Obscusion B-Side: Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete: It's Not Hammer, It's Not Michael... It's Diamond✡Yukai!

With this blog being focused primarily around anime & manga, there's no surprise that I've covered a variety of anime that were released straight to the home video/rental market, i.e. the Original Video Animation, or OVA... but what about the live-action side of things? Interestingly enough, while the OVA got its start back in 1983 with Dallos, & the concept of "direct-to-video" seemingly started in North America with 1984's E. Nick: A Legend in His Own Mind by CineTel Films (so, yes, technically anime was the first to do it!), it wouldn't be until 1989 that Japan started to give (live-action) direct-to-video a go. In the late 80s the Japanese film industry was hitting a bit of a slump, only releasing around 250 films per year on average, while rental stores were becoming really popular... which included ones that were operating illegally & renting out pirated copies of films. Wanting to "make a legitimate business" out of this market, Toei Video decided to launch what it called "V-Cinema", a line meant solely for direct-to-video movies aimed specifically at the rental market, which by then was starting to see a decline in popularity but Toei felt could still support a niche market reliably. The first Toei V-Cinema film would be Crime Hunter: Ikari no Jyudan/Bullets of Rage on March 10, 1989 & was a notable success, prompting Toei Video to produce more & more titles. This resulted in V-Cinema becoming an iconic & influential part of Japan's film industry throughout the 90s, giving many actors, directors, & the like their first big breaks in the industry, including Riki Takeuchi, Show Aikawa, Takashi Miike, & Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose infamous Sweet Home I reviewed back in 2018); it's even the origin of some iconic franchises, like Ju-On. Though it's slowed down heavily since the mid-00s, V-Cinema is still produced by Toei to this very day, while the term itself has since become associated with the direct-to-video market in general over in Japan, despite still being trademarked by Toei, similar to terms like digicam, scotch tape, aspirin, jello, etc.

Taken from the PV, as it's much more interesting
than either of the actual title slates in the movie.

Come 1992, V-Cinema's success had created a direct-to-video boom that led to other studios producing their own similar movies, with Toei Video producer Kazuo Kato later stating that the market had become so inundated with content that it got hard to tell what was what & (outside of V-Cinema still being a Toei-trademarked label) where it came from. This wasn't helped in any way by the fact that, by & large, most of these direct-to-video films were either action-heavy, yakuza flicks, or relied on lots of nudity & erotica. Therefore, some efforts were made to offer something different for the V-Cinema label, and one of those was a film titled Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete/From Love with a Bullet; there seem to be conflicting reports on whether it came out in 1992 or 1993. Instead of what had already become a "standard" V-Cinema this one went in a completely different direction by being a bit of a mystery film featuring, and I quote, "an all-musician cast & MTV-influenced hard action"; yes, this was a "dance action movie". Not just that, but the entire musical score for the film was composed by a young artist named Akio Togashi, who would shortly re-debut under a new moniker, m.c.A·T ("Microphone Controller Akio Togashi"). In fact, the first song Togashi would release under this new moniker would be a little song he first made for Heart Breaker, "Bomb A Head!". Now, if you're of a certain generation of anime fan (like me) you might be familiar with "Bomb A Head!" via m.c.A·T's 2004 self-cover, "Bomb A Head! V", which wound up being the OP theme to the TV anime adaptation of Tenjho Tenge & is, quite frankly, one of the coolest anime OP themes ever.

Yes, this is a rather silly reason to want to watch & write about a film... but Heart Breaker is actually considered a cult classic in Japan. In 1995 Kinema Junpo (Japan's oldest film magazine) ranked it #5 in the All Time Best Ten Japanese Movies' "Original Video" category, & in 2014 Toei Video itself considered it one of the 25 best titles in all of V-Cinema for the label's 25th Anniversary (alongside the likes of Ju-On 1 & 2, Crime Hunter, & Lady Battle Cop [i.e. "Female RoboCop"]), with Toei Video seemingly keeping it in print on DVD to this very day because of that. I was able to buy a brand new copy off of Amazon Japan just last year for around $15, and the YouTube channel FulciZombie's Film Grave uploaded it with English subs (via the captions) just last year; amazing that Toei Video didn't already copyright claim that yet. Therefore, what started off as an amusing little bit of amusement has turned into legit curiosity, so time to see if Heart Breaker truly is as good & memorable as it apparently is.

