Retrospect in Retrograde: The Fuma no Kojirou OVAs

Following up a massive success is a tough proposition, to say the least. You now have these major expectations that didn't exist previously, and should you not meet those you run the risk of failure. This is especially true in the world of manga, because not everyone is an Akira Toriyama or Rumiko Takahashi, who can follow up a major hit (Dr. Slump or Urusei Yatsura, respectively) with a second, arguably bigger smash (Dragon Ball or Ranma ½, respectively). Some, though, manage to follow a major hit with something that, though not similarly successful, is still a decent enough hit. A perfect example of that latter situation is with Masami Kurumada, who in late 1981 finished Ring ni Kakero, the "SF Boxing" manga that made his name known to the Japanese populace & would influence so much manga that Shueisha would deem it "The Hot-Blooded Fighting Manga Bible" in 2014. Naturally, Shonen Jump readers were excited for what Kurumada would follow that up with, and a few months later, at the start of 1982, they found out with Fuma no Kojirou/Kojirou of the Fuma, a story revolving (ostensibly) around ninja. While it seemed to be a success of its own merit for the time, though obviously not on the level of RnK, the manga still wound up ending after only a solid two years, finishing up at the very end of 1983, after 10 volumes. My theory is Kurumada prematurely ended FnK in order to finally start working on the series he had been planning out for a decade, Otoko Zaka, only for said series to fizzle out after not even a year. Kurumada would then aim for the mainstream, creating Saint Seiya in 1986, and here's where we return to Fuma no Kojirou.

Saint Seiya was a bona fide smash hit during the second half of the 80s, arguably influencing more people than they realize (in particular, what people associate Dragon Ball with was likely due to Toriyama being encouraged to follow Saint Seiya's lead). It was such a instant hit that Toei Animation debuted a TV anime adaptation before the manga was even a year into its run, which itself wound up becoming a big hit, especially around the world (except for "North of Mexico", of course), and would end in April of 1989, after 114 episodes; the manga would run until late 1990. Likely seeing that Seiya's anime was coming to an end, though, producers from MOVIC, retail arm Animate, & CBS Sony Group obviously wanted to continue riding whatever wave of Saint Seiya popularity was still cresting, before it crashed. The end result was Fuma no Kojirou (later given the subtitle Yasha-hen/Yasha Chapter), a six-episode OVA adaptation of the first story arc of the FnK manga that came out during the summer of 1989, with the first episode coming out only two months after Saint Seiya's final episode aired; they started working on the OVA before the show finished, obviously. Sales must have been good, as the following year saw Fuma no Kojirou: Seiken Sensou-hen/Sacred Sword War Chapter, a six-episode OVA adaptation of the second story arc that came out during the fall of 1990. Finally, after a two-year hiatus, a 50-minute OVA titled Fuma no Kojirou Saishushou: Fuma Hanran-hen/The Final Chapter: Fuma Rebellion Chapter, which adapted the third & final story arc of the manga, came out at the very end of 1992; today, the entire thing is generally counted as a single, 13-episode series. There were five DVD releases covering all three OVAs in Japan throughout mid-2001, put out by SME Visual Works (the former CBS Sony Group, & now currently known as Aniplex), but nothing else since; admittedly, it'd be nice to see these be given an HD remaster & Blu-Ray release.

I reviewed each of these OVAs long ago, the first in 2010 & the other two in 2012, and at the time there was no English translation whatsoever, fansub or official, for any of them; there was supposedly one back in the old VHS fansub days, but it's never surfaced. Today, however, there is actually an English fansub out there, though most of it (read: 11 of the 13 episodes) is based on a Spanish fansub, which means that it's mostly a translation of a translation. Sadly, though the translation itself is okay, the video quality is that of a multi-generation copy of a VHS tape, & Fuma Hanran-hen's fansub literally just plasters English subs over the Spanish subs; it's the best we got, sadly. Still, with Masami Kurumada having returned to Fuma no Kojirou recently with the Jou no Maki/Prelude Chapter prequel manga, and an "Ultimate Final Edition" of the original manga planned for a November release, I'd say now's as good a time as any to finally give these OVAs a new, comprehensive look, and see if I feel any differently about the anime adaptation of "Masami Kurumada's Fourth-Most-Well-Known Manga".

