LIVE: Trapped in Purgatory, A Human Object... Alive

It's been a good while since I last had a piece ready for Christmas Day, 2016's Demo Disc for Geisters: Fractions of the Earth to be exact, but I'm in the mood for doing one this year. The reason for that is because exactly 10 years ago, for Christmas 2015, I put out a review for Hareluya, the 1992 Shonen Jump manga by Haruto Umezawa (his first manga under his real name, as he previously used the pen name Masato Umezawa) that wound up only lasting 10 chapters before being quickly axed. However, said axing was seemingly because while the initial "Son of God" angle didn't appeal to readers the manga actually did start to find an audience once it transitioned into being more of a standard delinquent manga. Therefore, so as to not have the deific elements potentially cause problems later on down the line, Umezawa would end Hareluya early (though still giving it a proper finale) & instead reboot it as a pure delinquent manga later that same year, with the end result being (Hareluya II) BØY, a series that would reimagine the titular Hareluya Hibino as simply a (nigh-indestructible) human high schooler, while the friends "God Hareluya" made in the first manga would be reimagined as "BØY Hareluya's" friends. BØY would run all the way until early 1999 & last 296 chapters (including the initial one-shot, which is effectively Chapter 0) across 33 volumes, making it the seventh longest-running manga to debut during Jump's "Golden Age" (after JoJo Parts 1-5, Dragon Ball, Rokudenashi Blues, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, City Hunter, & Sakigake!! Otoko Juku, all of which were 300+ chapters), & the 27th longest-running manga in Jump's entire history (also the second-longest sub-300 chapter manga in Jump, after The Gutsy Frog, by only a single chapter). It was also one of the magazine's most popular manga of the 90s, with it being a consistent presence in the "Top 3 to 4" spots in most issues of Shonen Jump between 1993 & 1997, often seen alongside the likes of Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, & Rurouni Kenshin.

Like many other iconic mangaka in Jump, though, Haruto Umezawa would have trouble trying to maintain anything remotely as successful in the magazine following BØY's finale. His follow-up series, 2000's Bremen (about a group of friends who want to become "rock gods"), would last a respectable 82 chapters across nine volumes before coming to an end in late 2001, but then 2002's Sword Breaker (a fantasy series with isekai/reincarnation elements) would last only a mere 17 chapters (including the original one-shot) before getting cancelled. Amusingly enough, Umezawa recently did return to the world of Sword Breaker when his 2021 manga Even in Another World Our Protagonist Isn't Afraid of Being Him!!! revealed late into its run that the lead was actually the reincarnation of Sword Breaker's hero; a clever way to revive a cancelled manga, in a sense. Anyway, after Sword Breaker's cancellation Umezawa would take a year off from making manga, seemingly to figure out what to do next, before returning in Issue #3 of Shonen Jump in 2004 with his next serialized manga for the magazine, LIVE (pronounced "Laiv", not "Liv"), which actually saw Umezawa sort of return to what he had done with the original Hareluya 12 years prior, only now the Son of God was replaced with a demon from Hell.

Unfortunately, LIVE would actually wind up lasting the same exact number of chapters as Hareluya did, a mere 10, before getting cancelled & ending in Issue #14, and this would actually mark the end of Haruto Umezawa's run with Shonen Jump, after 14 years (dating back to 1990's Shuten☆Doji, as Masato Umezawa). By the end of 2004 Umezawa would debut his next series, the Lamborghini-focused car manga Countach (technically pronounced "koon-tosh", but in Japanese is pronounced "cown-tahk"), in Issue #41 of Weekly Young Jump & it would wind up being Umezawa's second-longest serialization, running until Issue #41 of 2012 across 28 volumes; since then Umezawa hasn't had a serialization run longer than three volumes, max. So, to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of my Christmas Day review of Hareluya (i.e. the "start" of "Haruto" Umezawa's time in Shonen Jump), let's see how LIVE (i.e. the end of Haruto Umezawa's time in Shonen Jump) came out & if it's still worth reading today, as I feel that Hareluya is honestly an early cancellation that holds up rather well with time.

Riot (of the World): Billy the Kid Versus Constant Hiatuses

Born on November 20, 1970 in Kasuga, Aichi, Satoshi Shiki seemingly knew that manga was what he wanted to do early on, as after graduating from Kyoei Private High he moved straight to Tokyo with some friends to make doujin manga. He would then make his professional debut in the August 1991 issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Comic GENKi magazine, a supplemental to Newtype Magazine, with the one-shot Tsumi to Batsu/Crime & Punishment, & over time Satoshi Shiki would find notoriety in the manga industry for his distinctive character design style & general versatility. While he created created original manga like Kami-Kaze & XBlade, more recently he's known for manga adaptations of other works, namely Persona×Detective Naoto (a non-canon sequel to Persona 4), Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (based on Ryu Suzukaze's light novel prequel of the hit manga), The Legend of Dororo & Hyakkimaru (a remake of Osamu Tezuka's iconic work from the 60s, which Shiki only recently finished up), & currently Casshan R (based on Tatsunoko's iconic cyborg superhero from 70s). Shiki has also provided artwork & character designs for titles like the Louie the Rune Soldier (the very first book, at least, before being replaced by Mamoru Yokota) & Sega's online TCG Sangokushi Taisen, while his art style was the visual identity for the tabletop RPG series Shadowrun throughout the 90s in Japan, even being used for the cover of the 1996 Mega-CD adaptation developed by Compile, which wound up being the final Sega/Mega-CD game ever officially released.

Before all of that, though, Satoshi Shiki first truly made his name with a manga that has a little bit of an interesting publication history to it, (originally) simply titled Riot.

Debuting in the supplemental issue of Comic GENKi that came with the November 1992 issue of Newtype, Riot would be serialized in both Comic GENKi & Newtype (mostly the former, but one or two chapters in the latter) before coming to an end in the May 1994 issue of Comic GENKi, five months before the magazine itself would end & be replaced with Comic Newtype in 1995, totaling two volumes. Despite the short length it still received some promotion & notoriety, most notably a "Kadokawa CD & Book" titled Riot: Yuuhi ni Ochiruboshi/The Star That Fell Into the Sunset that came out in October of 1994, around the same time Volume 2 saw release, & from what I can tell was an original story that could be experienced either via reading the included book or by listening to the included drama CD; Nobutoshi Canna (then Hayashi) & Akemi Okamura voiced the two main characters in it. There was also a Riot Image Album around the same time, which was really more of a collection of pre-existing songs by J-Rock band Brain Drive (plus one song each from M-Age & The Mad Capsule Markets), though Kaoru Wada (InuYasha, Ninja Scroll) was also involved in it, my guess being for the two in-character monologue tracks featuring Canna & Okamura. Someone actually uploaded the album over on NicoNico Douga, minus the monologues, & it's enjoyably 90s electronic rock & (sort of) industrial metal. However, Riot itself was never properly finished, instead merely stopping during a lull in the story. It looks to be that Shiki simply became preoccupied with other work during Riot's serialization, namely his stuff with Shadowrun & also doing work for Metal Hazard Mugen (a planned anime that wound up never making it past pre-production), & his next manga serialization wouldn't be until 1997 with Kami-Kaze for Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine, which would run until 2003. While making Kami-Kaze, though, Shiki would decide to return to Riot in 1998, this time working with Shueisha to not only re-release the initial two volumes, now under the title Riot of the World, but also serialize new chapters that appeared in Ultra Jump magazine.

