We're coming down to the last stretch of letters remaining for Demo Disc, as my goal has long been to do one for each letter of the English alphabet (& I doubled up on S early on, so this will wind up totaling 27). Not just that, but I have mentioned before that the gimmick with this "column", from a naming standpoint, has become trickier to continue with ever since I started it back in 2014, due to the fact that many of the titles that I had planned to cover in this format have since been given some sort of complete English translation now, making them ineligible. Because of that, I now have to find a way to not only figure out what titles I can cover via Demo Disc, but also figure out a way to match them with the remaining letters I have left.
For example, I have a trio of sports-related (even if only slightly) titles in mind, & the word "varsity" has a sports-related definition to it, so let's get "V" out of the way, even if it only really relates directly to one of them!
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| I swear, there is some sports-related stuff in this Volume! |
A Giant Desperate Turnabout in One Shot!
While something like Gatchaman or Speed Racer may be Tatsunoko's most iconic franchise the world over, over in Japan I imagine that there's a good argument to be made for the Time Bokan Series, which ran on a weekly basis from 1975 to 1983 across seven different entries, plus an celebratory two-episode OVA in 1993/1994, an eighth installment in 2000, & re-imaginings of the first two entries from 2008-2009 & 2015-2018. While I have covered the original Time Bokan & both the original Yatterman & its late-00s reboot way back in 2015, those were not via Demo Disc, so this is actually the first time this iconic franchise appears here. And since Demo Disc always goes in chronological order, that means that we start this Volume with Gyakuten/Turnabout Ippatsuman, the sixth Time Bokan anime (& the penultimate of the original continual run), which originally ran from 1982 to 1983 for 58 episodes, making it the third-longest entry; the titular hero also appeared as a playable character in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on the Wii in all regions.
What does this series have to do with sports? Honestly, not much beyond Ippatsuman himself having a slight baseball theme to him (his base of operations is literally called "Home Base"), & his real name (Go Sokkyu) being a pun on the Japanese word for a "blazing fastball", but I'll take what I can get, at this point. So let's see how the first episode of this anime, the only one ever fansubbed, fares when it stands up to the plate.
It's the year 1990 (you know, the future) & in the city of Ost Andel there are two competing companies that both offer assistance services to others by way of leasing out all manner of objects, including giant robots. The big name is Time Lease, which is now even offering to assist others in not just the present, but also the past & the future by way of its giant transport robot Tokkyusaurus. Its main competition, if it can even be called that, is Sharekobe Lease, which is barely functioning as a company due to its poor reputation, with even its large headquarters being a literal facade. Not pleased with that, & especially with Time Lease going on its first time travel job to 3 B.C. to help the Egyptians build the pyramids (Oh, so that's how they were built!), Sharekobe's Chairman Con Cordo commands his Branch Manager Munmun, Director Kosuinen, & Manager Kyokanchin to time travel to where Time Lease went & interfere, which they do by sneakily taking command of Time Lease's giant builder robot remotely. Seeing trouble at hand, TL employees Ran Homu, Harubo, & their robot partner 2-3 (who all went back in time to oversee the job) send a distress signal back home to Go Sokkyu, Time Lease's head mechanic. Unbeknownst to them, though, Go is also a superpowered hero named Ippatsuman, who can head back in time himself to help save the day, and even when Sharekobe's "Clean Evil Trio" dispatch a giant robot of their own to stop Ippatsuman, he reveals his trump card: Tokkyusaurus can combine with his time travel vehicle to form the giant robot Gyakuten-Oh.
Straight up right away: The Time Bokan Series is meant for children, so proper expectations have to be taken into consideration. Don't go into this first episode of Ippatsuman looking for an answer as to how exactly Time Lease & Sharekobe Lease can time travel, why a pair of kids (Ran's a teenager, & Harubo likely isn't even 10) are the ones overseeing the pyramid job, or why the story more or less makes the little guy company out to be the villains, instead of the big & successful enterprise. Seriously, Sharekobe's employees are seemingly normal people, with only the Clean Evil Trio being instantly suspicious, and that's only because they're literally using the evil trio template that Time Bokan started & Yatterman made popular (& would then become a Time Bokan Series standard). No, you instead go into this episode wanting to see the establishment of a fun & reliable little status quo that I'm sure is repeated for the large majority of Gyakuten Ippatsuman's 58-episode run, and in that regard it's a good time. The Clean Evil Trio are silly & enjoyable villains (they rely on some standards of what came before, but hold back on some others), the concept is honestly a neat one that can allow for a lot of wild potential, & Ippatsuman himself is a neat superhero. He has super strength & can withstand a lot of damage (he's literally stepped on by the robot-of-the-week, but is able to hold it off enough to form Gyakuten-Oh to save him), yet his signature attack is the "Rain Ball", which is simply a baseball that he can throw & have do all sorts of things, before returning back to him. That being said, Ran, Harubo, & 2-3 are all but useless in this episode, being nothing more than a reason for the Clean Evil Trio to do evil things & Ippatsuman coming to save the day; I would only hope that with another 57 episodes they get to do more over time. Finally, I do find it amusing that Ippatsuman is essentially like Iron Man in his early days, i.e. everyone just assumes that he works for Go & Time Lease, instead of being one of their own.
