Prior to all of those "unsafe" ideas, though, was the sole new TV anime to debut in late-night in July of 1997, which replaced Haunted Junction & was the first to not adapt a currently-running manga.
Debuting at the start of 1985, Monthly Shonen Captain was a magazine published by Tokuma Shoten that was the home to manga like Wolf Guy, Guyver, Grey, Space Family Carlvinson, Getter Robo Go, & (easily the most notable of all) the initial run of Trigun. Unfortunately, the magazine would come to an end in early 1997, with titles that were still running at the time either being cancelled or (like Guyver & Trigun) finding new homes elsewhere. One title from Shonen Captain's early days was 1986's Misute♡naide Daisy/Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy by Noriko Nagano, who had debuted as a mangaka just a year prior in order to make money for her family after her husband lost his job shortly after she gave birth to their daughter. There are apparently anecdotes of Nagano literally bringing her baby with her when handing in her manuscripts during this time, though eventually she'd find success with the series God Save the Sugekoma-kun! in the 90s, though that ran in Kodansha's Young Magazine. Today Nagano is one of the executive directors of the Japan Cartoonists Association, alongside the likes of Ken Akamatsu, Ippongi Bang, & George Morikawa, while that daughter of hers would grow up to be Nozomi Nagano, vocalist for (the now defunct) Otaku Kei-pioneering band Little Non, so I think the Nagano family came out pretty well off, all things considered.
Anyway, while Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy wasn't quite the title that put Noriko Nagano on the map, running until 1989 across three volumes, it did get a second chance in 1996 when ASCII re-released it under the name Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy For Ever, which collected everything into two books & featured some revisions by Nagano herself. There was also a drama CD by Datam Polystar in 1995, while in 1998 ASCII would publish a one-off light novel titled Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy: The Black Hole of Love that was written by Ryota Yamaguchi. In between all of this, though, would be a 12-episode late-night TV anime adaptation of Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy that debuted on "July 2, 1997 at 25:45" on TV Tokyo, running alongside the second half of Maze TV as an hour-long block. While it wasn't the very first late-night anime adaptation of an already completed manga (Super Zugan did it first in 1992) it was the first for this then still-new format that would eventually become the standard for anime production. The Daisy anime would then get licensed & released in English by AnimeVillage.com across six subbed VHS tapes in 1999, and when they were renamed Bandai Entertainment it would then get re-released via sub-only DVD boxset in 2000; meanwhile, the anime has never received better than VHS & LD over in Japan. So my year-long celebration(?) of the 30th Anniversary of the modern-day late-night anime infomercial continues with a review of the TV anime adaptation of Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy... and how poorly its subject matter has aged in the 40 years since Noriko Nagano first debuted it in 1986.
Ever since kindergarten Reijiro Tekuno (i.e. "Techno") has lived in the underground bomb shelter beneath his family home, seemingly because humanity wasn't worth engaging with due to its self-destructive nature, though this isolated life has allowed him to focus on his studies, especially in the fields of science & technology. However, one day he gets a warning about an intruder on the lawn, only to see a beautiful girl stopping by to pick up her flown away hat. Techno instantly falls in love with this girl & decides to start experiencing life outside of the bomb shelter, mainly so that he can research everything he can about his "Daisy", real name Hitomi Matsuzawa. Finally, after three months of research, Techno is ready to make his move on Hitomi... but will she be ready, willing, & able to deal with Techno's way of showing love?
In a basic sense, Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy's concept is an easy to understand one. It's in many ways similar to the 1999 film Blast from the Past, as both are about a guy who's raised in a bomb shelter entering the real world & finding love. However, the main difference is that Techno isn't oblivious to what the real world is like, as his reason for initially staying locked up indicates that he knows about current events. In fact, he has scientific know-how that exceeds that of the real world, as he has things like a ray gun that can make things giant, a pet named Mimi (& later Bear) that's literally a sentient missile, a laser that can eradicate rain clouds to create a sunny day, & in Episode 2 creates a robot duplicate of his teacher that can shoot laser beams from its eyes. But the biggest difference between Techno & someone like Brendan Fraser's character Adam in Blast from the Past is a simple one: Techno is an absolutely terrible person in every way, & especially when it comes to his affections towards Hitomi.
