Hmmm, I could have organized these better, right?
Hareluya II BØY
I will fully admit that I am not someone who puts that much stock in the actual quality of the animation when I watch anime. Sure, I definitely appreciate & love seeing absolutely stunning & beautiful animation when I see it, and even I have my limits, but I generally treat the visual side of anime like I treat the graphical fidelity of video games, i.e. I focus more on the actual content of what's being offered than how good it looks; a sakuga nut I am not. I say this because the 1997 anime adaptation of Haruto Umezawa's 1992-1999 manga Hareluya II BØY can definitely be on the rougher side of animation, to the point where I would definitely see people poke fun at some its more awkward drawings, had this anime actually been more well known; instead, all there is online are three episodes fansubbed into English, & a crappy Chinese TV rip. Really, this is all likely because this was an early example of modern-day late-night "infomercial" anime, it was also the first time a Shonen Jump property aired in late-night, and a lot of anime from that time aimed to be as cheap as possible, resulting in some really shoddy work. What made me forgive BØY's sometimes really chintzy animation when I reviewed it, though, was pretty much everything else about it.
The cast was just really memorable, and main character Hareluya Hibino himself was a really interesting one, with his vague & pompous goal of "World Domination" not masking the fact that, deep down, he was a really benevolent & caring guy, one who values his friends over anything else; even if he has no personal stake in an issue, he'll still care about it, so long as it means something to one of his friends. The stories were also really varied & dealt with some touchy subjects that you normally didn't see in a Shonen Jump title, like murderous stalkers & potential sexual assault, while also dealing with more of your usual high-school problems (rival school sports teams, budding romance, etc.) or standard Jump fare (like a secret fight club). This was another anime where Yasuhiro Imagawa headed up the writing team, though this time he had a large crew with him; his only time working on a Jump anime, in fact. The music, likewise, was excellent, mixing together a really eclectic mix of genres & rearranging some classical music in extremely awesome rock renditions; the album-worth of music by rock band SPYKE implemented all throughout was also outstanding. Also, for those who like things to be decade specific, BØY truly felt like a series that could only have been made in the 90s, because everything about the world just screams of that decade; it's like how Kimagure Orange Road was definitively the 80s. Finally, the anime even paid homage to BØY's spiritual precursor, the single-volume Hareluya, in the last episode, which itself was so over-the-top bonkers & unlike anything else in the anime that it will forever remain in my memory. Not just that, but the way that least episode was handled allowed for some cool interpretation as to how much of it was all a dream, and if the anime really tied itself into OG Hareluya in the first place. For a show that can often land with a thud visually, it sure recovers amazingly well in every other aspect.
Will it ever get licensed? Considering the fact that Hareluya II BØY has never seen a re-release in Japan to this very day, I think the chances for this ever getting licensed are effectively zero; aside from the first episode being included in a themed DVD release a few years back, it's VHS & LD-only. In fact, this is literally the only anime that Yasuhiro Imagawa has ever worked on, in his entire career, that has yet to see a complete DVD or Blu-Ray release. Also, while the anime was listed on Starchild Records' old anime site as a title that it handled licensing of, that label of King Records no longer exists as of 2016, so who knows if King Records even still has full licensing rights over it; I'd imagine it would, though. Regardless, the only real chance BØY ever had at coming over to North America was back during the late 90s or early 00s, when it was still relatively recent. If I had to make a guess, though, getting the rights to all of SPYKE's music was likely what kept this from ever getting licensed back in the day; the band never released an actual album with King Records, so the anime's two OSTs double as that. As it is today, this anime will forever remain forgotten by everyone, because there chances of it getting licensed now aren't even zero, but rather in the negative. Hell, I have a feeling that the anime will wind up remaining VHS & LD-exclusive in Japan, too; if its inclusion in that themed DVD release didn't prompt anything, nothing will.
Sorry, Hareluya II BØY, you're not a bad show on the whole, though your animation doesn't help, but much like the rock band that supplied a bunch of your music, you'll never have a truly comprehensive single release for people to go to.
