All of the previous volumes of Demo Disc so far have followed one of two styles. The first is "Multi Series", where I cover a single episode or pilot (though I've done up to three in rare instances) of various anime, with there being some sort of thematic link between all of them. The second is "Single Series", which is effectively the same as my traditional reviews, except that it doesn't cover the entire thing, and therefore is not eligible to be part of my review numbering. The thing with the latter style is that they have all covered 13-26 episodes, with generally ranges from 1/4 to 1/2 of the entire show. Not every anime (or manga) that I have considered eligible for Demo Disc necessarily hit that fraction for a "Single Series" volume, but I feel that they're just a little too large to include in a "Multi Series" volume; even three episodes pushes it, honestly.
Therefore, this is a bit of an experimentation, one that I'll be calling a "Double Series" volume, as it'll be covering only two series, but each one gets a little more detail in their write-ups than "Multi Series" volume entries would normally get. The theme for this volume of Demo Disc? "Foreign Swords"!
 |
| Am I the only one getting a Berserk vibe here... for Zorro?! |
If there's one thing Japan isn't shy about, it's adapting foreign works into things like anime & manga so as to tell them to their own domestic audience in a way that works for them. A good example of that is Zorro, known in Japan as Kaiketsu Zorro/The Extraordinary Zorro, which was originally created back in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley in All-Star Weekly magazine. McCulley's creation, which is one of the earliest masked heroes with a double identity, didn't seem to come over to Japan until the 50s, by way of translations done by Kazuo Inoue, but ever since has maintained some bit of notoriety in the country as an iconic foreign creation, most notably via Yutaka Hara's ongoing children book series Kaiketsu Zorori, which is inspired by Zorro. In 1996, Toho & Ashi Pro teamed up to produced an anime based on the work, using the same Kaiketsu Zorro title that Japan had known it as for decades, and this series would run for 52 episodes, ending in early 1997. I actually have covered this anime before in the past, but that was back in 2017 via the absolutely terrible compilation movie by Mondo TV called The Legend of Zorro. Since then, I've always been curious about how the original Japanese version was, and luckily the first five episodes were fansubbed into English back in the day, so let's see how Japan's take on the American-made Spanish hero started off.
It's 18th Century California, which is under rule of the Spanish Empire. Unfortunately, the land is effectively under the iron grip of the Spanish army, led by Commander Raymond, and even the smallest bit of rebellious talk by the populace is met with punishment. Don Diego Vega is returning home from spending time in Spain for his studies, after receiving a message from his father Don Alejandro Vega about the state of things, and he's decided to do something about it. While making himself look like he's regressed into a well-meaning but helpless noble member of society to everyone, Diego takes the masked identity of the vigilante Zorro in order to help protect the people of his hometown, while also keeping the army in check. As his first acts of justice against a corrupt system, Diego/Zorro helps with the escape of dissident Shichita & his wife and baby, puts a stop to a series of wine robberies with the help of his surrogate little brother Bernardo (who also discovers Zorro's true identity), prevents Lieutenant Gabriel from marrying his betrothed Lolita Pulido under duress, deals with a childhood friend who joins the army under a misguided belief of them being "cool", & figuring out the connection between the chief of a neighboring port town & the mysterious appearance of poisoned fish.
I don't wish to retread much of what I wrote about in the compilation movie dub review I did three years ago, but if you look at that you'll no doubt see different names than what I chose to use here. That's mainly because with the dub I could easily tell how they pronounced everyone's name, while with the Japanese I'm going off of the katakana, so while Commander Raymond is traditionally called "Ramon", the Japanese katakana seems to be for the French name that'd be pronounced as "Raymon"; meanwhile, while the dub used "Bernard", the character of that name is traditionally written as "Bernardo". However, looking into things, Johnston McCulley himself was known for not being consistent at all with his stories, like changing Diego's last name from just Vega (as the anime uses) to de la Vega (which the dub used), and the original pulp story itself had the villain killed & Zorro's identity revealed to everyone, while the next story acted as though neither of those things actually happened. Therefore, the anime featuring its own changes to the Zorro mythos makes perfect sense, like completely altering Bernardo from a mute adult ally of Diego's to a very talkative orphan boy Diego found outside his home one night a few years back & took in; the compilation movie completely skipped this episode, so it was nice to finally get some backstory. Also, upon some research, Kaiketsu Zorro may not have adapted any of the actual stories that McCulley & others have written in the 101 years since the original 1919 story, which apparently became multi-generational, with Diego's descendants taking up the Zorro mantle over time.