However, this revival was rather short lived, running between Issue #23 of 1998 & Issue #29 of 1999, with only one more volume of content getting made before the manga would go on hiatus for a second time, once again leaving the series unfinished to this very day. However, Satoshi Shiki actually did say in a random response to a quote tweet I made when he shared old artwork of it in 2018 that he would love to return to Riot of the World again one day. I should also note that there is a book out there titled Riot Versus the World that looks to have come out in mid-2001, after Volume 3 of Riot of the World's January 2000 release, but from what I can tell it was a self-published doujin by Shiki & his staff at Wrench Studio, so I have no idea what's actually in the book or if it's even a continuation of the story in any way; it could very be like Bastard!!: Unused・Revised Edition & contain exclusive bits of plot, for all I know. It is worth noting, though, that both the "Riot of the World" & "Versus the World" nomenclature first appeared in that 1994 Riot Image Album I mentioned as song titles, specifically the first monologue & last song; I just think that's neat. Anyway, prior to the manga's return as Riot of the World in 1998 Shiki's original two volumes of Riot saw release internationally, which included an English release by Viz, first via 13 "floppies" (traditional comic issue style, which was still considered the standard at the time) & then later re-released as two proper volumes. From what I can tell this was one of the last manga that had the late James D. Hudnall work on it from a translation adaptation perspective, which is notable as Hudnall was the man Viz had hired to adapt two of its very first releases back in 1987, Area 88 & Mai the Psychic Girl; Hudnall would later also do some lettering work for Viz, but adaptation work seemed to stop after the late 90s. Unfortunately, by the time that third volume of Riot of the World came out in Japan in early 2000 Viz was seemingly no longer interested in putting out more Riot in English, as they had "fully" released all of it by mid-1997. A similar thing would later happen with Beet the Vandel Buster, i.e. more came out long after Viz had "finished" it, so Riot's at least in good company.

When I was first really getting into manga in the mid-00s, after having become an anime fan, I was lucky that some of these flipped trade paperbacks of the 90s were still relatively cheap (they've now generally become more valued with time), so Riot was one of those manga that I read early on in my time as a manga reader & I remember really enjoying it, despite its unfinished nature. Does that remain true for me 20 or so years later? Was that third volume really worth the wait? Is there any reason to go back to Riot & hope that Satoshi Shiki might one day bring it back again? Only one way to find out!

ObscusionMania XV: The Märchen of Wasure Works

Man, has it really been five years since I wrote something for the blog's 10th Anniversary? Yeah, after 10 straight years I decided that I'd only do more of these every five years, and that time has come. The last time I did one of these I was 34 years old, and now I'm half a year away from hitting 40. That sure is wild to think about, since I was 24 when I decided to ditch making (extremely poor quality) YouTube videos & go to the written word, a medium that has sadly only become (seemingly) more & more irrelevant to the masses over time, though there are plenty who continue to put in the good work in this field. Over the course of these 15 years I have seen the rise of talented people, the fall (or, at least, disgrace) of those who were once big, the sudden stops of those who were once on the rise (especially over in the "AniTube" community), and the continued existence of others who are simply in it for the love of the game (both figuratively & literally), and if there's one thing I can say without a shadow of doubt when it comes to my place in all of this... it's this:

I will have contributed little to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Get it? Because a 15th Anniversary is represented by crystal?
Also, I finally read all of Sailor Moon (& Sailor V) this year.

I know that's something that some do not want to read, hear, or see others say about themselves, but it is a simple truth of the matter... and I'm absolutely fine & content with that. Back in the 10th Anniversary piece I wrote about the concept of "legacy", and how there really won't be much of one at all for The Land of Obscusion, when all is said & done. That's not to say that there's been no value at all in what I've done by writing about obscure & forgotten anime/manga/gaming/media/etc., & the occasional bit of history that others would never focus on, as I have had people (both those who I've never met & those who I have the utmost respect for) tell me that they enjoy what I've written & that I do provide something that is sometimes clearly needed, i.e. a unique alternative to what's usually focused on. However, at the same time, the moment I finally decide to put my figurative pen down & leave this blog as nothing more than a time capsule of an era in my life I know that nothing I'll have done here will have made any real, true impact on English anime fandom. My writings here will live on, at least until Google ever kills off Blogspot/Blogger wholesale (but there's always the Wayback Machine, to some extent), but there's really nothing that any of what I wrote about will have changed fandom, overall. As I've stated before in prior anniversary posts, I'm more or less just posting into the void; plus, I'd rather come off as self-denigrating than act as though I'm doing anything even remotely groundbreaking.

Galactic Patrol Lensman: Ghetto (SF) Supastar (That Is What You Are?)

Previously in the SF Shin Seiki Lensman Review:

"Taking aside all of the hubbub & hullabaloo when it comes to the production of this film, & the apparent major headache it gave E.E. 'Doc' Smith's family (that seemingly continues on to this very day), SF Shin Seiki Lensman is not a bad film by any means. Is it accurate to the original Lensman stories in anything beyond the most basic of ways? Not at all, and it's easy to see why the Smith family hated it for that reason, but when taken as its own thing it is a good time to be had... However...this movie wasn't the only bit of Lensman anime that was put into production, and for the longest time that other side of the coin was effectively (but maybe not literally) a 'lost' production..."

As was established in Review #299, while the exact details of what happened may be obscured with time & a bunch of games of telephone, the basic concept was that Kodansha had the rights to publish the Lensman books in Japan during the 80s, via a license made through then-current English publisher Berkley Publishing Corporation. Through a mix of simple assumptions made by Kodansha, & what was more-than-likely vague terminology in the contract (see: All of the madness that came about from the initial licensing of Tetris & what defined a "computer"), an anime film adaptation was put into production without the family & literary estate of original creator E.E. "Doc" Smith's knowledge, which in turn seemingly killed a Hollywood deal that was all but finalized. Since the film was already well into production the Smith family decided to give it their blessing & let it see completion, with it debuting in Japanese theaters on July 7, 1984. That much seems to be generally agreed upon when it comes to the production of the film, but aside from later licensing history nowhere near as much is really known about why what came next, production-wise.

A mere three months after SF Shin Seiki Lensman debuted in theaters in Japan the first episode of a brand new Lensman anime debuted on TV Asahi on October 6, 1984 at 7:00 pm. It was titled Galactic Patrol Lensman & would run for 25 episodes, but aside from some returning staff & a smattering of returning voice actors (plus once again being co-produced by Kodansha & MK Company) it wasn't treated as a continuation of the film. Instead, this TV anime was a complete redo that seemingly intended to be more accurate to the books than the film was, complete with characters who weren't in the film now being here. If I had to make a guess, when considering pre-production lead times & the like, I'd say that Galactic Patrol Lensman was likely Kodansha's way of appeasing the Smith family during the film's production. I'm sure it was plain to see (even prior to release) how little SF Shin Seiki Lensman actually resembled "Doc" Smith's books, so offering to produce a more "accurate" TV series was likely an attempt to make nice with the people who actually owned the Lensman IP itself. However, it seems as though the Smith family was still not pleased with how Galactic Patrol Lensman came out, and after the show fully aired in Japan only the first six episodes ever saw a home video release on VHS & LD over there. There was also a "Lensman Video Special" offered as a bonus VHS tape for anyone who could provide proof of purchase of all six VHS tapes, with the special apparently being two extra episodes that never aired on TV. Unfortunately, the Lensman Video Special looks to have become lost with time, or at least highly inaccessible (because who knows if Kodansha still has the masters), as I imagine few bothered to actually send in their proofs of purchase for it, and while I've seen some state online that they've watched "Episodes 26 & 27", there's never been any visual proof of it.

As mentioned in the last review, after Galactic Patrol Lensman finished up in Japan the Smith family apparently hoped to let all of this be forgotten with time, and they'd never have to think about these two anime ever again... until around 1988 or 1989, that is. Somehow (whether it was through Kodansha or MK Company isn't fully clear) the company Harmony Gold managed to license both Lensman anime & had produced two edited, English dubbed, made-for-TV movies, with the one for the TV anime (titled Lensman: Power of the Lens) using footage from five of the first six episodes, i.e. the ones that saw home video release in Japan; the copyright for this dub says 1987, but it likely didn't air until 1988/1989. A lawsuit was alleged to have been made, though there's no proof of one actually being filed, but in the end Harmony Gold's license for both anime was seemingly made null & void, while Streamline Pictures wound up being allowed to license the Lensman film... and only the film. Streamline's Carl Macek, though, did state during a panel at Anime America in 1993 that he had intentions of licensing Galactic Patrol Lensman, dubbing it, & airing it on the Sci-Fi Channel, but that obviously never came to pass. The claim is that the Smith estate has since barred any & all licensing of either Lensman anime following Streamline's license, but a Catalan dub for the entire show (well, the 25 episodes that were shown on TV, at least) was broadcast via TV3 in Catalonia, Spain in 1994, well after Streamline got the license to only the film, so go figure.