[12/2022 UPDATE: Honestly never thought this would be a list that'd ever get updated, let alone the second half filled with the "never gonna happen" entries, but Sentai Filmworks did license Hareluya II BØY in late 2021. I held off on updating this list as it is still currently only available via streaming over at Hidive, and I really only want to update this list with physical releases. Still, after over a year, I think I should at least acknowledge that it did actually get licensed.]
Shinken Legend Tight Road
Sometimes, I get curious about an obscure & forgotten anime just by seeing a single image. Late 1994's Shinken Legend Tight Road is one of those examples, because I first heard of it when perusing Toei Animation's list of works years ago. All it had was the title, that image of the four main characters you see above, & an utterly basic write-up that barely said anything about the plot. Yes, that's not a lot to go off of, but it was enough to keep it in my mind, because I'm sometimes that simple. As time would go on, I'd dig a little deeper & find out some more info, like that it was apparently meant to tie in with a fighting game developed by Gust (yes, THAT Gust) that never actually came out, if development on it even got started, and that it was one of the earliest anime that director Michio Fukuda (Terraformars Revenge, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan: Demon Capital) ever worked on, as he handled the character designs; in fact, Fukuda even admitted to ANN in 2011 that Shinken Legend was his favorite when it came to designs. The only problem was that the only bit of the show you could find online was a rip of the OP sequence, and that's mainly because the anime only ever saw a VHS release in Japan... Two years after it first aired. Eventually, I decided to break down & use a proxy service to get it from Yahoo! Auctions Japan, because I finally just wanted to see what this show was actually like.
Thankfully, I really liked it.
Admittedly, Shinken Legend was never going to win any awards for originality or panache, but it was much better than its utterly forgotten existence would make you think. In fact, the story of Taito Masaki & his journey to the country of Grazia in search of answers regarding his father's death, only to wind up fighting his way up the Spiral Palace of "God of Fighting" Klaus Daggats alongside new friends he made, actually reminded me of something more recent. In particular, the way the story flowed & handled the fights themselves honestly made me think of the Story Modes we get in today's fighting games, like Guilty Gear Xrd, Street Fighter V, or Tekken 7, i.e. full-on cinematic stories that actually try to give proper plots to the games, rather than rely on simplistic stories told primarily through endings, like they used to be. Again, Shinken Legend's tale isn't a breakthrough by any means, but it's still told well, the characters are easy to get into (Fukuda's designs definitely help, in that regard), the music is fittingly jazzy, & the fights are (surprisingly enough) rather realistic in execution, with only one character who uses anything like a ki blast. Had the fighting game actually come out, I think this anime would have been a great way to promote it, but today it's still worth a watch if you like old-school martial arts stories... Now if only it was easier to actually watch.
Will it ever get licensed? No.
Okay, maybe I should explain my answer a little. While the show is still listed on Toei's current website, which means that it should technically be available for licensing, there's absolutely no way any company will bother to give it a try. Even in Japan the show is next to unheard of, which makes sense. It was apparently made to promote a video game, publisher Zamuse was even listed in the credits, but said video game never actually saw release, so its entire existence & airing was pretty much pointless. The fact that Toei didn't even release it on home video until two years after it aired shows that the company had no real interest in doing so, and likely only put it out because it had an opening in its schedule; maybe there were a handful of fans asking for it, too. Still, there wasn't even a LD release for Shinken Legend Tight Road, indicating that Toei probably just shoved it out as cheaply as possible just to make it available, & never wanted to deal with it again. Look, I really enjoyed this anime, & I'd be super happy if it was to ever get an official English release, but this is easily a case of, "I want it, but I don't actually expect to ever get it".
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| Seriously, how can I get an actual replica of this card?! |
Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyousei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro
Sorry (professional anime translator) Neil Nadelman, but we're just going to forever differ in opinion with this anime; I just hope next time we ever meet we won't be as confrontational about it as it felt last time. I won't make any excuses here, because sometimes my opinion just goes against the general grain. Case in point is Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro, the mid-2006 anime adaptation of the Comic Bunch manga by Ken Kitashiba (story) & Yasuhiro Watanabe (art). The manga followed Jotaro Zaizen, a former Japanese police officer who faked his death after a drug bust on a foreign dignitary went wrong, with dirty politics allowing the dignitary to walk off with no arrest. After three years, Zaizen returns to Japan, now as an agent for the GCIA, an extra-legal force established solely to put a stop to things like backdoor deals between politicians & businesses. Along with his Zainers Gold Black Card, which he got from British royalty during his three years away & allows him access to nearly anything he needs at the moment, Zaizen aims to stop any & all crimes committed by government officials. The anime, in particular, dealt with a decade-old agreement between a construction company & the Minister of Construction that allows buildings to be built for cheap yet still approved for legal use, all while a yakuza group known as the Overlord Black Dragon Gang is paid off to protect both sides. Well, to be fair, only 10 of the 11 episodes actually adapted this story arc, which apparently happened early in the manga, and this is where some of the infamy for this anime comes from.