As for the anime itself, it's a solid & enjoyable take on the pulp hero. While Diego's hapless civilian demeanor does quickly get a bit overdone, especially in how it consistently turns off Lolita (though the narrative still has her hanging around with him), Episode 5 does show Diego realizing that he does need to show some backbone when not Zorro, like literally charging at Lt. Gabriel; it ends with him being thrown into the ocean & nearly forgotten about by everyone, but at least he tried. Bernardo conceptually could become a grating annoyance, but in reality is a well-executed boy partner to Diego/Zorro, and even his "Little Zorro" disguise only appeared twice across these first two episodes, so it didn't feel overused too soon. Meanwhile, Lolita is a fun love interest, taking no guff from anyone (her status as a lower-level noble lets her get away with some anti-army sentiments in public), and while she doesn't do anything direct in stopping the army here, she has the attitude of someone who would, should push come to shove. Meanwhile, the main duo of villains are Com. Raymond & Lt. Gabriel, though we mainly see the latter in these episodes. Gabriel is, simply put, unrepentant in his actions, willing to point a gun at a child's face & willing to do anything possible to have his way. Meanwhile, Raymond is simply "pure evil" in the few moments we do see him, with a notable example here being when he finds out about Gabriel's attempt to get Lolita to marry him, which involves him freeing an arsonist from jail so that the Pulido home can be covertly threatened by force, followed by Gabriel literally just kidnapping Lolita himself. After finding this out, Raymond chastises Gabriel... for over-complicating things & not just simply taking Lolita for himself by way of army force; also, since reporting Gabriel would make Raymond look bad, he simply tells Gabriel not to do it again. Meanwhile, their lackey is the portly Sergeant Gonzalez, who does everything that he's told to, but is pretty open about how he hates most of the stuff the army does; he even literally helps Zorro fight the thieves in Episode 2. Overall, this is still a family-friendly show that doesn't really aim to be anything more than a year-long episodic interpretation of Zorro, but what Kaiketsu Zorro does it does well & is a fun watch; I even felt the same with the compilation dub, aside from it being just a horrible hack job. It's not something I would hunt down actively, but I'd probably be willing to buy it on home video if it was to ever get a dual-audio release in North America. Yes, that dub used for the compilation movie was complete & is even fully available on YouTube, but I'm covering the original Japanese version here; also, it's not like the dub is honestly all that great, going off of what I heard in the compilation movie.
The anime was directed by Katsumi Minoguchi, a man known more for directing smaller OVA fare like Mega Man: Wish Upon a Star or I Shall Never Return; his only other TV series looks to be Japan/Korea co-production Ki-Fighter Taerang. In that regard, it's not exactly surprising that Kaiketsu Zorro is nothing more than "fine", as the animation is consistent & without any notable mistakes, but doesn't really aim to be anything more than serviceable, though the swordfights are at least quick & snappy. The writing lead by Sukehiro Tomita is good, with each episode seen having solid plots to them that make sense, with only the tiniest of holes to them, most notably how Diego's friend Oro in Episode 4 never seemed to notice how literally everyone in town around him hated the army, yet he thought they were cool; the concept is fine, but it's not like Oro just arrived in town, so how he never noticed this was odd. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see any of the five episodes directed by Akiyuki Simbo (14, 19, 22, 25, & 30), because I'm sure those are likely a trip. The character designs by Hirotoshi Takaya (Eyeshield 21, Zetman) are nice, and I honestly like the little bits of hair that hang over Zorro's domino mask; it's very stereotypically "anime", but it helps give this version of the character a unique style. Meanwhile, the music by Hiromoto Tobisawa (Sonic Soldier Borgman, Jushin Lyger) is fun & very fitting for the Spain-ruled environment of Zorro, giving everything a very Mediterranean sound with a fair amount of acoustic guitars. The same applies to the OP & ED, which Tobisawa composed & arranged. Kaiketsu Zorro is actually the first anime to feature Masaaki Endoh singing the theme songs, and while ED theme "Chikai" is a short but enjoyable little ballad, the real star of the show is OP theme "ZORRO", which is instantly memorable & honestly one of Endoh's best theme songs, though a full version has remained oddly illusive, outside of an (admittedly sweet) acoustic version on YouTube. Considering that Tobisawa is the man who handled the arrangement for Fist of the North Star's iconic theme song "Ai wo Torimodose!", i.e. he's the reason why it sounds like it does, it's no surprise that "ZORRO" is so damn good. Finally, in terms of production, Kaiketsu Zorro not only had six episodes (43, 44, 45, 46, 48, & 49) that never saw broadcast in Japan, but from what I can tell it has also never seen a home video release at all in its home country.