It's not that Techno is intentionally trying to be a terrible person, but everything he does when it comes to Hitomi is utterly reprehensible & his logic behind it all is horrible. In short, he thinks of Hitomi as nothing more than his "Daisy", i.e. his idealized source of affection, and instantly he comes to the conclusion that this therefore means that she belongs to him & him alone. Right in the first episode he's shown to stalk her, intentionally trap her, nearly drowns her in a giant tube (so as to preserve her beauty), & even has a literal "Declaration of Ownership" over her written out & signed. The second episode isn't much better, as Techno creates a robot duplicate of their teacher to (try to) enforce that no one else can touch Hitomi while on a field trip, and when she refuses to have lunch with him Techno literally hangs her by the hand while they're both flying high in the sky via Mimi, i.e. he coerces her to have lunch with him. And it's not just Hitomi that Techno's terrible to, either, as a recurring member of the cast is Yamakawa X ("X" is technically his literal first name, but it just reads & sounds better in Eastern name order), a classmate who tries to look more like a rambunctious troublemaker but in reality just wants to make friends. However, Techno (for seemingly no reason whatsoever) just downright bullies Yamakawa X to no end, often deeming him a potential rival for Hitomi's affections, and will do things like force him to wear an electroshock collar while having him chase a cat (so that he doesn't get constantly electrocuted), don a kaiju outfit that slowly alters his DNA so that he becomes a literal monster (complete with fire breath & laser beam eyes), bring him to (& then leave him in) Siberia, etc. The most annoying thing about all this is that Techno is the main character, i.e. the viewer is supposed to feel for him & his "awkward attempts at wooing" Hitomi! Even in the final episode, where he literally takes command of every computer system in the world (i.e. conquers the world) for Hitomi, the viewer is seemingly meant to feel bad for him going to such lengths to show his love for her.
And then there's poor Hitomi, who you just feel sorry for to no end as she constantly finds herself caught up in one absurd scenario after another brought about by Techno, all while also constantly doing her best to deal with Techno being (what amounts to) a consistent sexual harasser. Seriously, over the course of the show Techno does all manner of things that are just "not cool" at all, like invade her privacy with a 4th dimensional door that links both of their bedrooms, continually call her a nickname that she does not agree to, multiple kidnappings, forces her to wear devices that either restrict her movements (or literally leave it up to him to control her!) or restrict anyone else from getting close to her, etc.; hell, in Episode 9 Techno literally puts her on a leash! And the way the show prevents more or less any sort of logical response to this kind of horrible behavior & actions is by pretty much making the vast majority of the cast downright idiots who, more often than not, outright fault Hitomi for how she will occasionally rebuke Techno, if not simply interpret her dismissals of his advances as "Oh, to be in love!". Even Hitomi's two close friends, Sayori & Tami, more or less just constantly tease Hitomi for her situation with Techno instead of siding with her & trying to help get her out of a clearly bad & forced relationship, which just tells me that Hitomi's friends are terrible. Hell, even the very reason why Techno is so obsessed with Hitomi (which is revealed at the end of Episode 8) is honestly more of a gag that would normally be used early on, just to get it out of the way, but here becomes the core of Techno's behavior towards Hitomi... and even then it still makes Techno look really bad from any realistic perspective.
I get that this is a comedy series first & foremost, but what I find most frustrating about Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is the simple fact that the show will make whatever excuses it can so as to make sure that Techno never has to develop as a character one bit, all in an attempt to make him look like the innocent victim of his own unfamiliarity with how the real world works due to him having grown up isolated within a fallout shelter. Hitomi, on the other hand, is the girl who has to develop into someone who has to learn to accept Techno's awkwardness & quirks, i.e. allow him to never have to change & improve as a person, but in the end it just comes off like Hitomi is going through Stockholm syndrome.