For the longest time having access to all 25 episodes of Galactic Patrol Lensman was considered a bit of an anime holy grail, as while everything beyond Episode 6 was no doubt recorded by people in Japan back in the day the chances of any such recordings surfacing was considered highly unlikely, and especially for the entire show. However, back in 2016 a group of anime fans within the fansubbing scene (which was now focused mainly on older titles, due to simulcasting removing the need for fansubbing new shows) were actually able to collect complete footage of Episodes 7 to 25, and alongside LD captures of the first six episodes started working on fansubbing Galactic Patrol Lensman into English. They relied on mostly Betamax recordings, with some VHS recordings, including a multi-gen VHS source for Episode 15... and, somehow, a 16mm film print for Episode 23, with film preservation group Kineko Video being hired to scan the film into HD, before finally having the entire series subbed into English at the end of 2024. In fact, the last two episodes' video was apparently so rough that they had to sync the Japanese audio to rips of the TV3 Catalan dub footage just to for them to look good enough to release. Without a doubt, the rescuing of Galactic Patrol Lensman from the deepest depths of inaccessibility is an amazing achievement that was only really possible by the fan community, since it's still stuck in legal limbo officially. However, with all that out of the way... is this series even any good? So, for Review #300, it's time to see how Galactic Patrol Lensman came out, both in its original Japanese form as well as that compilation movie edit from Harmony Gold.

Obscusion B-Side: The Short (But Memorable) Life of Fresh Games

While it's not necessarily as readily provable today, especially since the sheer amount of "indie" games has diluted that feeling to a large amount, there's always been a belief that if you want to look for the more unique, experimental, & "weird" video games then one should look at what comes from Japan, and especially the stuff that doesn't get localized outside of that country. This was seemingly most true between the mid-90s & the mid-00s, i.e. from the launch of the PS1 & Saturn to (at latest) the early days of HD gaming on the PS3 & Xbox 360, and especially on Sony's consoles due to both the PS1 & PS2 having massive catalogs of titles (~4,074 on PS1, ~4,344 on PS2) that even the original Switch hasn't quite surpassed yet (though it's currently close to the PS1's). Because of that there were many games released that would normally never see international release due to a variety of reasons, one of which would simply be "they're too weird/bizarre" & wouldn't appeal to international audiences.

However, in the early 00s one video game publisher decided to seemingly try their hand at localizing some of these "weird" or "bizarre" Japan-developed games... and failed, but the attempt is still remembered by many to this very day. So, for the 100th Obscusion B-Side (including B-Lists), let's go over the life & titles of Fresh Games.

Not quite a "wonton font", but not too far off, either.

Originally founded in 1984, Domark was a European video game publisher that made its name publishing titles for PC & later game consoles, even establishing a US division in 1993, but by 1994 was in some financial trouble. In September of 1995 Domark would be formally acquired by Eidos, a video compression company, resulting in the formation of Eidos Interactive, and via both the acquisition of other companies (Core Design, Crystal Dynamics, a majority share of Ion Storm, etc.) & some good publishing deals the company would slowly make a name for itself with franchises like Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, Hitman, Deus Ex, & Fear Effect. This success seemingly allowed some at Eidos to expand their horizons a bit with what the publisher could potentially put out, and the decision was made to launch a new label for something a bit more... "fresh". So, in late January of 2002, Eidos Interactive announced the launch of Fresh Games, which Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey stated was "a boutique label, created solely to expose gamers to unique and captivating gameplay experiences that traditionally have been unavailable outside of Japan." The person leading Fresh Games itself was Kevin Gill, then a global brand & product manager for Eidos, who in an interview with Gaming Age later that February went into more detail regarding the creation of the label.

In the interview Gill explained that Fresh Games was launched as a way for "hardcore gamers everywhere to be able to buy ['Quirky' or 'Odd' games with a lot of polish & attention to detail] at their local store without having to deal with mod-chips and exorbitant costs", i.e. importing, & that they "wanted to break some rules, and break some of the barriers that exist in this industry in regards to 'What type of games do people really want to play?'" Also, the reason for not simply publishing them under the Eidos name was because "they have their own unique heritage and they needed a label to represent that, a label that represents a standard of excellence in gaming, a label that represents something new and groundbreaking" & that the titles published under Fresh Games were "something out of the ordinary". While three PS2 titles (all originally published in Japan by SCEJ) were announced alongside the label that January, the plan was to be platform (& licensor) agnostic, and while Gill was open to all genres, he did say that Fresh Games likely wouldn't publish "a character based sequel, a license, or a [sic] extreme sports game". Unfortunately, after those initial three titles came out throughout the Spring & Fall of 2002, only one more game (which came from another company) would come out shortly afterwards before Fresh Games became a dead brand by the end of the same exact year it launched. The label would be revived for one last release in early 2004, but beyond that Fresh Games was seemingly just too weird/bizarre/quirky/odd/etc. to continue to stick around... but was it because of the games themselves, or was Fresh Games maybe just too ahead of its time? Let's go over each of the five games released under the Fresh Games branding & find out!

The Murderers' Row of 1970s Manga: Shonen Jump's Stretch of Simultaneous Long-Running Baseball Series

While baseball is nicknamed "America's Pastime", one could probably make a decent argument that Japan may possibly love the bat-&-ball/safe haven game even more so. I mean, let's face facts... the United States don't have anything close to an equivalent to the Spring & Summer Koshien tournaments, which are literally for high school teams yet are seemingly treated almost as important as the big leagues. Introduced to the country in 1859, baseball would become a school sport in 1872, and by the 1920s there were already professional teams, though it wasn't until the 1930s that the pro league concept truly became a hit with the populace. Naturally, manga about baseball would get made alongside the growth of the sport, and in the late 1940s Kazuo Inoue's Bat Kid would become the first "proper" manga series about baseball. The next evolution in baseball manga would then come about over a decade later across three series, the last two written by the late Kazuya Fukumoto: 1958-1963's Kurikuri Pitcher by Hiroshi Kaizuka, 1961-1962's Chikai no Makyu/The Magic Ball of Promise (drawn by Tetsuya Chiba), & 1963-1965's Kuroi Himitsu Heiki/The Black Secret Weapon (drawn by Daiji Kazumine). All three fully established the concept of the "makyu" to sports manga, allowing for all variety of fantastical pitches to be thrown, while also emphasizing the "pitcher/batter" dichotomy as the dramatic focus of each game. Then, in 1966, Weekly Shonen Magazine saw the debut of Star of the Giants by Ikki Kajiwara (story) & Noboru Kawasaki (art), which would become one of the most iconic & influential sports manga of all time, as well as the very first sports anime, its impact still arguably felt to this very day. Two years after the debut of that megahit would see the debut of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1968... and it's here where things get interesting.