As for the Japanese cast, it's also a solid one, with Toshihiko Seki leading things as Diego/Zorro, who does try his best to sound more high-pitched & hapless as Diego and more low-pitched & assured as Zorro, so as to help make his dual-identity less obvious. Bernardo is voiced by Rica Matsumoto, just prior to her career-defining role as Pokémon's Satoshi/Ash (which literally debuted only three days after Kaiketsu Zorro's final episode), and she's a good reason why the character manages to avoid being grating, as Matsumoto voices Bernardo with just enough boyish enthusiasm, but not so much that it gets annoying. Meanwhile, Maria Kawamura voices Lolita & manages to avoid sounding like your standard damsel in distress kind of character, even in the one moment in these episodes where she's literally just that. As for our villains, we have Jurouta Kosugi & Kenyuu Horiuchi as Raymond & Gabriel, respectively, and both just nail being irreprehensible people perfectly, while Kozo Shioya delivers his usual lovable loaf style for Gonzalez. Finally, these episodes are rounded out with the likes of Ikuya Sawaki (Alejandro Vega), Kumiko Takizawa (Lolita's mother, Catalina), Shozo Iizuka (Lolita's father, Carlos), & Bin Shimada (Oro).
As stated earlier, Kaiketsu Zorro doesn't exactly set the bar in terms of anime adaptations of iconic American creations, but if the rest of the show is anything like these first five episodes it's at least a solid & enjoyable interpretation of an old pulp legend. Watching these episodes were much preferred over Mondo TV's horrid compilation movie, I'll tell you that.
As for our other entry in this "Double Series" volume of Demo Disc, we move 13 years into the future, to the year 2009. When it comes to Japanese boy bands, there are few as notable or as large as Exile (not to be confused with the American country band of the same name), which was founded back in 2001 & lead by Hiroyuki "Hiro" Igarashi; Hiro retired from performing in 2013, but is still active as a producer. On December 12, 2007, the group's sixth album, Exile Love, saw release & had a special edition that came with two DVDs. Included on those DVDs was a pilot for something called Examurai, which re-imagined the members of Exile as seven futuristic samurai in the post-apocalyptic world of the 33rd Century, all descendants of the "Xile Clan", who had the blood of "Oni" in them. On July 23, 2008, best-of album Exile Entertainment Best featured a sequel story, Examurai: Roppongi Hell Castle Chapter, and from 2010 to 2011 a two-volume manga adaptation of Examurai was serialized in Jump Square magazine. From 2009 to 2010, Exile had their own late-night variety show, Exile Generation, on Nippon TV, and for half of the show's run there was a segment called Examurai Sengoku. This series-within-a-series was made up of 24 twelve-minute anime episodes which took the concept of Examurai & moved things from a post-apocalyptic future to the Warring States period of Japan; it was animated by TMS & featured character designs by Hiroshi Takahashi (Crows, Worst). Alongside this anime were two manga series that ran in Weekly Shonen Champion, the 7-volume Examurai Sengoku from 2009-2011 & the 5-volume Examurai Sengoku G from 2011-2014.
So, with all of that explanation out of the way, let's see how the first six episodes of Examurai Sengoku work out, as those are the only ones that were ever fansubbed. I did try to get "raws" for Episodes 7 to 10, for a fuller look, but they're long inaccessible via "other means".
Yasaka is a port town known for trade, but it's gang-ruled underbelly (giving the town the nickname of "The Stray Dog Capital") is one that Nori has had enough of, so he tries escaping from his boss Onikiba by boat, only to bump into a man adrift on the water, who pulls his way onto Nori's boat & passes out. Nori returns to Yasaka to help the man recover, and pledges his allegiance to the man, named Hiro, after he saves Nori from Onikiba in return. Onikiba, though, uses Hiro's beat down as an excuse to instigate a fight with Atsushi, the highly respected leader of the other main gang in Yasaka, so the two gangs meet up at the local Aredera Shrine to fight. Atsushi himself represents his gang, while Onikiba has a hired hand named Makidai represent him; Nori watches all of this from the bushes. During Atsushi & Makidai's fight, a purple haze encompasses everything & a mysterious cloaked figure appears, killing everyone except for Atsushi & Makidai. Nori escapes & finds Hiro to help, who instantly identifies the figure as Kagura, who Hiro has been searching for after having lost to it in the past "across the sea". Hiro's entire reason for coming to Yasaka was to gather together a group to help him take out Kagura, though now he's been blamed for the slaughter at Aredera. One of the men now after Hiro is Takahiro, an young but talented archer who winds up joining Hiro & Nori after some remnants of Onikiba's group force the two to work together.