Overall, though, the first episode of Gyakuten Ippatsuman is good fun, and it's easy to see why the Time Bokan Series became such an iconic part of Tatsunoko's history. Don't go in expecting anything more than simple & silly children's fare, and just wallow in the zaniness.
Nine in Adversity
Up next we move over to manga, and what kind of is the "main attraction" of this Demo Disc, as we'll be taking a look at a couple of volumes! Running from 1989 to 1991 in Tokuma Shoten's Monthly Shonen Captain (the original home of both Bio-Boosted Armor Guyver & Trigun), Gyakkyou Nine/Nine in Adversity comes from the wild mind of Kazuhiko Shimamoto, creator of Blazing Transfer Student & Blue Blazes, former Osaka University of Arts classmate of Hideaki Anno & the crew that founded Gainax, & unabashed lover of everything hot-blooded & passionate. Though it lasted 28 chapters & 6 volumes in Japan (& even got an unfinished 1-volume sequel in 2004, Gekitou), an old fan translation effort from 2006/2007 only ever made it through the first 9 chapters, or all of the first two volumes & the first chapter of Volume 3. So let's take a look at the first 1/3 of "GK9" (as it's abbreviated to in Japan), & see what new spore of madness Shimamoto brought to a manga about high school baseball.
Toshi Fukutsu, leader of the Zenryoku High School baseball team, reports to the Principal's Office... only to be told immediately that the entire baseball program has been cancelled, due to their inability to even make it to the Final 4 of the local tournament, & that they're a waste of funds. After punching out Toshi when he pleads for just the funding to be cut, the Principal gives Toshi just 2-3 days, before the rugby team takes command of the club room. Desperate, Toshi asks for 10 days of practice before the team faces off against a Top 8 team from Hinode Shogyo, promising that not only will his team win, but that they'll be able to make it all the way to Koshien. After all, even if it IS impossible for Toshi & his team to win... THEY MUST WIN! Unfortunately, things don't look good when his very own teammates become either unwilling or unable to compete as game day approaches, leaving the team with just pitcher Toshi, catcher Kurasuke Ooishi, & manager Akiko Tsukita... until Ooishi accidentally breaks Toshi's treasured "Golden Left Arm" by accidentally stepping on it in the middle of the night before the game.
Kazuhiko Shimamoto is kind of the real life equivalent of that meme where fake author Garth Marenghi says "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards", because right from the first chapter of Gyakkyou Nine there's no real set up or slow build. Instead, it only takes 5 pages for the Principal to say "Team Cancelled!!", followed by the rest of the chapter detailing everything I mentioned in the synopsis above; also, our main character's name literally means "An Indomitable Will to Fight" & attends "Full Power High". When at his wildest, Shimamoto cares not for making the reader think, but instead goes full bore with giving them spectacle, hot-blooded passion, & willingly fourth-wall breaking gumption. For example, all of that stuff about Toshi's arm getting broken & his teammates being unable to compete? Toshi's burning passion to continue playing on game day inspires his teammates to rise back up & join him... only for Hinode Shogyo to forfeit due to rain, since they have a more important match the next day, & Zenryoku was nothing more than a practice match to them.
However... A WIN'S A WIN!! ZENRYOKU HAS WON!! THEY GOT A MIRACULOUS WIN!!