Debuting in (there whereabouts of) August 1968, Shonen Jump's very first issue saw only two serialized manga (Harenchi Gakuen did appear in it as a one-shot, but wouldn't become a proper serialization until Issue #11), and one of those was a baseball manga: Chichi no Tamashii/Father's Soul by Hiroshi Kaizuka, the creator of Kurikuri Pitcher. Detailing the journey of Hayato Nanjo as he makes his way up the school baseball ranks, this was the first long-running serialized manga in Jump history, and outside of some short-lived titles in 1970 (like Animal Kyujo & Namida no Gyakuten Homer) & a single short-lived title in 1971 (Yami no Senshi) Chichi no Tamashii was the only truly notable baseball manga that ran in Weekly Jump at the time. Things would change with Issue #36 of 1971, though, which saw the debut of Samurai Giants, the creation of legendary writer Ikki Kajiwara & relative newbie artist Ko Inoue that told the story of Ban Banba, a teenage pitching prodigy known for his immensely strong & forceful pitches who finds himself scouted to play for the Yomiuri Giants. In fact, Shueisha apparently had an exclusive contract with the Giants that had predated the debut of the magazine, hence why Chichi no Tamashii had actual pro players appear in it & why Samurai Giants saw Ban join the actual team, and there are varying stories regarding why Kodansha was able to get away with Star of the Giants. It's either that Tadasu Nagano (who would become Jump's first Editor in Chief) simply allowed it "for the sake of the manga industry" (according to Shigeo Nishimura, the future third EiC) or Shonen Magazine's third EiC Masaru Uchida personally made a deal with the Giants himself, which then resulted in Shueisha terminating the exclusivity deal (according to author Shigeru Ohno). Regardless, Jump wouldn't have two long-running baseball manga serializing at the same time for long, as Chichi no Tamashii would end just eight issues after Samurai Giants' debut, in Issue #44 of 1971, after 128 weekly chapters across 14 volumes, though it would get a three-volume continuation in Monthly Jump from 1975 to 1977, showing Hayato's time in the pros; as of today only the Weekly Jump run has ever seen re-release, though.

However, Samurai Giants wouldn't see a similar run as Jump's (mostly) isolated long-running baseball manga. No, starting the following year Weekly Shonen Jump would go on a multi-year streak where it would have multiple long-running baseball series running simultaneously, and even if you just count two as enough then it would be a nearly decade-long stretch! Not just that, but from 1972 to (technically) 1978 Jump saw a new baseball manga debut each & every single year, nearly all of which would go on to be simultaneous long-runners!! Was there just something in the water at Shonen Jump back in the 70s? Was the Japanese populace just more obsessed with baseball than usual? (To be fair, the Yomiuri Giants were on a bit of a hot streak during this time) Regardless, let's get taken out to the ball game & see what baseball manga were running simultaneously in Weekly Jump during these years & try to figure out how this "Murderers' Row" fared for the magazine.

Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! ι: Deus ex Rota III (Trick?... or Treat?)

Yeah, it's only been a little over two months since the last installment of Oh Me, Oh My, OVA!, and I certainly don't intend on doing them this often, but I at least have a good excuse here. Namely, it's Halloween & while I tend to focus on something spooky, horror-themed, or at least involving something not of this world for the occasion there is another aspect of the holiday I haven't really focused on here: "Trick or Treat". Dating all the way back to classical antiquity, though there it obviously related to All Hallows' Eve, the idea of trick-or-treating has a long history & includes the old traditions of souling, mumming, & the Gaelic festival of Samhain before the idea of dressing up in a disguise became associated with the holiday. It eventually came to North America sometime in the 1910s, while the iconic decree of "Trick or Treat!" looks to actually be a Canadian creation, before eventually disseminating down to the US in the 1930s. Regardless, the idea of kids receiving candy from their neighbors on Halloween, lest they find themselves victims of mischief (though almost no one actually does that nowadays), is a cherished part of the holiday... and it just so happens that the next OM, OM, OVA! was going to be about randomly-picked entries.

Therefore, it's time for me to ask The Almighty Wheel to "Help the Halloween Party" (as they used to say in Ireland) & see what I'm given in return. Will I be treated well... or will I be tricked once again? After all, last time I asked The Wheel one of the OVAs it gave me was Homeroom Affairs, so I already know that it is not a wholly merciful demiurge.

First up we have a work from the minds of creator/director/storyboarder/mechanical designer Koichi Ohata (seen most recently directing this year's 9-Nine: Ruler's Crown... which wasn't simulcasted by anyone) & writer Riku Sanjo (who's still slowly writing Beet the Vandel Buster & Fuuto PI, among other titles), the same duo that gave the world M.D. Geist! Yes, it's 1989's Seijyuki/Sacred Cyber Beast CyGuard -Cybernetics Guardian-, a 45-minute OVA that, admittedly, seems to often be considered the also-ran of Ohata's early OVA output, being neither as notoriously infamous as M.D. Geist or as beloved/hated (depending on the person) as the later Genocyber (which Sanjo had nothing to do with). Still, it's an early Ohata work so Central Park Media head honcho John O'Donnell made sure to give it an English release, whether it was on VHS, MPEG-encoded CD-ROM (again, yes, this was a thing), or multiple times over on DVD. On that final format it was given a standalone dual-audio DVD release in 1999, then bundled as a two-pack with the Sony Music Entertainment & Movic-produced Judge OVA in 2002, & then finally as part of the "Mecha Masters: Explosive Anime Classics" boxset in 2002, alongside M.D. Geist I & II and Genocyber (though no soundtrack CD for Cybernetics Guardian here, unlike the others); in short, it was a boxset aimed clearly at the hardest of Koichi Ohata's core. It's been a long time since I covered something directed by Koichi Ohata on the blog (Saiyuki Reload -burial- back in 2012, to be exact), but said last time it was something that actually worked to Ohata's strengths as a director, so time to see if Cybernetics Guardian truly deserves its seemingly middling place amongst Ohata's oeuvre.

SF Shin Seiki Lensman: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hollywood...

Born on May 2, 1890 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Edward Elmer Smith was studying food chemistry at George Washington University in D.C., where he'd get his masters degree in 1917 & a PhD in 1918, and it was during his time at GWU that Smith would start writing his first serialized science fiction story. With the help of Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of an old University of Idaho classmate-turned-neighbor, Smith would write the majority of what would later be 1928's The Skylark of Space, which is now often considered to be the very first space opera; Smith wrote the sci-fi adventure bits, while Garby handled the romance bits. Smith would write two sequels to Skylark in the first half of the 1930s (& a fourth entry would be Smith's final work before his passing in the 60s), but in 1934 a story by Smith titled Triplanetary was serialized in Amazing Stories magazine, the same place Skylark had been serialized in. A few years later Smith would then serialize the story Galactic Patrol in Astounding Stories in 1937, which would mark the start of the sci-fi series "E.E. 'Doc' Smith" would be most known for: Lensman. Three sequels to Galactic Patrol would get made between 1939 & 1948, followed by Triplanetary being reworked to act as the official start of the Lensman series in 1948, with a straight-to-novel story written in 1950 that acted as the link between Triplanetary & Galactic Patrol, and the entire series (as well as Smith's catalog, in general) has been cited as major influences for everyone from "The Dean of Sci-Fi Writers" Robert A. Heinlein to George Lucas to J. Michael Straczynski. It's even the inspiration for two Boston-based sci-fi cons, Boskone (which dates back to 1941) & Arisia (which started in 1990).

After E.E. "Doc" Smith passed away on August 31, 1965, at the age of 75, his family & estate has continued to manage Smith's literary rights, and there have been numerous attempts to adapt Lensman into film, most recently one that died in 2014 (due to Universal Pictures balking at the costs) that Straczynski himself wrote a couple of script drafts for. One attempt got extremely close to truly happening in the 80s... only to be beaten to the punch by Japan.

As detailed in a post from 2019 based on information sourced in large part by the late SF writer Frederik Pohl, a close friend of the Smith family, after the success of Star Wars in 1977 the Smith family was eventually able to make a deal with "a major studio" to produce a series of big-budget Lensman films, and everything was seemingly ready to start entering pre-production... until a video tape showed up on the Smith family's doorstop. You see, back in the 60s publisher Kodansha got the rights to republish the Lensman novels in Japan, having acquired those rights from the US publisher at the time, Berkley Publishing Corporation (now Berkley Books), which was given permission by the Smith family to license out international rights on their behalf; everything checks out, so far. The people at Kodansha, in turn, were interested in producing an adaptation of Lensman themselves, and according to how Japanese copyright & licensing worked at the time Kodansha felt that it had the right to make such an adaptation, at least as long as it stayed in Japan. Apparently, most non-Japanese companies didn't question this at the time, since such adaptations were Japan-only & wouldn't make their away abroad, similar to how big name actors used to secretly take Japan-only commercial gigs. Now, to Kodansha's credit, they claimed to have informed Berkley about their intention to produce an adaptation... but apparently Berkley never bothered to let the Smith family know about this; whoops! Therefore, right as everything was set to be signed for a big-budget "Hollywood" production of Lensman to get started, the Smith family (allegedly) suddenly got a video tape showing early work that was being done for a feature-length anime film adaptation of Lensman, which Kodansha had seemingly sent over as a courtesy; a similar thing allegedly happened with Alexander Key & the Future Boy Conan anime back in the 70s.

