Under The Western Influence

This year at AWA and at Anime North back in May, I did a panel all about Japanese cartoons based on Western works; two hours of me showing clips and talking about them, only making stuff up occasionally. Seeing as how it's been weeks since I did a column here, I need something I can throw up pretty quickly. So here goes! My panel was by no means a comprehensive or complete overview - just anime I happened to have on hand that was at least vaguely interesting to look at and worth talking about for five or ten minutes. Since I first did this panel in Canada I started off with some Canadian content.



Written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery in 1908, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES became a worldwide success, especially in Japan. If you are Canadian or watch PBS in the States you're already familiar with the story and/or Megan Follows. If you aren't, it's about a young orphan girl who's adopted by a middle-aged brother and sister on a farm on Prince Edward Island. Expecting a boy, the pair soon overcome their initial reservations and Anne becomes a member of the family.



"Akage No Anne" was produced by Nippon Animation Company in 1979 as part of their World Masterpiece Theater series, with animation by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Nippon Animation is airing a Anne prequel - "Hello Anne - Before Green Gables" right now as part of the House Foods World Masterpiece Theater. Currently unavailable in the English speaking world, the failure of the American "anime industry" to rake in cash by releasing this series is proof of massive brain damage on somebody's part.



FABLES OF THE GREEN FOREST is another show Canadians are more familiar with than Americans. This anime series, originally titled "Rocky Chuck", was based on books written by Thornton W. Burgess, eminent conservationist from Cape Cod, who over the course of his career wrote more than 170 books and 15,000 newspaper columns. His characters Sammy Bluejay, Johnny Chuck, Polly Chuck, Peter Rabbit, Chatterer Squirrel, Paddy Beaver, Grandpa Frog, Uncle Billy Mouse, and Joe Otter were introduced in his first novel, Old Mother West Wind, published in 1910. The anime series was produced by Zuiyo Eizo (the predecessor to Nippon Animation). America got exposed to the anime incarnations Chatterer The Squirrel and pals through the good offices of ZIV who dubbed this series in a haphazard and whimsical fashion.





The TOM SAWYER ANIME, based on the Mark Twain book, was a World Masterpiece Theater series produced by Nippon Animation in 1980. Dubbed for American home video, it was released by Just For Kids to an indifferent market. Not nearly as surreal as the Hanna-Barbera Tom Sawyer that featured live-action Tom, Huck, and Becky Thatcher being chased by an animated Injun Joe. Other World Masterpiece Theater series include Swiss Family Robinson, Dog Of Flanders, Remi, Hans Christian Andersen stories, Pollyanna, Peter Pan, Daddy Longlegs, Von Trapp Family Story, and Lassie. No, not Lassie's Rescue Rangers. Just Lassie.



Toei's 1980 TV special LITTLE WOMEN wound up getting dubbed for America by Harmony Gold. Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott written in 1867, it's the story of four New England sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy who come of age during the American Civil War. You know how one of the characters in the book dies of tuberculosis? Not in this movie. There was also a Little Women anime TV series called "Four Sisters Of Young Grass(?) in 1981.



HEIDI is naturally based on the popular children's book by Johanna Spyri about a Swiss orphan who goes to live with her hermit grandfather in the Alps. Animated as part of Nippon Animation Co.'s Worldwide Classics series, with direction by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata; the pair have a great time animating the endless expanses of Swiss Alps and bright blue skies. There is a Heidiland theme park in Switzerland where yodelling is enforced by law.

SINDBAD, being an adventure character whose appeal has lasted centuries, is a natural to become a Japanese cartoon. The character originates in ancient Middle Eastern tales of an intrepid sailor from Basra. The classic English version is from Richard Burton's 1001 Nights. No, not THAT Richard Burton, the other one. The movie THE ADVENTURES OF SINDBAD is a Toei film released in 1962, dubbed by god knows who, and a staple of public domain home video.



SINDBAD ARABIAN NIGHTS is a Nippon Animation Company series from 1975 and stars Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba together again for the first time! 1001 NIGHTS - produced by Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Productions- is one of three animated films aimed at an adult market in the late 1960s and early 70s that wound up bankrupting Mushi. I have an English trailer for this film but have never seen a full dubbed version.




L. Frank Baum's WIZARD OF OZ has been animated by Japanese folks on at least four occasions. One of them is a mere twelve minutes long. The Toho version released in 1982 stars the voices of Lorne Greene and Aileen "Annie" Quinn. I think we wrote about that one already.



Based on the Russian fairy tale, TWELVE MONTHS is a Toei/Soyuzmultfilm coproduction released in 1980. Anya is sent out into the cold woods to collect flowers in midwinter by the evil queen, but is saved by the twelve spirits of the months of the year. The somber, fantastical characters and cool color scheme are close to Toei's other 1980 film, Towards The Terra.