Metropolis vs. Metropolis: Lang vs. Rintaro, with Tezuka as the Referee! A Robotic Battle of Babelic Proportions!

In 1927, German director Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis, based on the 1925 novel of the same name by his then-wife Thea von Harbou, debuted in German theaters, where it was originally received rather coldly & bombed hard, financially. H.G. Wells himself, whose works were a big influence, called it "quite the silliest film", while Lang himself would eventually admit dissatisfaction with it. Today, however, Lang's film is considered one of the all-time greats & one of the earliest pioneers of science-fiction, with it receiving all manner of restorations over the decades, most recently in 2010, though due to various cuts made to the film back in the day (along with the condition of the only surviving reel of the original cut), only 148 of the original 153 minute run time has been rescued & properly restored; it's likely this is the best we'll ever get. Twenty years later, in 1947, a 19-year old Osamu Tezuka had just made a name for himself with New Treasure Island, which helped prompt publishers into wanting to release more "real" comics, so Tezuka offered to make a science-fiction story. Said manga would eventually be 1949's Metropolis, with the name & main character being influenced by Fritz Lang's movie... Or rather, a single still image of "The Machine-Man", one of the film's most iconic characters, that Tezuka saw in a magazine around that time; Tezuka had never actually seen the film, nor known what it was even about. Regardless, the manga was a big hit, becoming another early example of the man who would later be nicknamed "The God of Manga".

As successful as Tezuka's Metropolis was, though, he also never saw any interest in adapting it into another medium, like animation. One man who did have an interest, though, was Shigeyuki Hayashi, better known to anime fans as Rintaro. A former Toei animator who worked on 1958's Hakujaden, the first color anime feature film, Rintaro moved over to Tezuka's Mushi Pro at the dawn of "modern" TV anime, working on the original Astro Boy series; he'd later help found Madhouse in 1972. While Rintaro wanted to adapt Metropolis into anime, though, it was the "God" himself who was the main roadblock... Until he wasn't after 1989. In interviews, Rintaro essentially admitted that he simply waited for Osamu Tezuka to die before finally starting work on that anime adaptation, but even then it wouldn't actually come to be until mid-2001, and Rintaro admitted that Tezuka likely would have hated it. The end result, though, certainly sounds amazing on paper: Rintaro directing, Akira's Katsuhiro Otomo doing the writing, animation by Madhouse (& produced by the legendary Masao Maruyama, who considers this production to be his favorite), conceptual support by Tezuka Pro, music by celebrated jazz composer Toshiyuki Honda, distribution by Toho (which, coincidentally enough, also distributed Lang's Metropolis in Japan), & a budget of 1 billion yen. Not just that, but Rintaro also added in elements of the original film, making this a unique fusion of both Lang & Tezuka's works. Much like Lang's film, though, it bombed in its home country, not making back its budget, but has since earned itself a cult following; both Roger Ebert & even James Cameron praised what Rintaro & crew achieved.

Therefore, with both films now currently available in English in HD-remastered Blu-Ray, it's time to ask the question: Which film is better? Is it Fritz Lang's seminal classic, or is it Rintaro's fusion of both the film & the manga? After all, Lang went on to not be happy with his final product (though some argue that this was mainly because the Nazi Party enjoyed the film), while Rintaro's film can be embellished as "The film Tezuka didn't want you to see!", so this Vs. Battle could very well be closer than anyone expects. This battle will be fought across the following categories: Story, Characters, Visuals, Music, Acting, & Execution. Therefore, let's not wait any longer for the Tale of the Tape, und lass es uns machen ("& let's get it on")!