That's the kind of manga Gyakkyou Nine is, in the end: A parody of a standard high school baseball manga, but Shimamoto's style results in it being played completely straight, which in turn allows the characters' emotions & general plot beats of the series to still feel like it can be taken seriously. I mean, even though Zenryoku beat Hinode Shogyo by forfeit, they still celebrate like it was a true, hard-fought victory & the school treats them like heroes, to the point where Hinode Shogyo High looks down its own team, despite them having just beaten one of the toughest teams in the region the next day. Meanwhile, Akiko's friend Ryo from Kokufun High is in a similar situation as Toshi, but maybe beating the team that beat Hinode Shogyo can save Kokufun's team from dissolution... too bad the meal Akiko made for Ryo's team the morning of the game made them all sick, while also making Toshi's team feel bad about that fact, yet both teams still play the game. Anyway, Ryo winds up joining Zenryoku after the game, since he had to move, & he just happened to now live close enough to Akiko's school. Also, they wind up with Go Sakikibara as their team coach, a social studies teacher who knows nothing about baseball but knows a lot of history & Sun Tzu, but outright admits that he'll ditch the team should there even be a chance of failure.
That covers Volume 1, with Volume 2 going through a similar execution. Dealing with a team that literally has the Japanese word for "Deceive" in its name (alongside a bunch of personal issues, especially Sakakibara accidentally getting insanely drunk the night before the game); making sure resident dummies Toshi & Shinyashiki don't fail their midterms (or else the team is done for, as they don't have any reserves)... only for six other teammates to fail the midterms instead; finding new recruits by way of Seven Samurai (i.e. throwing baseballs at unsuspecting students & seeing which ones catch, dodge, or hit it back) & finding a guy (Kameya) who's a massive Sadaharu Oh superfan (plus others in the following chapter); & Toshi getting hit with love at first sight by a girl (Mariko) & eventually going on a date with her instead of playing the team's next game (luckily that team was weak, so Zenryoku still won). Finally, the start of Volume 3 reveals that the whole date was actually orchestrated by Toshi's doctor (who is drawn like Sylvester Stallone & is a straight-up Rocky parody) & his daughter Mariko so as to prevent Toshi from damaging his pitching arm further (remember, Ooishi crushed it in Chapter 1), even if all of this has resulted in Toshi's relationship with his own team being strained, as they saw him returning from the date after the game ended.
Overall, the nine chapters of Gyakkyou Nine that were fan translated are a very fun time to be had, and is a perfect encapsulation of Kazuhiko Shimamoto's penchant for being able to tell stories that can be absurd & silly in their overindulgence of hot-blooded passion, but can still be taken in a serious fashion to a notable extent. Even though Shimamoto himself does categorize GK9 as a gag manga, & there are tons of gags to be found referencing stuff like Rocky, Team Astro, & Ring ni Kakero, it's still one in which its story (after digging through all of the wild & crazy parody & absurdity) is absolutely relatable. It's the story of a team that wants to make it to the top of the mountain, or else it's all over, but find themselves backed up into corners constantly, needing to take on "adversity" at seemingly every single moment. It's just that, in GK9's case, a fair bit of said adversity is self-inflicted by the characters themselves, & especially in the case of Toshi. I mean, he beats a rival in a three-pitch challenge, but feels like he lost because his rival is a sore loser who talks his way into making it sound like he actually won the challenge instead; Toshi truly is a "lovable idiot". Many fans of Shimamoto's works lament that his only manga to ever see official English release (his remake/sequel of Shotaro Ishinomori's The Skull Man from the late 90s) isn't really a true representation of his style, and while I did like his take on Skull Man it is indeed true that we've never seen what Shimamoto is truly capable of in North America; Gyakkyou Nine, while one of his lesser known works, is proof positive of that.
Kickoff to Destiny
Escape Eleven Castle!
Finally, we move on from two unfinished fan translations to an unfinished official translation, and from an anime company that I've only ever mentioned before! In last year's VHS-themed license rescue list I included Dragon League, a 39-episode fantasy soccer anime from 1993 to 1994 that only ever saw its first two episodes released on a single subbed VHS in North America by a small little company called Star Anime Enterprises, which was founded by an ex-CPM employee who literally just hassled Japanese licensors until he finally was allowed to license something. While Dragon League wasn't SAE's first anime release, it would end up being its last, though even by the English release in 1998 it looked as though SAE was just acting as the distributor, with Dragon League being more of an effort by FCI (the original Japanese licensor) & the late "Otaking" Steve Pearl. Regardless, this sole VHS tape has since been ripped & added to the Internet Archive by ANN & Discotek Media's own Mike Toole, so let's check out what SAE, FCI, & Steve Pearl tried selling to anime fans back in 1998 for $24.95... or just over $45 in today's money for only two episodes.