You see, Episode 1 of the Zaizen Jotaro anime had nothing at all to do with the rest of the anime, instead telling a one-off about Zaizen chasing down a Japanese ambassador in California, with the entire episode feeling more like a really bad rip-off of James Bond. To most people, this first episode is what the entire anime must be like, and I fully understand making fun of it, because it gives the anime a horrible first impression. As for the rest of the episodes (you know, the ACTUAL series), it's really best described as a mix of Miami Vice, Fist of the North Star, & maybe Law & Order, as bizarre as that sounds. Zaizen is a bit like Ryo Saeba from City Hunter, only not quite as perverted & on the legal side of the law, and that Zainers Card of his allows him to do all sorts of crazy things, like empty out an entire hospital just so he can have a one-on-one conversation with the main villain, who resides there. People also poked fun at the limited animation, which the show does have, but I actually enjoyed how the staff had a field day with how many different ways they used cut-ins to transition from one scene to another. For example, they literally had a shot open up like a door, because the next scene started with a door opening; that's legitimately cool & unexpected.
Is the anime a completely wild (& occasionally goofy) male power fantasy about being able to deal with dirty politicians in a fashion I'm sure everyone wishes they could? Abso-freaking-lutely! I don't think that means that the anime is "totally lame", however, but that's just my opinion. I gave my peace about how I felt regarding the anime years ago in as much detail as I could, and I still feel the same about it today; I just think it's fun to watch. It might not mesh with others' views on it, but that's no reason to belittle me about it, which I felt Neil Nadelman did all those years ago; it's a totally benign thing to get into an argument over, honestly.
Will it ever get licensed? Barring some sort of random package deal NBC Universal Japan (or whoever has licensing rights for it) makes that forces Zaizen Jotaro upon a licensing company, I highly doubt it. Regardless of how I, Neil, or anyone else really feels about this anime, it's an extreme niche of a series, aimed primarily at older men who just wish they could catch dirty politicians & crooked businessmen at their games & make them stop screwing over the regular people. Without a doubt, it's an interesting subject matter to throw the "manly" style of anime & manga into, but it's something with a very shallow & thin net, making it next-to-impossible to really aim at most anime fans, even those who support the likes of Discotek Media. Hell, even the Japanese retail DVD release was only as a limited edition boxset, though it did feature revised animation, a CG-filled redo of Episode 1 (plus the original "On-Air" version to compare it with), & a 45-minute roundtable discussion of the series by the director, producer, & major cast; at least it was given something to care about.
That being said, if Zaizen Jotaro was to ever get licensed, would I want to see Neil Nadelman be the one hired for the translation, just to spite him? Not at all, I'm not that kind of person, though I'm sure he'd be completely professional about it & give it the best translation he could.
Metal Armor Dragonar
Today, Gundam is an utterly unstoppable franchise, but back in 1987 things were very different. Creator Yoshiyuki Tomino came back to his 1979 original with a sequel, 1985's Zeta Gundam, followed by its own sequel, 1986's Gundam ZZ, and after doing those two series felt that he had done everything he though he could do with the concept, deciding to finish things with a theatrically-released finale, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, in 1988. Sunrise, while allowing Tomino time to make his movie, decided to replace Gundam ZZ with a brand new mech anime in early 1987, one that could potentially replace Gundam as the new focal point. With director Takeyuki Kanda (Round Vernian Vifam, Gundam 08th MS Team) helming the show & Fuyunori Gobu (Brave Raideen, G Gundam) leading the writing staff, Metal Armor Dragonar debuted, and during its run actually did fairly well, though time has shown that Gundam was just too big to kill off. Telling the story of three young men (Kaine Wakaba, Tapp Oceano, & Light Newman) who wind up becoming the pilots of prototype giant robots called Dragonars & become Earth Federation solidiers in its war with the Lunar Empire Giganos, Dragonar definitely hewed very close to the style of war story that Gundam originally told. It even had a "Char clone", "The Blue Eagle of Giganos" Meio Plato, whose sister Linda sides with the heroes & becomes Kaine's girlfriend. Without a doubt, if there's something to knock Dragonar for, it could sometimes feel like "Gundam without Gundams".