[NOTE: The version of Lang's Metropolis I am going off of for this battle is the 2010 "complete" remaster, so as to judge the movie based on its original vision, as closely as possible. Sorry, but no Georgio Moroder version here.]

Obscusion B-List: Unknown Japanese RenderWare Games

Video games, today more than ever, aren't easy to make, and one way to help alleviate some of that workload across multiple games is to rely on a previously existing engine or platform, also called middleware. Some examples of that are Epic's iconic Unreal Engines, Capcom's MT Framework, 3D Realms' Build Engine, & id Software's various id Techs (the "Doom Engine" & "Quake Engine", for example), but probably the most well known & iconic one of them all during the 00s, at least for console development, is easily RenderWare. First launched back in 1993, it was originally something that creator Criterion Software solely used for games like Scorched Planet & TrickStyle (though there was a game or two which saw some assistance from it, like Rayman 2: Revolution), but when the PlayStation 2 came out, the engine became almost legendary.

Sony's 128-bit Emotion Engine that powered the PS2 quickly became infamous for being, simply put, a pain in the ass to develop for, and what Criterion wound up doing was update RenderWare so that it became a way to more easily develop for the PS2, and its cross-platform support made it possible to port games over to the likes of the GameCube, Xbox, & PC with little fuss. So, starting with Take-Two's City Crisis in 2001, Criterion licensed out RenderWare to any & all interested companies, & even after EA bought Criterion from Canon in 2004, old contracts were still honored & new licenses continued to happen. While EA stopped supporting the engine around 2007, due to its lack of power for the likes of the PS3 & Xbox 360, supported games continued to come out through 2013, plus a one-time return in 2018 for Burnout Paradise Remastered; in total, somewhere over 200 games were developed using Criterion's middleware engine. Still, that RenderWare logo appeared on so many iconic games from that era, whether it was the Burnout franchise, the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise, Manhunt 1 & 2, Sonic Heroes, Bully, Persona 3 & 4 (plus their respective updates), Crackdown, or Black. There were also tons of games you probably at least heard of but didn't know were developed using RenderWare, like Suikoden III, DreamMix TV World Fighters, kill.switch, Max Payne 2, RoboCop [2003], the pre-HD Mortal Kombat games of the 00s, killer7 (at least on the PS2), & even Fate/unlimited codes (a rare arcade appearance for the engine!).

Still, this is Obscusion B-List, so allow me to bring up some Japanese games you likely never heard of in the first place that utilized RenderWare!

Spectral Force Chronicle Divergence: Farewell, and Thanks for All the Hiyoko Bugs

From 1998 to 2005, video game company Idea Factory tried its hand at being a true multimedia company by releasing a baker's dozen of anime to help advertise its video game releases, most of which were literally nothing more than promotional OVAs that didn't tell a full story, of any sort... And nearly all of them aren't what anyone would exactly call "good". Back in 2013, I wrote reviews for six of the thirteen produced anime, followed by another five reviews across both 2017 & 2018. Among those, I've seen the ill-advised freshman effort of Spectral Force, the "much-too-soon" attempt at making a full-CG TV series with Run=Dim, the animated horrors of Gakuen Toshi Vara Noir (which in Japan is considered part of the "Yashigani Trilogy", alongside Lost Universe & Gundress), the apparent "worst of all time" in Mars of Destruction (spoiler: it's terrible, but not really "the worst"), and the lazy & seeming despondent final release of Rebirth Moon Divergence; throughout all this, Idea Factory truly showcased that it was "The Ed Wood of Anime". At the same time, though, not all of it was downright terrible, as there was the rather enjoyable introductory story of Generation of Chaos III & the legitimately good (if still beholden to the studio's quirks) & self-contained Kingdom of Chaos - Born to Kill. With only two more Idea Factory anime left to cover, on which side of the spectrum shall this next one fall?