After following his father Amon throughout the forest, seemingly at random, young Tokio arrives at Elevenia (literally "The City of Eleven" in Japanese), home of the legendary soccer team the Eleven Winners, who have just won their fifth straight Dragon League Championship. Amon has been training Tokio all this time, with hopes that he'll eventually join the Eleven Winners, but after a 1-on-1 contest with Leon, the ace striker of the Winners (& who Amon has a mysterious past with), Amon winds up getting turned into a mini-dragon by the magical "Golden Ball" Leon used for their contest. Seeing this happen, Tokio swears to defeat Leon & return his father back to normal (even though Amon really has no problem being a mini-dragon), and that means first qualifying for the Junior League's Junior Winners team. Luckily, Tokio finds a path towards that goal by helping a bunch of seeming poor players against some local bullies... even if doing so means getting arrested & thrown in jail at Eleven Castle, because he illegally entered the castle to help take on the bullies.
First off, I want to remark that, while the events happening in this VHS tape's contents do seem to match the episode titles of the first two episodes (as the second half does involve Tokio needing to "escape the castle"), FCI edited it to the point where it's treated as just one double-length episode, so the OP & ED only appear once each, while only the first episode's title card is shown. However, it is edited so well in that regard that I seriously wondered if Dragon League's first episode was actually just a double-length one; it's just so seamless & impressive. Anyway, much like Gyakuten Ippatsuman earlier, Dragon League makes no attempt to hide that this is a series meant for children, with its very simple, silly, & straightforward types of humor, like Amon just taking everything that happens in stride or Tokio's new friend Fam constantly doing a high-pitched "Boo!" whenever she gets flustered, but also like that series that just means that you have to have the right expectations going in. In that regard, then, the first two episodes of Dragon League are a relatively strong first impression, and while I don't think this was a perfect type of show to release sub-only in North America on VHS back in 1998 I can at least see why it was chosen by FCI, to some extent. Instead of going straight into soccer action right away, though we do get the first half of the match against the bullies, these first two episodes focus more on establishing the premise & showing some early character development. Namely, we see Tokio go from acting purely on emotion & what he wants to do (again, Amon really is fine with his predicament, so Tokio's goal is simply because he wants it) to acknowledging that he can't rush straight into taking on Leon & instead focuses on finishing the game with the bullies... which, if the next two episodes' titles are any indication ("Tokio Lost!?" & "Special Training at Mt. Roar"), show that Tokio actually does get humbled & realizes just how far he truly is from his goal, which is nice to see from a storytelling perspective, especially for children; you aren't going to always win, and it's about getting back up & learning from your mistakes.
What we do get of the soccer action here is limited but works well enough for establishing the dire situation come the end of Episode 2 (Tokio's team is losing 10-0, & that's a major improvement only because Tokio's helping them out), though apparently the series does wind up focusing much more on the soccer itself once the actual tournaments get going. The characters are straightforward & easy to understand (Amon is almost always upbeat, Tokio is impulsive but well-meaning, Fam is encouraging but fair, & head bully Kazu obviously will wind up being Tokio's rival/friend), the focus on the players primarily being anthropomorphic animals & even dinosaurs gives this series a unique look amongst soccer anime (though the animation really is super basic, making the dinos look rather generic & flat), and yet despite this being a fantasy world where humans can be turned into mini-dragons by way of a magical soccer ball... there's really no indication that these soccer games will be anything other than straightforward soccer games, though I'm sure more fantastical elements wind up appearing over time, as skills improve & stakes escalate. Overall, the first two episodes of Dragon League are surprisingly solid & do a good job getting you to care somewhat about what's going on, though it being meant for children does mean that its humor is rather simple & straightforward, while the animation is nothing better than "decent enough". To be perfectly honest, if Discotek Media was to actually license Dragon League & release it on SD-BD (as the only home video release I can even find online looks to be a "Director's Cut" compilation movie for the final story arc), I would actually consider buying it, if only to see where else the series goes; that final story arc is apparently about saving the world via soccer, which sounds absurd in all the right ways.
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While this Volume of Demo Disc did start off loosely related to the subject at hand, I think I more than made up for it with the latter two entries; much like Toshi Fukutsu, I have put myself into self-imposed & absurd adversity. Anyway, this now leaves six more entries of Demo Disc in order to cover the remaining letters I have (E, H, U, W, Y, & Z), but luckily I already not only have the subjects for those remaining six chosen, but all but one of them already have their Volume titles chosen! We're entering the endgame of Demo Disc, in a sense, though since I only do this column twice a year now that means that we'll still be doing these for another three years.
I certainly hope that you continue to check out Demo Disc during that time.
Gyakuten Ippatsuman © Tatsunoko Pro
Gyakkyou Nine © Kazuhiko Shimamoto
Dragon League © Saeki Takashiro/Shueisha・Fuji TV・NAS
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