Saint Seiya: Next Dimension (+ Saint Seiya Then): Is it Asclepius, Caduceus... or Ouroboros?

This was a review I really wasn't sure if I'd ever actually get to, for two reasons. First, I had wanted to review all of Masami Kurumada's prior works, or at least his non-one-shot stuff, since this was his most recent long-running manga. Second... I really had no idea when (or even if) this thing would actually come to an end, as the idea that Kurumada himself would pass away before finishing it would sometimes be in the thoughts of peoples' heads! Thankfully, 2024 being Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary resulted in both of those reasons being made null & void, as I had made at least one piece every month that entire year covering Kurumada in some fashion, and through that I've now covered the vast majority of his entire catalog. All that remains (outside of this review you're currently reading) are two one-shots from before this manga (1976's Mikeneko Rock & 2004's Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~ introduction), and all of his post-Ai no Jidai work (minus Fuma no Kojirou: Prelude & Final Chapter, both of which I've covered already). Not just that, but Kurumada himself made sure that this very manga would be finished during his 50th Anniversary year, which came true.

Therefore... "Let's Do the Time Warp Again"!

Despite Saint Seiya ending via cancellation in late 1990, with its proper final chapter even being used to entice people to buy the debut issue of V Jump, it never truly left public consciousness in Japan during the 90s. There was a Game Boy game in 1992 based on the trading card game from Bandai, the manga got re-released by Shueisha in aizouban format from 1995 to early 1997 (while Kurumada was making B't X for Kadokawa Shoten), and in 1996 the band Make-Up temporarily reunited to produce a new Seiya-themed album; not a lot, sure, but just enough to keep it in the memory of fans. Therefore, when Masami Kurumada returned to Shueisha for Ring ni Kakero 2 in 2000 it didn't take long for Saint Seiya to also come back, in some form. It all started with a two-part side-story novel written by Tatsuya Hamazaki & Toei finally starting its anime adaptation of the Hades Chapter in 2002, followed by a manga spin-off/prequel by Megumu Okada, and in 2004 it (kind of) culminated in Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~, the fifth anime movie for the franchise. However, unlike the non-canonical movies from the 80s, this was literally meant to be the "overture" to the next part of the canonical Saint Seiya storyline: The Heaven Chapter. Unfortunately, the end result seemingly did not conform to the story that Kurumada himself had wanted to tell, so the plans for a TV anime that continued off of the fifth movie were scrapped (plus a bunch of other shake-ups regarding staff & cast that I've covered elsewhere) and Kurumada decided that he would instead continue the story of Saint Seiya on his own in manga form, eventually removing all canonicity of the Tenkai-hen movie.

The end result of that whole ordeal, then, was the debut of Saint Seiya: Next Dimension - Meiou Shinwa/Myth of Hades in Combined Issue #22 & 23 of Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion magazine in 2006. Likely part of the reason for this shift in publisher, aside from the fact that Kurumada had already been working with Akita Shoten for said spin-off manga of Seiya, was because Kurumada had decided to make his Seiya sequel manga in full-color, due to advancements in computer coloring technology, though this did pretty much make it nigh-impossible for Kurumada to serialize it in any sort of consistent fashion for a weekly magazine. Not just that, but the initial chapters were given even more special treatment by being "sealed" together in each issue of Shonen Champion. For a variety of factors (including possibly complaints from other Champion mangaka, who might have felt jealousy over the preferential treatment) the "sealing" aspect was dropped after Chapter 8 in early 2007 (along with chapters from that point on being ~18 pages each, rather than the 7-8 they initially were), and starting with Chapter 15 in early 2009 the manga would be initially serialized in greyscale (with some exceptions, like certain opening pages or super special scenes), while the collected tankouban would continue to be in full-color. From that point on Next Dimension would continue to come out on a highly irregular basis, though once RnK2 was finished in 2008 it would be the only manga Kurumada was actively making until 2014, when he revived Otoko Zaka for his 40th Anniversary. After that Kurumada would alternate between making a new volume's-worth of ND (which he called "Seasons") & making other manga, whether it be more Otoko Zaka (which he wouldn't finish until late 2023) or a variety of short-run manga & one-shots... all with the hardcore Saint Seiya fans having their patience tested & letting their anger be known online; seriously, some people just need to chill out about comics.