Where the show excelled, though, was in its ability to mix together serious drama & action with lighthearted comedy, which had to be something Kanda & Gobu learned from Tomino's previous shows. When it came to the two Gundam TV series of the 80s, they both suffered from problems with their tone. Zeta Gundam had a bad habit of often being too dour & depressing for its own good, no doubt influenced by Tomino's mental state at the time, while Gundam ZZ quickly became infamous for its sudden tonal shift halfway through the show, going from being almost a comedic sitcom to a serious & darker story with no real transitional period. Dragonar, on the other hand, had a nicely balanced mix of lightheartedness, that allowed the characters to show off their personalities, & seriousness, that made you believe that this was still a war story with dangers. In fact, the show even poked fun at some things within the genre, like having the "D-Weapons" (as the Dragonars were also called) get mass-produced into stronger mechs called Dragoons, only for the Federation pilots to be so utterly inept that the prototype Dragonars, with their hard-coded & experienced pilots, wound up being the better options anyway. Unfortunately, the biggest reason why Dragonar isn't as well known in English fandom is due to a lack of good English subs, with only a complete set of rough, bootleg HK subs being available for the longest time. There is an active effort for proper subtitles at the moment, & they are in the mid-30s as of this list, but ideally a proper licensed release would allow this great show to shine. It'll never truly leave the shadow of Gundam that it was designed around, but it does deserve more attention & respect, because it is just that good.
Will it ever get licensed? Amazingly enough, Metal Armor Dragonar was on the licensing radar of at least American company at some point, though this was only revealed relatively recently. In one of the episodes of ANNCast that discussed the life of U.S. Renditions, there were a couple, it was revealed that, had the company managed to stick around for while longer, it would have actually licensed & released Dragonar in North America, as it was a title the company was interested in. Granted, considering that the company didn't last too long in general, had this happened there'd be a fair chance that it would have gone unfinished, especially since it'd be a VHS release, but at least it was in consideration at one point. Today, though, the chances of licensing are much lower. Now, to be fair, there have been some shocking Sunrise-related happenings recently, like Maiden Japan's releases of Space Runaway Ideon & Blue Gale Xabungle, but those both have the notoriety of being Yoshiyuki Tomino shows, which are likely what made them worth picking up. While Takeyuki Kanda has some beloved anime behind his belt, his premature death in 1996 resulted in him not truly achieving the notoriety that I'm sure fans of his work expected of him. Of all the anime in this half of the list, Metal Armor Dragonar is probably the most likely to get licensed, but even then it's not that much higher; it's an "unlikely", rather than a "never gonna happen".
Monkey Turn
This is the last entry because of a technicality, as it is kind-of/sort-of already licensed, in a technical sense, but not by choice, and the company that has said "technical" license has had no interest in making it available. The 2004 anime Monkey Turn (& its second season that same year, Monkey Turn V) was based on the kyotei racing manga by Katsutoshi Kawai that ran in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 1996 to 2005 for 30 volumes, one that actually tied with Hikaru no Go for the Shogakukan Manga Award for shonen back in 1999. It followed Kenji Hatano, a soon-to-be high school grad who, after seeing a kyotei race in person for the first time, decides that he wants to be professional racer, and after graduating the racing academy promises his girlfriend Sumi that he'll be the #1 racer in Japan after just three years. Really, Monkey Turn, named after a difficult turning maneuver, was about as focused on realism as it could possibly be, with the first season focusing primarily on Kenji's rise up the ranks & the various rivalries he gets along the way, especially his major one with Takehiro Doguchi, the son of one of the best in the sport. When I first saw this anime over a decade ago, I absolutely loved every bit of it, and when I re-watched it last year for a re-review my feelings about it were very much the same; it truly is "one of the best sports anime that you've never seen".