Now, to be fair, this anime really isn't meant to be taken too seriously, because this is a case where the emphasis on the term "romantic comedy" is 150% on the "comedy" side of things. As I've already indicated, Techno is a scientific genius whose knowledge errs more towards "mad scientist", what with his various technological feats, like 4th dimensional doorways, growth beams, weather changing lasers, DNA-altering costumes, robot duplicates (including G2, a Hitomi duplicate that's madly in love with Techno), & other wild devices. However, the rest of the recurring cast aren't any less bizarre, as homeroom teacher Ms. Rarako is a well-intentioned ditz who keeps worrying about doing "something wrong" because it's her "first time", but is also capable of literally just appearing from out of nowhere, often to everyone's confusion. Meanwhile, Yamakawa X's mother & older brother repeatedly try to kill him because he isn't following exactly in the steps they want him to, Sayori is clearly crushing on Yamakawa yet literally does nothing to show him that she likes him (as that would otherwise end the recurring gag of Yamakawa hopelessly wanting friends), and so on. I didn't even bring up Noe Anii, who's initially introduced as an upper classman who's observing Techno & often saving Hitomi from absolute danger, before quickly being revealed to be an cyborg called Annie created by Techno's grandfather to look over Techno... only for Annie to determine that Techno is clearly a danger to the entire world & must be killed; in other words, she's the only true hero of the series. While all of the insanity does make for some fun laughs, Techno himself is so clearly a terrible person that I felt the humor was really there more to act as a distraction so as to obfuscate Techno's actions & attitude towards Hitomi, in turn weakening the humor's effect somewhat.
In terms of the staff behind this series, we have Yuji Muto (Haunted Junction, Corrector Yui) as the director, and he was definitely a fitting pick for a series like this, due to his later repertoire including the likes of Arcade Gamer Fubuki, Green Green, & Shin-chan, the last of which he's been the director of since 2004. And, from a purely visual perspective, Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy honestly holds up rather well almost 30 years later, as despite being a Studio DEEN production it's a very solid show visually & I never felt as though it was "DEEN-ing it up" like you'd normally see from the studio around this time. It likely also helps that the character designs here were done by the venerable Atsuko Nakajima (who AnimeVillage/Bandai often would name as a selling point in its Steve Blum-narrated promotional trailers, where applicable), and her style works really well for this series. I've already mentioned my problems with the storytelling, but I would have to imagine that the trio of head writer Satoru Nishizono (Zoids Genesis), Ryota Yamaguchi (Sailor Moon Sailor Stars), & Kazuhisa Sakaguchi (Haunted Junction) more or less stayed as true to Noriko Nagano's original manga as possible here, & (as mentioned before) Yamaguchi would go on to write the light novel adaptation, as apparently he was a big fan of Nagano's works. Again, I can't really fault any of the staff here as they seemed to be focused on adapting the story that was seen in the original manga, and I simply feel that, if so, then the original manga was simply not that great.
What I will fault, though, is the musical score by the trio of Akihisa Matzura, Yutaka Odawara, & Kouki Itou, because there's really nothing of worth to really mention here. It's not that the background music in Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is necessarily bad or ill-fitting, because it works just fine in all instances... but there's seriously nothing even remotely memorable in the entire score from these three. This is honestly shocking as all three look to be rather renown & prolific producers for notable musical acts in Japan, but it really is just that lackluster of a musical score. Luckily, the OP & ED themes do all of the heavy lifting here, as they are both great. OP theme "Girl Friend ~Boku no Kyouhansha~" by Side-One goes very much against the grain of the general style of the series by being a hard rock song, but it actually winds up fitting the feel & mood of the series extremely well. Meanwhile, the lyrics about a boy being let on continually by the person that they're seemingly obsessed with , so much so that they consider the person to be their "accomplice" & "goddess", really does match perfectly with Techno's obsession over Hitomi; it really does sound like a theme song that properly befits the wild insanity seen here. However, it's ED theme "One More Chance" by Yukie Nakama that winds up really being the most notable thing about the entire series, as a whole, though it's for reasons outside of the show's scope. As a song it's a perfectly fine & enjoyable little pop song that follows up on Nakama's songs that were heard in Haunted Junction (though at least here she isn't voicing a literal shotacon of a main character), but otherwise is more or less what you'd expect of that era of J-pop music. No, the reason why "One More Chance" is so notable is that just one month after Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy debuted in late-night the video game Rockman X4 saw release on both the Sony PlayStation & Sega Saturn in Japan... and the song that game used for its ED theme was "One More Chance" by Yukie Nakama. Yeah, for whatever reason (my guess would be an overzealous music executive desperate for promotion) this song was used as the ED theme for two different productions that came out, essentially, at the same exact time, but while it does fit Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy well enough it really doesn't match Rockman X4's general tone & mood in any way. To be fair, Rockman X4 also featured a Yukie Nakama song as its OP theme, but were there literally not enough songs from her to promote that her music label had no choice but to double-up on for one of them?
