Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Part 2): "I, Cao Cao, and You, Liu Bei, Are the Only Two Worthy Heroes in the World"

Previously in the Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms review:

"So far, the first 22 episodes of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Romance of the Three Kingdoms are an extremely solid way to experience the early days of the eventual fall of the Han dynasty, as while this is no doubt Liu Bei's story from an overall perspective it still has no problem moving away from him when necessary in order to tell another side of the story that's essential... and I am curious about seeing how this anime continues on from here, post-Lü Bu."

As I mentioned in Part 1, the production of the TV anime adaptation of Yokoyama Sangokushi was a bit of an odd one due to the companies involved. Animation was done by AZ, a no-name studio that you seriously can't find any info on, had previously only worked on most of the Raven Tengu Kabuto TV anime, and seemingly would disappear after this show, never to be seen again. Meanwhile, though Kenji Yoshida's short-lived Yu Entertainment was co-producing this show, which is likely how it managed to get such a talented staff working on it, the primary production company behind it was Dai Nippon Printing, and while DNP has had involvement with anime production beyond Yokoyama Sangokushi, those all seem to be much smaller investments than this was. However, this means that DNP is the primary company that would handle something like licensing... but DNP isn't really equipped to handle things like licensing an anime out, especially internationally. Therefore, another company was brought on to assist with that stuff, so much so that they're even included in the credits of the show itself under "Production Cooperation", as seen in the two ED sequences: Enoki Films.

Yep, if you go to Enoki Films' website you can find Yokoyama Sangokushi there under the title "Quest of Three Kingdoms"; coincidentally enough, Enoki also handles licensing for Shinano Kikaku's Sangokushi film trilogy. Oddly, though, d-rights (now ADK Emotions) also seemingly handled international licensing for Yokoyama Sangokushi in 2016 & 2017, so who knows what the licensing situation is like for this show!

Anyway, aside from the fact that Lü Bu's involvement in the story ended with Episode 22, it was also a good idea for me to stop there for Part 1 of my review of Yokoyama Sangokushi for another reason: Episodes 23 & 24 actually originally aired in Japan as a one-hour special on April 10, 1992. Now, to be fair, this might actually be due more to the fact that the day that originally would have aired Episode 23, April 3, was actually skipped over back during the show's original airing, maybe(?) due to Prince (pre-TAFKAP) performing a concert in the Tokyo Dome that day, which marked the start of his Diamonds and Pearls Tour; it's entirely possible that TV Tokyo aired a live-telecast of that performance, or something. Regardless, these remaining 25 episodes mark a notable shift in the story of Romance, as now that the likes of Dong Zhuo & Lü Bu are gone it results in the rise of the likes of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, & even the Sun Family, eventually led by Sun Jian's second son Sun Quan after the death of his older brother Sun Ce a little over a year after Lü Bu's death. While the Yokoyama Sangokushi anime never truly makes it to the formal foundation of the titular Three Kingdoms (the anime only covers up to 209 AD/CE, while the kingdoms themselves would be officially established between 220 & 222), it really feels as though this second half will act as the "true" set up to that iconic era. Therefore, time to finish up this anime & see if it can follow through on what was established beforehand.

Lü Bu has been defeated & killed following the Battle of Xiapi by the combined forces of Liu Bei & Cao Cao. Seeing the continued value in the existence of the Han dynasty, Cao Cao works as its Prime Minister & lead general in an effort to reunite all of China as it once was, but it's easy to see that there are greater ambitions behind his actions. Meanwhile, the three blood oath brothers of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, & Zhang Fei know too well how dangerous Cao Cao can be & start to look for a way to work against him. However, they need a brilliant strategist to help them in this battle, and eventually find one in the form of the "Sleeping Dragon" Zhuge Liang, who has a grand plan of splitting China between three competing sides. As Cao Cao slowly increases the size of his army to a degree where he looks unstoppable Liu Bei & his allies realize that they need to deal a strong blow to Cao Cao in order to keep his ambitions at bay, and likely need the assistance of the forces of Sun Quan, who rules over the Jiangdong & Wu regions in the South & East, in order to do so.

Obscusion B-List: Wait... Capcom (Japan) Published WHAT!?!

Back in 2022 I did B-List about a variety of video games published by Capcom that, in hindsight, really look a bit bizarre & not befitting the overall history of the publisher. Specifically, that list was focused on Capcom USA, which at various points published things like Star Wars games for the Game Boy, a Wizardry game for the SNES, distributing the original arcade version of Battle Arena Toshinden 2, madcap FMV game Fox Hunt (mainly due to the then-new Capcom USA president being an ex-Digital Pictures guy), a pair of snowboarding games for the PS1, & the insanely impressive Game Boy Color version of Dragon's Lair. Meanwhile, when you look at Capcom's catalog of games over in Japan you do find a hell of a lot of "odd" titles, but a lot of those are simply publishing deals with Western studios. For example, throughout the 00s Capcom was known to publish Western-developed games in Japan for the likes of Rockstar/Take 2 (Grand Theft Auto III to IV, Red Dead Revolver), Sierra (Empire Earth), The 3DO Company (Army Men RTS), Gotham Games (Conflict: Desert Storm I & II), Activision (various extreme sports games, True Crime: Streets of LA), Midway (Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy), & even Sony (God of War I to III, The Mark of Kri, The Getaway). Yes, Sony handed Japanese publishing for its own Western-developed PS2 (& early PS3) games to Capcom.