Needless to say, according to this version of events, everything blew up in the Smith family's faces. The major studio immediately backed out of the deal, as it wanted full control over the Lensman IP when it came to adaptations & felt that the anime film (which was looking very promising, visually) would be competition that it didn't want to deal with. While the Smith family was understandably furious about the loss of their big Hollywood deal, they tried to make lemons out of lemonade by at least giving the anime film their blessing & allowed it to see completion & release in Japan, with it premiering in theaters on July 7, 1984 (about six months after Triplanetary's 50th Anniversary) as SF Shin Seiki/Sci-Fi New Century Lensman; they even allowed the production of a 25-episode TV anime reboot... but that's for next time. In the end, the Smith family was not really pleased with the end result, feeling that neither anime was accurate to the original stories at all, but had hoped that all of this would simply be an errant blip that'd stay in Japan, would never be seen again, and after a little bit they could try again for that Hollywood deal; an annoying rough patch, sure, but live & let learn. Unfortunately, it was now the mid-80s & the idea of recording to VHS had become ubiquitous, so copies of the Lensman film & TV anime were starting to appear at American sci-fi conventions throughout the 80s (i.e. places were the earliest form of American anime fandom gathered), having made their way over from Japan, which in turn allowed word of its existence to spread. Not only that, but Kodansha (or possibly co-producer MK Company) would then later make a deal with Harmony Gold to allow both the film & TV anime to see official English release outside of Japan, all seemingly done without the Smith family's knowledge or approval; that's not good! Harmony Gold would produce an edited dub version of the film under the name Lensman: Secret of the Lens, while some of the early episodes of the TV anime were edited together into a dubbed film titled Lensman: Power of the Lens, & both seemingly only ever managed to see release via some TV broadcasts around 1988/1989, similar to the Galaxy Express 999 TV special dubs HG produced in 1986.

Retrospect in Retrograde: Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Well, it's certainly been a while since this segment last happened, hasn't it? To be fair, last year I was pretty busy due to the entire year having a recurring theme to it, so I simply didn't really have time to fit in a re-review for an anime I originally reviewed based solely off of memory back in the blog's early days. However, that wound up working in my favor, as at the end of last year one of the few anime remaining that's eligible for a Retrospect in Retrograde re-review received a new home video release, one that included something that didn't exist back when I first reviewed it. Therefore, before I move on to the stuff that'll be the subjects of Reviews #299 & 300, I think it's time for me to finally return to another of my earliest reviews here (Lucky #13, to be exact!) & give it a second go-around... and this time around it'll be based on an English dub that I seriously never thought would ever happen back in early 2011!

The eyecatch is nothing more than black with the logo in the corner,
so here's the iconic final shot of the OP sequence.

By 1996 mangaka Nobuyuki Fukumoto was already a bit of a star in the industry, though admittedly more of a cult star. Having made his professional debut back in 1980 Fukumoto wouldn't really hit it "big" until 1989 when he debuted the mahjong manga Ten: The Nice Guy on the Path to Tenhou, followed by its prequel Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into Darkness in 1991, which told the early days of a supporting character who was already a legend in Ten; in short, Fukumoto's forte was gambling manga. While some of his works would receive live-action movie adaptations in the 90s, namely Akagi & 1992's Silver & Gold, anime was understandably not something one would expect of his work, due to the subject matter, but in 2005 that all changed when Madhouse, VAP, & NTV debuted a late-night TV adaptation of Akagi. The Akagi anime did surprisingly well for a late-night anime, hitting as high as 4% in the ratings (in today's landscape that'd put it just below the iconic Chibi Maruko-chan!), so it was decided that Madhouse would follow up Akagi with another adaptation of a Fukumoto manga, one that wasn't quite as focused around mahjong (at least, not until way later on).

Debuting in early 1996 in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine, Kaiji would go on to become the most iconic work in Nobuyuki Fukumoto's entire career, with a current total of 91 volumes across six series, the most recent of which debuting in 2017 & is still running, though it's been on hiatus since 2023. The series details the trials & tribulations of Kaiji Ito, a man who is constantly self-destructive when it comes to money yet when put into life or death games of chance (with absurdly high financial payouts) is capable of seemingly impossible turnaround victories. On October 3, 2007 a TV anime adaptation of the first manga run (Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, which ran from 1996 to 1999) debuted on NTV under the name Gyakkou Burai/The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, and adapted the entire initial 13-volume run in 26 episodes. When I originally reviewed the Kaiji anime back in February 2011 the show was still only really available via fansubs, outside of a short-lived "blink & you'll miss it" official English subbed stream on Joost (yeah, that service didn't last long), with a second season adapting the second manga run soon to debut in Japan. However, in July 2013 Crunchyroll announced that it was adding both seasons of Kaiji to its catalog, followed by Akagi getting added later that September. Meanwhile, 2008's One Outs, which was done by much of the same staff at Madhouse, got ignored seemingly because it wasn't based on a Fukumoto manga; ironic, since now some of that Madhouse staff is reuniting for a Lair Game adaptation.

Then, in late 2020, Sentai Filmworks announced that it had licensed both seasons of Kaiji for home video release (alongside a streaming option on its own Hidive service), with a sub-only BD boxset collecting both seasons together coming out in April 2021. Later, at Anime Expo 2022, Sentai announced that it would be dubbing Kaiji into English (though the announcement never seemed to clarify just how much of it they were dubbing), with the dub coming out in chunks starting later that November. Hidive would eventually offer the dub for all of Ultimate Survivor by the end of 2023, but it would take until December 2024 for Sentai to give Kaiji a new home video release, this time a dual-audio BD box set containing only Ultimate Survivor; there has been no word as to whether or not Season 2 (Against All Odds) will get similar treatment. Still, while I did review Kaiji: Against All Odds shortly after it originally finished airing in September 2011, so it's technically not eligible for an RiR re-review, I can at least give Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor a new watch, this time via the English dub, and see if the praise I gave it in that original review remains true, over 14 years later.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 2

When comprising this list of license rescues for more "modern" releases, so to speak, I literally just went to the ANN Encyclopedia's list of "Video Releases" & looked through everything it had from 2010 to 2015. The end result, unsurprisingly, was initially a massive list of titles due to this being the era of FUNimation re-releasing tons of old ADV & Geneon titles under the S.A.V.E. label (though some did get the Anime Classics label) after both of those companies went under, Sentai Filmworks & Maiden Japan releasing a bunch of various anime from the 00s for the first time ever via DVD boxsets (so as to create a catalog, after ADV's demise), Discotek Media's rise into the fan favorite it currently is, and so on. Not just that, but some of the releases from this era have still managed to either stay in print or simply remain available for close to MSRP (hence why I didn't include something like Trigun or Matchless Raijin-Oh), while others at least have managed to stay available via streaming to this day (hence why I limited those to just three, across both halves). Simply put, A LOT of anime came out in the first half of the 2010s, and especially a lot of older titles that back in the day would have simply been ignored (hell, I even wrote a piece wondering if an "Era of Old-School" had come about back in 2012), so whittling a list that seriously initially totaled somewhere in the 30s to just 12(-ish) was a little tricky, but I think the ones I wound up with were some of the strongest picks I could find.

So let's start off the second half of the 14th license rescue with a title that, many would argue, should NEVER be unavailable in English... even if its licensing scenario is a bit convoluted.

