OVA, as well as it's two continuations. Ring ni Kakero 1? I'd love to re-review that, but I've promised to never watch & review that anime ever again (with an English translation) until it was to be legally available in North America... So it'll never happen. Beyond those, & some early "news" articles, that leaves only my first three reviews ever for the blog, and I want to write stuff relating to them to celebrate a decade, so let's just go in reverse order & start with a Retrospect in Retrograde for the subject of my third review ever: Next Senki Ehrgeiz!

Why "Record of Next War"? Because Record of Lodoss War
did it first, and both Agarest War & Grancrest War codified it.

On "Thursday", October 3, 1996, the anime adaptation of the manga Those Who Hunt Elves debuted on TV Tokyo at a time slot of "25:45", a.k.a. 1:15 A.M. on Friday, October 4. This was an experiment to see if airing anime on a late-night time slot to act as a long-form, 12-week infomercial for the later home video release would work to gain the attention of hardcore Japanese otaku; today, late-night is the primary way anime is aired on TV in Japan, so I think it was a success. After Those Who Hunt Elves finished airing, TV Tokyo expanded this experiment into other weekdays, with the first "Wednesday" late-night anime being Maze: The Megaburst Space, which ran from April to September of 1997. The week after that show finished saw the debut of Next Senki/Record of Next War Ehrgeiz, which ran from October 10 to Christmas Eve that same year. Considering how few anime were airing in these time slots, that actually made Next Senki Ehrgeiz the first ever late-night mech anime; Maze did include a giant robot, but it's not really a "mech anime". The creation of a mysterious entity known only at "et" (possibly as in et al.), which later conceived the infamously lopsided AWOL -Absent WithOut Leave-, this anime came out, did its thing, & quietly exited... Until DreamFactory, Namco, & SquareSoft released a 3D arcade fighting game named Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring, which had absolutely no relation to the anime, a couple months later in arcades in early 1998, followed by a PlayStation port at the end of 1998.

In between the arcade & home console releases of the video game, the Ehrgeiz anime saw its only home video release on VHS & LD, likely creating a bit of confusion between game & anime otaku in Japan at the time. The Ehrgeiz game then saw release on the PS1 outside of Japan in April of 1999, followed later that year by the Ehrgeiz anime's English release on VHS by AnimeVillage.com, later Bandai Entertainment, likely creating a bit of confusion between game & anime fans in North America at the time. Personally, I knew of the game at the time, but never knew of the anime until I started actually following the medium in 2004, as I remember coming across a listing for it on some random site. Considering the name & the cover art, I started getting curious about Next Senki Ehrgeiz, so from December of 2004 to May of 2005 I purchased all six English-subbed VHS tapes, & the sole dubbed tape Bandai later put out, from the Amazon Marketplace so that I can finally check it out for myself; I only know of the exact time span of purchases because Amazon actually still has records of it. So what did I think of it? Well, it's the third review I ever did for the blog, was included in numerous twelve anime lists & other articles, got pitted against said video game of the "same name", & I even investigated a Japanese blog conspiracy theory about it originally being intended as an anime adaptation of Capcom's Cyberbots... So yeah, I guess you can say that I'm a fan of Next Senki Ehrgeiz. However, I haven't actually watched the anime again in full in a solid decade (even that old review was done a few months following said re-watch), so I guess it's time to finally give it the detailed look I didn't give it 10 years ago, and explain what I see in this "Original Animation Series on TV", as the LD covers say... I can see why "OAS[oT]" didn't catch on.

After all... "If you only live once, anyway, then steal some dreams & see your future... It's called 'Dream Jack', & there's a whole world out there!"