Eventually, though, Kurumada got to the finish line, with the 118th & final chapter of Next Dimension appearing in Issue #31 of 2024 that July, and the 16th & final full-color tankouban coming out later that same year on November 8; in the end, ND averaged ~6.5 chapters, or ~0.89 volumes, per year. Therefore, to finish off this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary, let's see if the 18-year serialization was truly worth it by reviewing Saint Seiya: Next Dimension... what, Kurumada himself didn't make Ai no Jidai for his 40th Anniversary until mid-2015!

[NOTE: Naturally, there will be spoilers regarding the original Saint Seiya manga. This is a sequel, after all.]

Diagnosis: Filler: Saint Seiya's Asgard Chapter

Considering the way anime traditionally gets made nowadays, what with the focus being either on producing for a "cour", i.e. a single calendar season, or being made for a streaming service (which emphasizes individual "seasons"), certain aspects of "the old way of doing things" have become less prevalent in the past decade or so, if not just straight up excised completely, more or less. One of those aspects is something that, to some, might send a chill down their spine with just the mere mention of its name: The Filler Arc. Today the term "filler" in anime (& media, in general, honestly) has been diluted by some to seemingly represent any episode of a series that doesn't directly contribute towards the main plot, even if said episode actually does contribute in some fashion, namely when it comes to something like expanding on a character's development or establishing a status quo that may get challenged later on. However, back in the before time, the long long ago, the term "filler" was used almost exclusively for anime that was adapting from another source (manga, light novel, etc.) that featured content that wasn't a direct adaptation of any sort. This was usually done either to give the anime an original ending (if the source was still ongoing) or to simply prevent the anime from catching up too close to the source (for the same reason), though the latter was seen more for long-running shows. While an episode or two (or three... or more) would often just be enough at points, sometimes it was decided that an entire story arc would be created whole cloth, taking the characters into journeys that had little to no connection to the source material at all.

With that general introduction out of the way let's tackle the first subject for a new "segment" I am calling Diagnosis: Filler; sorry, no Dick Van Dyke to be found here.

I've mentioned this before, but when Masami Kurumada started conceiving of Saint Seiya in the mid-80s, following the (initial) harsh failure of Otoko Zaka, his goal was to aim precisely at a mainstream audience. The end result of this focus was that Saint Seiya was licensed out pretty much instantly (possibly even before the manga itself actually debuted, considering the speed), with Toei Animation getting the rights to produce an anime adaptation & Bandai getting the rights to produce toys. Because of this the Saint Seiya TV anime debuted in Japan on October 11, 1986, only about 10 months after the manga had debuted; still not quite as fast as Tottemo! Luckyman getting its TV anime only eight months after debuting, though. Because of this speed the anime had to rely on a decent amount of "filler" early on, including seeing Seiya & his friends take on a variety of anime-original foes that only appeared for an episode or two, as well as the introduction of the infamous Steel Saints, anime-original allies that were shoehorned into manga-adapted plot; however, all of this also meant that Bandai had more toys to sell! Still, once the story moved over to the battles with the Gold Saints after 40 episodes there really wasn't much that could be done in regards to "filler", outside of a couple of episodes here & there.