I would imagine the easy thing to do online would be to go "ZOMG! Capcom published GTA & God of War!?!?!?!?!"... but that'd be lazy, boring, & very clickbait-y. So, instead, I dug a bit deeper & found a selection of games that Capcom Japan published that really are a bit off kilter, even for that division, though some of them actually wound up having some importance, in the long run.

When Capcom got its start it was mainly an arcade game company, and ports of its games to consoles & even computers in both Japan & abroad were initially developed & published by third-parties, like Micronics, Data East, Activision, ASCII, & Elite Systems. Eventually it started doing console ports in-house in Japan, started self-publishing on consoles, & its international divisions would start publishing for computers in regions like Europe & North America. However, Capcom Japan was still notably against publishing for PC, instead relying mostly on ASCII until the late 80s, when the partnership ended & Capcom Japan left PC publishing entirely for a few years. Things would finally change in 1992 when Capcom Japan started self-publishing for hardware like the Sharp X68000 & later FM Towns, while working with SystemSoft to publish on the NEC PC-98, which finally brings us to the first entry for this B-List: The PC-98 version of Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon.

Anime Grindhouse: The Slam Dunk Movies

Born on January 12, 1967 in Isa, Kagoshima, Takehiko Nariai loved to draw as a child & while growing up found inspiration in wanting to make manga by reading titles like the late Shinji Mizushima's Dokaben, Tetsu Kariya & Ryoichi Ikegami's Otoko-gumi, Makoto Kobayashi's 1・2 no Sanshiro, & Masami Kurumada's Ring ni Kakero. He originally wanted to go to an art school but as they were too expensive he instead went to Kumamoto University & majored in literature. However, a manga one-shot he had submitted to Weekly Shonen Jump (but didn't win any accolades) caught the eye of editor Taizo Nakamura, resulting in Nariai dropping out of university, moving to Tokyo, & entering the manga business, starting off as an assistant to Tsukasa Hojo during City Hunter's serialization, where he likely worked alongside Haruto Umezawa, future creator of Hareluya II BØY, at least for a little bit. After winning the 35th Tezuka Award for his one-shot Kaede Purple in 1988 (alongside Yuko Asami's Jump Run), Nariai would make his serialized debut in mid-1989 with Chameleon Jail, a manga written by Kazuhiko Watanabe about the titular "Risk Hunter" who takes jobs too dangerous for normal law enforcement & can change his appearance using an energy called "kara"; Chameleon Jail would only last 12 chapters, across two volumes, before getting cancelled.

However, included in both volumes of Chameleon Jail were Kaede Purple & a later one-shot by Nariai called Jordan Miteeni/Just Like Jordan, both of which were basketball stories inspired by the likes of Michael Jordan, who had already become a living legend by this point... and alongside a later one-shot called Aka ga Suki/I Love Red that was published in the 1990 Shonen Jump Summer Special they marked the first hints at Nariai's true calling in manga.

You see, back in his school days Nariai was a part of the basketball team, and while they weren't really any good Nariai had fond memories of when he & his friends would just play basketball. Therefore, he decided that his second manga serialization for Jump would be all about basketball (despite some protestations from his editor, due to basketball manga never doing well), and in Issue #42 of 1990 Nariai (now using the pen name Takehiko Inoue) debuted Slam Dunk. This told the story of delinquent Hanamichi Sakuragi, whose desperation for finding a girlfriend makes him join Shohoku High's basketball team to please a girl he falls instantly head over heels over named Haruko Akagi (the sister of the captain of Shohoku's team), despite his utter lack of any experience, only to discover a true love for the game. It initially had a bit of a variable start, but about half-a-year into its serialization, which marked the start of the first real game that was played, Slam Dunk rebounded strong & would go on to be one of Shonen Jump's biggest, most iconic hits of the 90s, being second only to Dragon Ball in popularity & has been recognized with single-handedly popularizing basketball in Japan. When Slam Dunk ended in Issue #27 of 1996 after 276 chapters (across 31 volumes) it became both the third manga in Jump history to be given a "Full Color Final Chapter", following Ring ni Kakero in 1981 & Dragon Ball in 1995, & the second manga in Jump history to have the magazine cover for its final chapter, following Yamazaki Ginjiro in 1981. The manga's end alone would also result in a loss of ~2 million readers, which when combined with Dragon Ball's the year prior losing ~500,000 readers resulted in the end of the "Golden Age of Jump" that Fist of the North Star began back in 1983. Without a doubt, Slam Dunk is one of the most iconic titles in all of manga (& Inoue himself is one of the most beloved artists in all of manga), and even to this day it continues to be a best-seller whenever a new release happens... though that's due, in part, to Inoue infamously being against offering digital versions of his manga, only recently changing his mind when it came to his wheelchair basketball manga, 1999's Real.

So if Slam Dunk is such an iconic series, both in its original manga form & in its equally celebrated TV anime adaptation by Toei that ran from 1993 to 1996 for 101 episodes, then why am I covering it here? Simply put... movies! In 1994 & 1995, as part of the (mostly) biannual Toei Anime Fair, four Slam Dunk anime short films were produced, but today almost no one ever talks about them & they've never seen any official English release; they were all remastered in HD for a Blu-Ray release in Japan in 2015, though. Therefore, since I recently just read through the entire manga for the first time ever, I want to check out these four movies & see if they deserve being as generally forgotten as they've become today. Also, for hell of it, I'll toss in late 2022's The First Slam Dunk as well, to round out the starting roster with five players, as per regulation. It's time to open up the Anime Grindhouse!!