Debuting back in 1989 in Fujimi Shobo's Dragon Magazine & originally running until around 2000, though it did return for a bit in 2018 & 2019 (plus various spin-off series from 1991 to 2011, & a bunch of manga), the light novel series Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka (story) & Rui Araizumi (art) is often considered one of the all-time greatest fantasy franchises to come from Japan. It details the adventures of Lina Inverse, a powerful but immensely vain sorceress, & her friends as they travel the world & take on all manner of evil... all while also being a bit of a zany comedy. Likewise, the various anime adaptations of Slayers are also cited as some of the greatest anime of all time, with the 1995 to 1997 trilogy of TV anime (Slayers, Slayers Next, & Slayers Try) specifically being mentioned. When it comes to English releases, Central Park Media initially started releasing the first Slayers TV anime from 1996 to 1998 on both VHS & LD, with Next & Try later coming out in 1999 & 2000, respectively; Fox Kids even planned on airing the show on TV, but found it too much work to edit for TV standards. All three shows would then get re-released on DVD in the early 00s, before CPM's rights seemingly expired, resulting in FUNimation getting the license to Slayers TV in mid-2005, upon which all three seasons would get re-released via DVD boxsets in the late 00s, culminating in a "complete" boxset containing all three seasons in mid-2009.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 1

Time is never ending, always moving, and we are helpless against it. When it comes to anime fandom it means that those who stick with the medium for the long haul will only get older over time, while new & younger fans get created & discover things for themselves. Simultaneously that also means that what was once a brand new release will, inevitably, become old, outdated, & even go out of print, possibly never to be seen again once it sees release (or even re-release). I bring this up because at the end of this year The Land of Obscusion will turn 15 years old, i.e. this place (like myself) is oooooooooooooooooooooold... at least in terms of fandom, because I'm not even 40 yet. However, that also means that there are now anime releases that while I was writing stuff for the blog in its earliest years were "new" are now long out of print... which means that they're now eligible for the license rescue list! Therefore, let's look at 12(-ish) anime that were last released in North America between 2010 & 2015, i.e. the first five years of the blog's life, that are now out of print (& on the more expensive side to get, if not absurdly so), could benefit from a new release in some way beyond simply being easily available & affordable again (new content to be offered, upgraded video quality, etc.), and (aside from three) aren't even available via streaming right now.

Do any anime fans 15 years or younger even read this blog? Maybe, maybe not, but it's time I make the majority of the people who actually do read my ramblings feel old!

The mangaka collective known as CLAMP is one of the most beloved groups in all of manga, and while the members of CLAMP have changed throughout the decades the quality of their work has (for the most part) remained relatively high. They truly made their name throughout the 90s with titles like RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon, Magic Knight Rayearth, X, & Angelic Layer, so by the early 00s they were already essentially legends when they debuted ×××HOLiC in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine in early 2003. Pronounced simply as "Holic", as the x's are meant to represent the various "holics"/addictions that people can be found as having, the manga follows Kimihiro Watanuki, a high school student who can see various spirits & the like, something he finds very intrusive in his life. After finding a mysterious shop run by Yuko Ichihara, a seeming witch who can grant wishes, Watanuki asks Yuko to grant his wish of removing his ability to see spirits. Yuko accepts, but only if he works for her as her assistant, which in turn results in Watanuki being sent on various jobs involving the supernatural. ×××HOLiC is also strongly connected to another manga CLAMP debuted in 2004, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, mainly by way of the latter's deuteragonist, Syaoran. The ×××HOLiC manga technically ended in 2011, after 19 volumes, but in 2013 CLAMP debuted ×××HOLiC Rei, a sequel that hasn't gotten anything new since Volume 4's release in 2016, though CLAMP seemingly still considers ×××HOLiC Rei as simply being on hiatus, not outright halted; both manga series have been fully released in English, initially by Del Rey Manga, & later by Kodansha Comics.

Souten Kouro: “Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao Arrives”

Born sometime in 155 AD/CE in Qiao County, Pei state (now Bozhou, Anhui), Cao Cao was a purported descendant of Cao Shen, a Western Han statesman, & the son of Cao Song, who had managed to buy himself into the position of Grand Commandant for less than half a year under Emperor Ling, with some accounts stating that buying political offices with money was a policy that Ling had allowed during his reign. Growing up Cao Cao was known to be very perceptive & even manipulative, though some also didn't regard him too well as a child, due to his habit of roaming about on his own & not caring much for what others hand in mind for him. At one point Cao Cao visited Xu Shao, who was known for his ability to "appraise" others, and while Xu Shao initially refused to appraise Cao Cao he eventually relented, with there being two versions of what he said: Either "You're a treacherous villain in times of peace and a hero in times of chaos," or "You'll be a capable minister in times of peace, and a jianxiong in times of chaos," with a jianxiong being one who is willing to do anything to succeed (or, in literary terms, an antihero). This assessment would effectively describe the man Cao Cao would become in life, especially during the events that would lead to the creation of the Three Kingdoms of China, as while he was immensely loyal to those who trusted in him he was also one who showed no hesitation in screwing over others if it meant he could find benefit from it. As Cao Cao is quoted as saying in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, "I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me."

In the end, though, Cao Cao would not live to see the actual era of the Three Kingdoms, as he would pass away on March 15, 220 at the age of 66, having been promoted by Emperor Xian as "King of Wei" four years prior, though still working as a vassal of the Han dynasty. It would be Cao Cao's second son, Cao Pi, who forced Xian to abdicate the throne a little less than a year after his father's death, resulting in the creation of Cao Wei, which in turn would lead to Liu Bei & Sun Quan announcing the official formation of Shu Han & Eastern Wu, respectively. Wei's ultimate fate would come in 266, when Cao Huan (the fifth & final Emperor of Wei, & Cao Cao's grandson) abdicated the throne to Sima Yan, resulting in the formation of the Jin dynasty that eventually reunited China.

When it comes to Romance, Cao Cao is always portrayed as the primary antagonist of the story, as while he's not a "villain" his actions & worldview make for a direct clash with Liu Bei's more idealistic & benevolent nature, or Sun Quan's focus on honor & family. However, it is important to remember that Romance is a fictionalized take on the actual historical source text for what happened back in the day, Records of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou... so how would the story of the Three Kingdoms work out if one was to rely more on Records than Romance? In 1994 that would come about when the editor-in-chief for a manga artist calling himself "Gonta" asked "Why don't you try to depict Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a Broadway musical?", and while Gonta was a fan of stories detailing Chinese heroic legends, & knew of ancient China, he knew nothing about Romance. Gonta decided to give Romance a read but was put off early on by all of the embellishments, deciding instead to read Records, upon which he essentially decided "If you're going to embellish, then at least make it interesting". Therefore, with help from Korean writer (& former film director) Hagin Yi, the now King Gonta debuted Souten Kouro/Beyond the Heavens in the pages of Kodansha's Morning magazine in late 1994, a manga adaptation of the life of Cao Cao that took primarily from Records of the Three Kingdoms, but also some elements from Romance as well as the occasional original embellishment by Gonta & Yi; Gonta has admitted that making Cao Cao the main character was Yi's idea. Sadly, Hagin Yi would pass away from liver cancer on September 22, 1998, leaving King Gonta to continue making Souten Kouro on his own, and in late 2005 the manga came to an end after 409 chapters across 36 volumes, winning the Kodansha Manga Award for General Manga (alongside Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji) in 1998, the same year Hagin Yi passed away.

On April 8, 2009 a TV anime adaptation of Souten Kouro done by Madhouse debuted on NTV, replacing baseball/gambling anime One Outs, and in fact was produced by the same companies that had produced Madhouse's unofficial trilogy of gambling anime, i.e. VAP, NTV, & D.N. Dream Partners (Kaiji & One Outs only for that last one). The Souten Kouro anime would also be the final production ever directed by venerated animator Toyoo Ashida (Fist of the North Star, Vampire Hunter D OVA), & be Ashida's penultimate anime in general, before passing away in mid-2011 at the age of 67. So, after having reviewed various anime adaptations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms throughout this year, with the majority putting the focus on Liu Bei as the primary focal point (and one technically focusing on Wu), let's bring it all to an end with the sole anime Romance adaptation that dared to look at things from the perspective of probably the most divisive man of the era, Cao Cao of Wei. Yes, I know that there's one other direct anime adaptation of Romance, but there is no complete English translation for it yet... and I honestly feel like I've experienced more than enough anime Romance in a single year.

Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! θ: Press Start Button

When I first started really getting into anime in the mid-00s, and even in the years prior to that to some extent, there was no avoiding the symbiotic relationship between video games & anime. If I really think about it I may vaguely recall seeing the rare ad in a magazine like GamePro or EGM promoting the VHS and/or DVD release of an anime "movie" based on a video game property, like Panzer Dragoon, Tekken, Samurai Shodown, etc., and it made perfect sense why anime companies would license those titles. After all, anime fans & video game fans have long been a strong Venn diagram, and the two industries have been connected in some form since the 80s. The first video game based on an anime is generally agreed to be Lupin III for the arcades by Taito in 1980 (though most feel that the license was added on late into development), while the first anime based on a video game are the duo of Running Boy: Star Soldier no Himitsu & Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!, which both happened to come out on July 20, 1986; they'd be followed up on October 3 by Bug-tte Honey, which was the first TV anime based on a video game. Now, to be fair, anime based on video games also wound up having a poor reputation for the longest time, but if there's a subject for OM, OM, OVA! that sounds only natural to go with it's video game anime; I honestly have wanted to do this for a while, but got pre-occupied with other themed subjects first.

So let's get into the first video game-themed Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! with a quartet of my choosing, two of which are very well known among older anime fans & saw official English release, and two of which you might not have known even existed!

Debuting back in 1991 for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega's response to Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. games on the NES/Famicom & would become a massive success in its own right (due, in part, to Sega of America's Tom Kalinske managing to convince his Japanese bosses to make the first game the Genesis' pack-in game, in place of Altered Beast). By the mid-90s the series was on the verge of entering a tumultuous time (the game intended to be the next main entry was starting to enter true "development hell", & would eventually be cancelled), but was still more than successful for Sega to greenlight the production of a two-episode OVA adaptation in cooperation with Taki Corporation (now Odessa Entertainment) & General Entertainment (which went defunct in 2011), the same companies Sega would later work with for the (absolutely terrible) Panzer Dragoon OVA. Released in early 1996, & animated by Studio Pierrot, the Sonic the Hedgehog OVA would eventually get licensed for international release by ADV Films, which combined both episodes into a single "movie" & initially released it on dubbed VHS & dual-audio DVD in 1999 before re-releasing it on DVD in 2004 under its short-lived ADV Kids label. In modern times Discotek Media (which has released a number of anime based on Sega IP, including Sonic X) has admitted that they'd love to re-release "Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie", and Sega is more than happy to license it out, but unfortunately it's currently stuck in legal limbo due to Sega losing the paperwork that clarified how international royalties would get paid when it comes to the music & voice work; Sega is able to continue offering the OVA in Japan, but international licensing is not doable at the moment. However, is the Sonic OVA even still truly worth all this effort, nearly 30 years after its original release?

Obscusion B-List: HD Games That Were Backported to SD on PS2 & PSP

As video game technology advances the prior generation of consoles eventually becomes old hat & is put to pasture so that the new/current generation can take the lead (or, at least, that's how it used to be... Hi PlayStation 4 & Xbox One, which are both nearing 12 years of continued support!). Still, sometimes a prior gen piece of hardware continues to see strong hardware sales, which in turn makes companies feel that said console is still worth releasing new games on, or there's a handheld (which follow their own set of "generations", to some extent) that simply finds itself more or less caught between console generations & continues to need new releases. That's what happened with the PS2 & PSP once the Xbox 360 released in late 2005, but it was especially true once the PlayStation 3 released in late 2006, and both of those consoles added in an extra wrinkle: They were the first consoles to be all about high-definition visuals, i.e. 720p & (ideally, but not always) 1080p. In comparison, the PS2 was designed around 480i that was ideally meant to be played on a CRT TV (it could also do 480p, & with some trickery higher interlaced resolutions, but 480i was the main intention), while the PSP's 16:9 screen had a resolution of just 480x272. Nintendo's Wii was also an SD-exclusive console, but that was contemporary to the "PS360", and often would receive its own unique versions of games also released on the HD consoles (&, sometimes, the PS2 would receive a port of that Wii version).

Though the GameCube & Xbox eventually both died out in place of their successors, the PS2 remained too hot to ignore, while the PSP's successor (the Vita) wouldn't come out until late 2011. Therefore it made too much sense to continue releasing games on both pieces of hardware, which included games that were also releasing on the newer consoles. For the most part these "HD" games also came out with "SD" versions at around the same time, but there were some examples where the PS2 and/or PSP version wouldn't come out until a fair amount of time after the initial HD version came out; in other words, they were (as some would say) backported from HD to SD. So let's go over some examples of games that were designed for the PS3 or 360 first, only to later get backported to the PS2 and/or PSP; i.e. no simultaneous releases here!

We start off with a batch of titles, mainly because if I had included them individually it would have made up 2/3 of this entire list, and since they're all part of the same overall franchise it's better to just put them together; also, it was these games that inspired me to make this entire list. While the first entry in Koei's iconic Dynasty Warriors/Musou franchise was actually a 3D fighter for the PS1 back in 1997, it wasn't until the second entry in 2000 (which is technically the first in the Shin Sangoku Musou spin-off series, hence why they're always a number higher outside of Japan) that the concept of it being a 3D hack & slash taking place in various open battlefields was truly established. In 2004 developer Omega Force introduced the first true offshoot of the series with Samurai Warriors, which traded in the Chinese Three Kingdoms setting for Japan's Warring States era, and since then the franchise has spun off to include the likes of Fire Emblem, The Legend of Zelda, Fist of the North Star, One Piece, & many other licensed IP. In 2006 the Musou franchise started getting released on HD consoles with Xbox 360 ports of both Samurai Warriors 2 & Dynasty Warriors 5, though the latter was only released in Japan, and in 2007 saw the release of both Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (which was based on Sunrise's iconic mech franchise) & Warriors Orochi (a crossover between Dynasty Warriors & Samurai Warriors), which launched on HD consoles. However, the PS2 & PSP still saw love from this franchise, with Warriors Orochi being released on both Xbox 360 & PS2 at launch worldwide, which in turn made a PSP port natural since it could be based on the PS2 version. The same is more or less true of 2008's Warriors Orochi 2, so neither of those count for this list.

Koutetsu Sangokushi: Lu Xun Would Strew the Very Ground with His Liver & Brains to Requite His Dear Master's Love

Of the three sides that made up China's Three Kingdoms era, the origin of Eastern Wu is probably the most interesting, mainly because it was very heavily based around family. Allegedly claiming to be a descendant of the legendary general Sun Tzu, the attributed author of The Art of War, Sun Jian was the patriarch of the Sun Family when the Yellow Turban Rebellion started in 184 AD/CE & was also part of the later coalition that formed in an attempt to dethrone Dong Zhuo from his tyrannical reign. During the attempted coup Sun Jian found the imperial seal, which had been hidden away after Dong Zhuo's forces left then-capital Luoyang, and felt that this discovery was proof that it was his family's destiny to eventually rule over the land. Unfortunately, Sun Jian would later be killed by the forces of Liu Biao in 191 via an ambush, upon which his oldest son Sun Ce took command at only the age of 16. It was Sun Ce who would conquer the lands of Jiangdong & Wu throughout the 190s, which is where his nickname of "The Little Conqueror" would come from, before he himself would be killed in 200, though the exact circumstances of his death are debated; Romance would take a more supernatural path via the sorcerer Gan Ji. Command would then go to Sun Ce's little brother Sun Quan, who would eventually go on to found Eastern Wu in the region that Sun Ce had taken control of. Decades later Wu would be the final kingdom to fall when the Jin dynasty conquered it in 280, at this point (poorly) ruled by Sun Quan's grandson Sun Hao, bringing an end to the Three Kingdoms era itself. While Sun Quan is technically the central figure of Wu & is contemporary to Liu Bei & Cao Cao, in truth Wu is very much a story about the Sun Family as a whole, and the friends, family, & allies they accumulated to get to that point.