By the time the Sanctuary Chapter ended with Episode 73 on April 16, 1988 the Seiya manga was still in the midst of its second story arc, the Poseidon Chapter. Also, the climax of the Sanctuary Chapter resulted in a massive ratings boost for the Seiya anime, with Episode 73 achieving a series high of 20.6, after the battles with the Gold Saints started with a 7.1 for Episode 41; to clarify, most TV anime nowadays wish they could hit the 7s, which only Sazae-san ever surpasses. Therefore, with the next manga story arc still in production & an anime that was super hot, plus Bandai still wanted to sell more toys, it only made sense that Toei would embark on a large-scale filler arc for Saint Seiya. The end result was that Episodes 74 to 99 would tell the story of the Asgard Chapter, something that would only ever be experienced via the anime (though there was later a Chinese doujin manga adaptation) & the end of which would even tie into the start of the anime's eventual adaptation of the Poseidon Chapter, which began with Episode 100 on November 19, 1988. While the Asgard Chapter naturally wouldn't be able to maintain the ratings high that it was starting with, dropping all the way down to the high 4s before returning back to the 6s (the anime itself would end after 114 episodes in the 7s), this filler arc is actually generally well regarded by hardcore Seiya fans & used to often be cited as an example of a "filler arc done right". It would eventually be included in some Saint Seiya video games, alongside the actual manga arcs, & in 2015 would even get a sequel-of-sorts with Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold, a spin-off anime where the Gold Saints fought a new battle in Asgard during the tail end of the Hades Chapter. Due to Saint Seiya's notoriously poor track record in "North of Mexico" the Asgard Chapter (as well as the anime's version of the Poseidon Chapter) wouldn't get an official English translation until April of 2020, when Netflix added both arcs to its stream of the Seiya anime, continuing the brand new English dub produced by Toei & Sentai Studios; Netflix would eventually remove all of Seiya TV, but it'd later get added to Crunchyroll.

As this isn't a "traditional" review I won't be covering the Sentai Studios dub, though I've generally only heard good things about it, but I think it's time that I finally watch the Asgard Chapter myself & see if it still holds up as a seemingly shining example of how filler arcs should be done.

Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! η: ♪Samurai Soul, Hey Hey Oh♪

Last year I wrote a piece about three anime that all debuted in 2004 & featured the word "Samurai" in their titles, despite the three having literally nothing else in common. Naturally, the concept of the samurai is no stranger to anime, and that's especially true when it comes to the good-ol' Original Video Animation. Therefore, let's revisit the concept of "Anime that Feature the Word 'Samurai' in Their Titles", but this time instead of going with full TV series let's instead check out four short-form OVAs that fit this description, all of which predate 2004's "Inadvertent Samurai Trilogy"... even if two of them can only be included in Volume Eta of OM, OM, OVA! by way of a technicality.

So put on some "Samurai Soul" by Ulfuls as we take a look at a bunch of examples of people who may or may not be literal samurai, but they've at least got it deep within them & that's what really counts!... right?

First up we have an OVA with what seriously sounds like something some fly-by-night dollar-bin distributor would have come up with out of sheer laziness... but, no, this is literally its name in Japanese: The Samurai. Now, to be fair, this is actually what the original manga by Mitsuhiro Kasuga is also called, a manga that debuted in the pages of Weekly Young Jump back in 1984 & would run for 20 volumes before eventually getting a semi-sequel (with a different lead), Samurai Deka, that ran in Weekly Comic Bunch from 2002 to 2007 for a further eight volumes (which were later re-released as 20 eBooks). The Samurai was successful enough to warrant the production of both a live-action theatrical film adaptation by Toei that was directed by Norifumi Suzuki (Truck Yaro) & a live-action TV special adaptation by Tsuburaya Productions, which was actually one of Shusuke Kaneko's earlier directorial works, & aired on Fuji TV's Monday Drama Land program. Shockingly enough, both of these came out in 1986, with the TV special airing literally just nine days after the movie starting running in theaters! The following year a 45-minute OVA adaptation of The Samurai would come out on November 1, 1987 & was co-produced by CBS Sony Group, the precursor company of what's now Aniplex. Before it would eventually get locked away in "Aniplex Jail" ADV Films actually licensed & released The Samurai on dual-audio DVD in early 2003, keeping its immensely generic title intact. No one really knows why The Samurai was licensed that long after it first came out in Japan, but it was likely part of a package deal from Aniplex, so I won't judge. To be fair, reviews at the time generally felt that The Samurai was perfectly fine, if nothing especially noteworthy, so time to see if I feel the same about it as those reviews back in the day did over 20 years after its English release

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

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

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

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

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

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