Finally we have our voice cast for the show, which honestly is rather good & (surprisingly) has a decent amount of what's essentially guest casting, i.e. relying on actors not known for their voice work. Techno is voiced by Yasufumi Hayashi, who's known primarily for his work on TV dramas & live-action films, and in retrospect it would explain the cadence to his voice whenever he spoke his lines. However, Hayashi's performance is honestly well done, & the noticeably different cadence actually works to his benefit, as it matches well with Techno's general (confident) awkwardness. Meanwhile, Hitomi is voiced by Kisa Iinuma, who actually seems to have barely any roles at all (& this being her "biggest" one), but she was actually pretty good here, giving the character a bit of a "standard" charm to her that matches with (what even Hitomi herself agrees to be) her "nothing special" aesthetic; it's her everydayness that makes Techno's obsession with her a little bewildering to some in the show. The other bit of "guest casting" would be Ikuko Yamamoto, normally a stage actress, who voices Anii/Annie & like Hayashi does have a notably different cadence to her voice, but considering that Annie's actually a cyborg it works. Beyond those three the last two "major" cast members would be Toshiyuki Morikawa as Yamakawa X & Sumi Shimamoto as Ms. Rarako, with Morikawa kind of stealing the show as the neurotic & "trying-so-hard-not-to-sound-desperate" Yamakawa, while Shimamoto's pure innocence as Ms. Rarako manages to keep her recurring "Did I do something wrong? This is my first time, after all" gag from becoming monotonous. The rest of the cast includes the likes of Kosei Yagi (Techno's grandfather), Urara Takano (Sayori & Mimi), Rio Natsuki (Tami), Yoshiko Sakakibara & Mitsuru Miyamoto (Yamakawa's mother & brother, respectively), and small guest roles by Bin Shimada, Ryusei Nakao, Hiroko Kasahara, & Yoshiko Kamei.
Despite my misgivings with this anime, I won't say that Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is a "bad" show. There were still moments where I did get a laugh, as I'm sure the show intended, and there is still a charm to it that (I would hope) indicates why Noriko Nagano would go on to see greater success with God Save the Sugekoma-kun!, & today seems to be a rather well respected member of the manga industry. However, I will readily state that Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is a very frustrating show for me, and it really all comes down to Reijiro Techno himself. The idea of someone who's hyper-fixated on science & experimentation finding love, & is unsure how to express themselves, is a great idea for a romantic comedy, and while I haven't seen it myself yet I've generally heard good things about Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It, which is pretty much all about that concept (mixed with the idea of everyone trying to scientifically prove the very idea of love).
In comparison, Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy is all about making Techno look like the innocent one in all of this, whose terrible actions are the result of his extreme shut-in life, and that instead of the man of science being the one who should learn new things & become a better person for his "Daisy" it's Hitomi who should forgive all the bad things that Techno did to her & learn to accept him for who he is. Even if it is a comedy series that's just a terrible message to be giving in a series about romance, and no amount of zany hijinks & absurd situations can disguise how unlikable Techno himself is throughout the show. It really says something that the one episode where he's seen to be a (somewhat) better person eventually reveals that it was actually a robot duplicate of Techno, as the real one was sick, with Hitomi literally going "Yeah, of course it was a robot. The real Techno wouldn't be this considerate".
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| It better well damn be! |
Hey, that's just the risk I'm running when I decide to theme this entire year around the origins of the "modern-day late-night anime infomercial"; there's good reason why I questioningly call this a "celebration(?)". Anyway, in March we'll continue the general overview series of this era by going over 1998 & 1999 (trust me, it's going to be... a lot), but in April I'll return to mining this era by reviewing the first late-night anime to debut on satellite TV, & a true obscurity: Nessa no Haoh Gandalla!
Anime © Noriko Nagago·ASCII/Project Daisy
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