Monkey Turn V, in turn, changed focus a bit, detailing what happens when you actually achieve the dream you made for yourself. Instead of being about Kenji's rise, it instead detailed the trials & tribulations of not just Kenji but also some of his fellow racers, both old & new, making it very much more of an anime about the various lives of professional kyotei racers. Dealing with career-threatening injuries, putting your obsessions over love, & old veterans realizing that they can still get one last moment in the spotlight were just some of the situations dealt with in this second season, giving it a slightly different feel than the first season, but still being just as outstanding. Similar to Ring ni Kakero 1, which started airing while the second season was finishing up, Monkey Turn was absolutely ignored by anime fans at the time, and actually even more so than my personal #1 most-wanted anime license. While RnK1 at least got a majority of its episodes fansubbed over time, Monkey Turn has only ever received bootleg HK subs (that are overtly literal & mangle all of the names), and only for the first season, at that. Monkey Turn V was an anime I had to watch without any sort of English translation, and it's a damn shame that such an outstanding series has become truly forgotten with time. It really is a tad aggravating that it technically could be released in North America, but won't.
Will it ever get licensed? For the longest time, Shogakukan had an American division called ShoPro Entertainment that handled licensing for the various anime that it had a hand in; InuYasha was probably the biggest name. Monkey Turn was one of the titles that ShoPro had the "master license" to for North American release, i.e. companies would have to talk to it in place of Japan, but in the mid-00s ShoPro got merged together with Viz Media. This resulted in Viz being the master licensor for any & all of the anime that ShoPro originally had, and this included Monkey Turn; in fact, one of Viz's old websites had a section solely for these master licenses. Obviously, almost none of these anime were ones that Viz really had any interest in, and I'd wager that it was unable to get any other company interested, either. Honestly, I just figured that the rights might have expired over time, or something like that, so after I covered both seasons of Monkey Turn last year, I decided to just send an e-mail to Viz, remarking how much I enjoyed the anime & how I wished it was available here in America. I figured I'd just get a response of "Sorry, but we no longer have that license," but instead Viz got back to me, saying that they had no current plans for Monkey Turn, effectively admitting that the company still has the master license to the anime!
I fully understand why Viz does nothing with Monkey Turn, or any of the other unreleased ShoPro titles; these anime were pretty much dumped onto the company because of a merger, after all. Still, the fact that a title as seriously good as Monkey Turn, even with it being an intense niche of a product, is technically "half-way there" in terms of being given an English release, is just maddening. I mean, at least make it available via streaming, at this point, but I guess even paying for a translation would be considered too much of an expense.
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And those are the 10 anime, out of the 200+ that I've reviewed over the past 100 months, that I'd love to see licensed for English release. Obviously, if I had opened this up to unlicensed anime in general, regardless of whether I've already reviewed it or not, then it'd be somewhat different. To be honest, I've generally shied away from doing lists like that, but maybe I'll look into doing at least one at some point. Still, these 100 months have certainly been interesting, & filled with many anime that I likely would have never finally given the time to watching. Before I take a month off, though, I do have one last thing in the works, so look forward to a new Retrospect in Retrograde by the end of March.
Hareluya II BØY © S・E/Shueisha・BØY Production Committee・TV Tokyo
Shinken Legend Tight Road © ZM/Toei Animation
Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyousei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro © Ken Kitashiba・Yasuhiro Watanabe/Coamix/Shinchosha/Trans-Arts
Metal Armor Dragonar © Sotsu・Sunrise
Monkey Turn © Katsutoshi Kawai・Shogakukan/Monkey Turn Project
I know this post is a bit old but an obscure series I would love to see licensed stateside via Discotek is a Sunrise series from 1998 called, "DT Eightron". You should check it out!
ReplyDeleteIt's not even a whole year since I posted this, so I wouldn't call it "old" quite yet. Anyway, I've heard of DT Eightron, and I love the OP theme to it, and it's something I've had on my infinite backlog for years. Maybe one day...
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