In that regard I can sort of see why, whenever anime adaptations of Romance were made back in the 80s & 90s, the focus was put primarily on Liu Bei & Cao Cao, as those two made for the perfect "protagonist/antagonist" pairing, and Wu would only really get involved when it came to the iconic Battle of Chibi (& Sun Jian discovering the imperial seal, before that). Also, despite their importance in the overall story of the era itself, Wu was kind of doing its own thing for the most part, as once Sun Ce found a proper home for his people before his death they were essentially an uninvolved third party until Cao Cao started encroaching on their territory & Zhuge Liang decided to use Wu to help hold back Cao Cao's ambitions, in order for Liu Bei to properly establish his own kingdom of Shu. Still, there is an interesting story to be found within Wu, and in 2007 a TV anime would be produced that finally put the focus on the seemingly oft-ignored third kingdom. Co-produced by NAS and (of all companies) Konami Digital Entertainment, Koutetsu Sangokushi/Steel Three Kingdoms debuted in late-night on TV Tokyo on April 5, 2007 & was part of a larger multimedia "Koutetsu Sangokushi Project" which included a manga version by KYO that actually came first in late 2006, as well as a radio program that debuted the prior January & aired throughout the entire year, two light novels that acted as both a prequel & collection of side stories, a trio of drama CDs, and even a stage show in June of 2008. Oddly enough, considering that Konami's literal video game division was a co-producer, there was no Koutetsu Sangokushi video game... and this was back when Konami was still very much active in the video game business, as seen the last time Konami was related to an NAS-produced TV anime.

Anyway, I remember when Koutetsu Sangokushi first debuted back in the day & I was admittedly a bit curious about giving it a go, since I super into Dynasty Warriors 5 & felt that it was cool to see Wu be given the focus in an anime, for once. So I gave the show a try via the fansubs as it was coming out, but after a few episodes just never got back to it, partially due to how... different it was; I'll get to that in a bit. However, this show would wind up being the first (&, to this day, only) TV anime adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to ever see an official English release when it was added to Viki's catalog for streaming in May of 2012, alongside Don Dracula, The Three-Eyed One, & Marvelous Melmo; yeah, one of these is not like the others, for sure. However, unlike the modern Rakuten Viki that exists, this was back when Viki almost exclusively relied on crowd-sourced translations for all of its offerings (the first 19 episodes of Koutetsu were subbed as of the ANN news article, but I can't vouch for the rest), and the site itself wasn't really known that much by anime fans in the first place; regardless, it's definitely not streaming anywhere officially in English anymore. Despite how I wound up trailing off of the show back in the day I still always have had some curiosity about Koutetsu Sangokushi, and since this year I decided to watch & review a bunch of anime adaptations of Romance I might as well include this series in the festivities, mainly because it's the de facto Wu-focused adaptation... even though it's easily the loosest "adaptation" of them all.

Obscusion B-Side: Hresvelgr (Formula Highpowered & International Edition/Jet Ion GP): Damn It, Gust, You're an Alchemist, Not a Pilot!

When it comes to video games, it's kind of natural for certain developers to become associated with specific genres & the like, and when they break away from that association it kind of makes the game more notable for that very reason... or possibly infamous. For example, Square is known mainly for its RPGs, which made a shoot 'em up like 1997's Einhänder all the more interesting to see from the company, especially since Einhänder is a rather cool shooter. Meanwhile, a company like Capcom is known for developing within a wide variety of genres, but then you still have titles from outside of their wheelhouse, like racing sims Auto Modellista & Group S Challenge/Circus Drive, or the Finder Love games on PSP, which mixed together dating sims with photography sequences starring real-life bikini models. There's nothing inherently wrong with a game studio trying something different from what they're normally known for, but at the same time there is always that feeling of "They don't tend to make these kinds of games for good reason", even if the game itself actually winds up being really good.

So did the subject of this B-Side manage to succeed "in spite of" being outside of its developer's comfort zone, or was it an example of proving people's hesitation right? Let's find out!

Founded on October 1, 1993 in Nagano, Gust was formed as a spin-off of the amusement software development division of Keiken System (which owned Gust until December 2011, when Koei Tecmo acquired the studio) & initially started off as a doujin developer. Gust would make its retail debut in 1994 with The Story of King Aress, a tactical RPG for the PC-98 that notably featured character designs by mangaka Seisaku Kanou, but it didn't take long for the studio to "go legit". Gust would become an officially licensed developer following The Story of King Aress & would make their "official" debut with Falcata in 1995 for the PlayStation, which was another tactical RPG-like title. However, RPGs weren't the only things that Gust would develop in its first few years, as while the studio would eventually become successful with the release of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg for the PS1 in 1997 (which, in turn, would create a franchise that's still going strong to this day) it also made a variety of adventure-style games, namely the Welcome House duology in 1996, Karyujou/Fire Dragon Girl in 1997, & The Adventures of Robin Lloyd in 2000, all for the PS1 (& Sega Saturn, for the first Welcome House). Gust was even (allegedly) hired to develop a fighting game that wound up never coming out due to publisher Zamuse going out of business... though the TV anime adaptation produced by Toei Animation did actually air in late 1994. While RPGs were definitely already becoming Gust's bread & butter by 2000, the studio was still willing to experiment with other genres.

However, that would all change after that specific year. Five months following The Adventures of Robin Lloyd came out on January 6, 2000, & two months after Windows PC ports of Atelier Marie & Atelier Elie that April, Gust would release its very first "next-gen" title: Hresvelgr: Formula Highpowered. Named after the eagle-shaped jötunn that created the wind seen in Norse mythology, Hresvelgr was released on June 22, 2000, was Gust's very first game for the PlayStation 2 (which Gust would primarily develop for up through 2008), & as a racing game was also a first for Gust. However, it wasn't just your standard racing game, by any means, because Hresvelgr was a rarity by being a futuristic air racing game. Due to it being a PS2 game that came out prior to the console's international launch later that fall it wound up getting some international coverage at the time, with the likes of both IGN & GameSpot giving it rather poor "import" reviews, with complaints mainly being directed at the controls, sense of speed, & lack of any multiplayer at all; the reviews in Japan itself apparently were only marginally better. Gust would seemingly take the reception into account, though, as on December 21, 2000 (only six months later) Hresvelgr: International Edition would see release in Japan, which added in a new track (plus reverse races for all tracks) & two-player split-screen, as well as some tweaks to the gameplay. As the subtitle indicates, this update came about because it was actually planned for an international release, with Crave Entertainment even announcing an English release, under the name "Fusion GT", mere days after the initial Japanese version came out. However, despite that early announcement the only international release would happen in European regions in March of 2002, now under the name Jet Ion GP, with Ubi Soft handling the release there, though Crave was still credited for the localization itself. Hresvelgr would effectively end Gust's efforts in genres outside of RPGs, and aside from life sim Ciel Nosurge in 2012 (which itself was a spin-off of the Ar Tornelico RPGs) & Atelier Questboard in 2014 (a mobile spin-off of Atelier Rorona) the studio wouldn't attempt something wholly new & different from its usual fare until 2015's Nights of Azure, a hack-&-slash game (though still with action RPG mechanics); meanwhile, Hresvelgr remains Gust's one & only racing game in its entire catalog.

Was Hresvelgr truly so bad that it made Gust decide to never make another non-RPG (related game) ever again? Did International Edition/Jet Ion GP actually improve on the original in any way? I've admittedly always been curious about this game ever since it was first previewed & import reviewed back in 2000, so it's time to see how Hresvelgr holds up 25 years later.