Idea Factory was founded in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo back on October 26, 1994 (Happy Early 25th Anniversary, Idea Factory!) by Shingo Kuwana (a former Data East planner & designer for the Joe & Mac series' SNES entries) & Yoshiteru Sato (not an ex-Data East employee). Over the course of the next decade, the studio would find itself a bit of a niche with the IF Neverland franchise, which produced a wide variety of games (mostly RPGs, of some sort) that all took place in a shared timeline within the fantasy world of Neverland. While 1996's Spectral Tower is technically the first entry, it was 1997's Spectral Force, a spiritual successor to Sega Saturn cult-classic Dragon Force (& developed by a lot of the same staff), that truly marked the start of the first major storyline in the franchise, the First Neverland War. So, to celebrate the studio's 10th Anniversary, Idea Factory decided to return to that original story & show it in a new way. The end result was early 2005's Spectral Force Chronicle for the PlayStation 2, which acted as a "digest" retelling of the plot of Spectral Force 1, 2, & Lovely Wickedness, but rather than the war simulator that the series was known for, it was instead a strategy/tactical RPG, similar to that of Tactics Ogre, Front Mission, or Super Robot Wars. It was also the only game from Idea Factory's partnership with Taiwanese studio XPEC Entertainment that did not see international release of some sort, with the others being 2003's Black Stone: Magic & Steel for the Xbox (Idea Factory's first international release; known as Ex-Chaser in Japan), 2004's Bakuen Kakusei: Neverland Senki Zero for the PS2 (released abroad only in Europe as Realm of the Dead), & 2006's Spectral Force 3: Innocent Rage for the Xbox 360 (which used the same engine as SF Chronicle).

To go with this 10th Anniversary strategy RPG, Idea Factory also produced an OVA that came out two months after the game, titled Spectral Force Chronicle Divergence, featuring animation by Wao World!, the same studio that produced the anime cutscenes used in the game. Unfortunately, the last "Divergence" OVA I covered, the one that went with fellow strategy RPG Rebirth Moon, was literally just the various cutscenes from the game, with nothing more than a static image & narration to link each one in chronological order. Is that simply the modus operandi of the short-lived "Divergence" OVAs? And if so, does this first one at least make more sense than the broken mess that was the final Idea Factory anime?

Following the Blue Bird's Path: Experiencing Zone of the Enders Chronologically

Ask hardcore fans of the PlayStation 2 what one of the best series is on the console, and it won't be long before someone answers with Zone of the Enders. Though generally credited as the creation of the legendary Hideo Kojima, though he only acted as a (highly supportive) producer, the series was actually the creation of Noriaki Okamura, who had worked with Kojima on games like Policenauts & Metal Gear Solid. While most generally only consider the two main games when thinking of the series, Z.O.E was created as a bit of a larger & more multimedia production, which in turn all take place in a shared world & timeline. As someone who's never really given the series a chance before, I've always wondered if going through all of Z.O.E in actual chronological order would be a great way to experience it all. So, over this past summer, I finally went through a massive Orbital Frame bender, checking out Konami's (& Sunrise's) cult-classic franchise in a way that I'm sure most haven't really considered. While I will give my general feelings about each production here, this is going to be focused more on how what happens in each part of the story, and if going through it chronologically actually provides any benefit.

So "Kiss Me Sunlights", as I put a "Ring on the World" to go "Beyond the Bounds", because "You Know Where We're Going?"

ZONE OF THE ENDERS!!!

Just using the Japanese logos for consistency.

Before we start, though, some quick set-up to establish things, for those unfamiliar. Zone of the Enders takes place in the latter half of 22nd century, specifically from 2167 to 2174, following mankind's colonization of Mars & space colonies being set up around the orbit of Jupiter. The eponymous "Enders" are what those in control on Earth call the Mars & Jupiter colonists, which in turn has resulted in harsh laws & taxes against them. This has resulted in various groups & organizations rising up to rebel on Mars, the most important for the overall storyline being the military force BAHRAM, based out of Vacilia County. As for the giant robots themselves, they come in two main forms: The standard Laborious Extra-Orbital Vehicle, or LEV, & the more advanced Orbital Frame. With those basics out of the way, let's start running!