Examurai Sengoku is interesting from a visual aesthetic sense in that it kind of gives a similar vibe to that of Samurai Champloo, namely in that it feels relatively respectful to the era it takes place in terms of what everyone wears, but has just enough subtle touches that it also feels just a tad inaccurate, so as to give it its own flavor. While Examurai doesn't go to the extent of having its characters literally breakdance while fighting, if need be, you still have those little touches, like people wearing more modern-style necklaces, Atsushi's buzz cut being stylistically shaved, Hiro's head-covering bandana, or Makidai literally just speaking English at times. This is also supported by the music by Ken "KEN 'BABY'" Harada, a DJ/composer/arranger/producer who has worked with artists like T.M. Revolution, Rize (for Shion no Ou's OP "Lady Love"), Glay, Ami Suzuki, & (naturally) Exile. While there are some era-accurate instruments used, the soundtrack here instead is a nice mix of rock, house, & pop synth that I image would sound very much like the kind of music that Exile would perform, helping give the anime a bit of its own identity, and it fits rather well. Also worth noting is that each episode shows the name of each member of the "Examurai" (though they aren't called that here, at least not yet) when they first appear for that episode, ala Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but while it was done like that in LOGH because of the sheer number of characters it utilized, here it feels more like it's just to remind viewers which member of Exile you're looking at, as Hiroshi Takahashi's design style does embellish enough that it can be tough to tell which member each character is supposed to be... Aside from Hiro, but that's only because Hiro's usually the guy at the front of group shots of Exile, I'm sure.
As for the story that's told in these six episodes, which would equate to just three standard-length anime episodes, it actually works rather well here. Each episode has its own focus to it (introducing Hiro, establishing the fight between Atsushi & Onikiba, Atsushi vs. Makidai & Kagura's debut, Hiro explaining his relation to Kagura & why he came to Yasaka, Takahiro's introduction, and Hiro & Takahiro having to work together), and the truncated episode length results in some rather quick & straight-to-the-point storytelling. That's not to say that character development is lacking, though, as we do get enough to get a good initial feel for the major characters to follow, like Hiro's mission against Kagura, Nori's willingness to stick with Hiro instead of escaping Yasaka, Atsushi's noble nature & how he's beloved by the townsfolk, & even Takahiro's backstory involving his father wanting him to become a "samurai"; Takahiro even gets an already-established girlfriend that feels like an honest friendship. Sure, there definitely looks to be a focus on making sure the Exile guys look as cool as possible, like how the worst Atsushi gets after barely surviving Kagura's rampage is just a couple of bandage wraps around his gut & head, but it doesn't feel like it's at the detriment of them feeling like honorable & likable characters. That being said, these first six episodes, which cover the first quarter of the anime, don't introduce all of the Examurai, and only Hiro & Takahiro have actually agreed to work together, so I have no idea how Matsu, Usa, or Akira are interpreted. Going off of Wikipedia Japan, Matsu & Usa come from rival ninja clans, while Akira is the leader of a group of bandits, so there's definitely room for interpersonal problems, I'm sure; there also looks to be a girl named Rinka who winds up following Hiro, but that's all I can tell. If that's not enough, the later Examurai Sengoku G manga brings in yet another seven reinterpreted Exile members, literally doubling the cast!
In terms of production, TMS is generally known for good work, and that results in the show looking rather solid, if a bit stiff in terms of character animation; still, the overall look of the show is good, so the more limited set pieces can be forgiven to an extent. In the director's chair is Yoshio Takeuchi (Cat's Eye Season 1, Night Head Genesis), with supervision by Yuuichi Abe (who has directed episodes of various Ultraman entries), and with that knowledge in hand there is a feeling that this could have very well been done in live-action, with some tokusatsu-style special effects for stuff like Kagura's haze. Still, I think the choice to go with animation is for the better, as Hiroshi Takahashi's distinct design aesthetic, carried over by character designer Masaki Sato (Initial D: Second, Fifth, & Final Stage, Slam Dunk), is what really carries these six episodes so well, visually speaking. The writing by Kouji Miura (Gakuen Basara: Samurai High School, 20 of Beyblade 2002/V-Force's 51 episodes) is the main reason why the show's pace works well with its half-length episodes, compressing general concepts for each episode in a way that doesn't simply feel like standard-length episodes are just being cut into two, which is always a risk that comes with this format. Aside from Ken Harada's music, there is also an ending theme to Examurai Sengoku, though I think it's technically the ending theme to Exile Generation, as a whole. That would be "Generation" by J Soul Brothers, which is a fun & catchy pop song all its own, but it brings us to the whole confusion over what exactly this group is... because it's literally just Exile! Looking into things, J Soul Brothers is what Exile originally was called prior to its founding in 2001, so why they went with this name instead of Exile confounds me, especially since Hiro had already founded a completely separate group named Nidaime/The Second J Soul Brothers in 2007, the members of which would simply be added to Exile in 2009... The same year this anime debuted; said members would even be the new characters introduced in Examurai Sengoku G. I'll just stop here, because to think about how exactly Exile operates any longer may just drive me insane.
As for the voice cast, we thankfully don't have the members of Exile voicing their anime counterparts, as while all but Atsushi (&, at the time, Takahiro) had acting experience by the time this anime debuted, that wouldn't have meant that they necessarily would have been good at voice acting; Matsu did voice his counterpart in 2008's Examurai: Roppongi Hell Castle Chapter, though. Instead, it's a cast filled mostly with professional & experienced seiyuu, with Tetsu Inada leading as Hiro, delivering his usual deep & tough-sounding performance; I'm sure it's how Hiro imagined himself sounding in his dreams. Atsushi is voiced by Hiroki Tanaka (Bruno/Antimony in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds), while Daisuke Endou (Sagat in Street Fighter IV & V) voices Makidai, and both match their characters rather well, with Endou's few English lines sounding decent enough; he obviously isn't a native speaker, but he's more than understandable. As for the last of the Examurai we see in these episodes, Takahiro is voice by Yuuki Masuda (Fujimake in Angel Beats!, Espio the Chameleon in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise), and he shines well enough in the short amount of time I got to hear him here. I'll at least mention that Chihiro Suzuki (Usa), Kenichiro Matsuda (Akira), & Youto Kazama (Matsu) round out the remaining Examurai, though. Finally, in terms of major cast, we have Norihisa Hiranuma, a J-Drama, movie, & stage actor, making his voice acting debut here as Nori, and I'd say that he nails the kind of character he plays rather well, without becoming annoying; he'd later voice Niko in 2012's Lychee DE Light Club.
Look, there's no doubt that Examurai Sengoku, like all the other Examurai productions, is very blatantly a vanity project created by Hiro; I mean, he's credited as "Original Creator", alongside Nelke Planning's Makoto Matsuda. Older anime fans are more than familiar with Weiß Kreuz/Knight Hunters, which was a vanity project by seiyuu Takehito Koyasu of infamously dubious quality (the 1998 anime series, at least). However, being a vanity project doesn't exactly mean that it automatically is terrible, and Examurai Sengoku's first six episodes do show that it could very well be one of those exceptions. If the rest of the anime is anything like the first quarter I was able to watch, then it'll wind up being a neat little series, one that uses the visages of the Exile guys, though highly reinterpreted, but otherwise focuses on telling its own focused story of stopping a mysterious force from causing more harm, all with a little extra flavor by way of its Exile-influenced musical & visual stylings. Unfortunately, the only way to actually get a hold of Examurai Sengoku is by purchasing the DVD release of Exile Generation's first two seasons, as each half of the anime is included as parts of those releases, especially the boxsets (which at least give the anime the main cover focus). As it is today, who knows if Examurai Sengoku could even be licensed on its own, as it could be contractually attached to the variety show, and the fact that it's based around Exile, one of the biggest names in the Japanese music scene, might just make it too expensive to even consider.
-----
And that brings an end to this experimental "Double Series" volume of Demo Disc. I can't make any guarantees if this format may come back at any point, it was admittedly done because these two series were essentially the odd-men-out among my list of potential candidates, but I hope you found some fun with it, and look forward to another volume next year; after all, I'm finally down to just nine letters of the alphabet left to use for volume titles!
Kaiketsu Zorro © 1992 Toho Co. Ltd.・Ashi Pro
Examurai Sengoku © Hiroshi Takahashi・Examurai Sengoku Production Committee
No comments:
Post a Comment