THE WILD SWANS, a Toei film from 1977, is a complicated Danish fairy tale about a king with 11 sons and 1 daughter. Our clueless widowed king marries an evil stepmother who turns the boys into swans. Daughter Elisa escapes swanification and must complete various impossible tasks and endure hardship to return her brothers to normal. Another swan-themed fairy tale anime, SWAN LAKE is that great ballet and is also a Toei film from 1981 that reportedly was the first co-production between Marvel Comics and Toei. No seriously, it says so right here in the November 1980 issue of Comics Reader. Fred Patten wouldn't lie!

DADDY LONGLEGS is based on the 1912 novel by the American writer Jean Webster, Mark Twain's grand-niece. Originally published in Ladies' Home Journal, this tells the story of an orphan girl whose tuition at a women's college (based on Vassar) is sponsored by an anonymous benefactor. The novel takes the form of letters written by Judy to her mystery man. Will the friendly, handsome uncle of one of her classmates turn out to be Judy's mysterious Daddy Longlegs? Hint: yes.



This anime version was produced by Tatsunoko in 1979 and dubbed into English in the 1980s by 3B Productions (Tranzor Z, Starbirds). There is a later TV series by Nippon Animation Company released as part of their "World Masterpiece Theater" series.

CALL OF THE WILD - Obviously from the Jack London novel, this Toei television film is surprisingly brutal in its depiction of the rough life in the North. Also features a ninja dog.



FRANKENSTEIN the anime! Loosely based on the Mary Shelley novel, this plodding, tedious adaptation is enlivened by rare moments of extreme violence. The new ending is not an improvement. Produced by Toei as a TV movie in the late 1970s and dubbed by Harmony Gold.

DRACULA SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED - this famous 1980 Toei telefilm is based on the Marvel Comics "Tomb Of Dracula" by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. The more fanciful notions of the comic book seem even more fanciful without Gene Colan's masterful artwork, and Dracula cockblocks Satan and eats a hamburger.


Yup, he's eating a hamburger. Deal with it.

So far the 1970s Marvel/Toei partnership resulted in Dracula at McDonalds, Spiderman with a giant robot, and Go Nagai sketching Luke Skywalker. Oh well, one out of three ain't bad.

THE YEARLING (aka "Fortunate Fawn"): the original Yearling novel was by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, was published in 1938, and was the story of Jody, a young boy living in central Florida around the turn of the century. His parents won't let him have a pet, but he adopts a fawn whom he names Flag. I don't know how the anime version ends. This World Masterpiece Theater series recieved a really odd anonymous English dub and was sold in dollar stores as "Fortunate Fawn". Fun fact: when the American film was casting in 1939 my great-uncle tested for the part of Jody. Didn't get it, though.

FUTURE BOY CONAN, part of Nippon Animation's "World Masterpiece" series, this was based on the juvenile dystopian SF novel "The Incredible Tide" by Alexander Key, who also wrote "Escape To Witch Mountain". The original book is, as I recall, deadpan and grim, with Conan and Lana fighting to survive in a much less jolly world than we'd see in the anime series. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, this is perhaps the finest 26 episodes of any children's science fiction cartoon ever made by anyone ever.

CAPTAIN FUTURE - based on the 1940 pulp series written by Edmond Hamilton. Curtis Newton was raised in a secret moon base by a an artificial man, an intelligent robot, and a brain in a tank. Obviously he became a space-travelling hero battling evil and injustice throughout the solar system. This 1978 Toei TV series was really popular in Europe. Hamilton's "Star Wolf" became a live-action TV series in Japan in the early 1980s.



LENSMAN was loosely modelled after the seminal SF pulp series by Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith, PhD (food chemistry). The Lensmen are top agents of the Galactic Patrol, civilization's only defense against the Boskone pirate society. The Lens endows its wearer with telepathy and the ability to control minds of lesser strength. The battle between civilization and Boskone escalates until planets, stars, and black holes are used as weapons. The series began in 1936 and continued through the 1940s, with a final book in the series appearing in 1965.



The anime film was one of the first uses of computer animation in a Japanese anime production - not THE first, but close - and was followed by a TV series that hewed slightly closer to the original novels and had a kicky, piano-driven theme song. Other anime adaptions of American SF classics include the Sunrise STARSHIP TROOPERS, an amazingly dull adaptation of a really great book.

The famous Swedish comic strip MOOMIN about the Moomintrolls and their bucolic pastoral existence has been animated on about thirty or forty separate occasions. Mushi Productions, TMS, TV Tokyo, and lots of European studios have all collaborated on different Moomin animated series. There is also a Moomin theme park in Finland, and the shops of three continents are lousy with Moomin toys, dolls, cell phone charms, you name it. The version I have was dubbed into English in Wales.

Other Western-influenced anime titles mentioned were the Toei films Puss In Boots and Animal Treasure Island and Superbook - based on the book WRITTEN BY GOD!!- Tatsunoko's ANIME OYAKO GEKIJO / PASOCON TOABERU TANTEIDAN ("personal computer travel detectives") series from the early 1980s was commissioned by Pat Robertson for the Japanese market, dubbed and shown on various Christian television networks. In the Ukraine, the anime inspired a live-action Barney and Friends-style children's program titled Superbook Club (with the robot Gizmo, or "Robik" in Ukrainian, as the mascot).

Yes, I'm completely aware there are tons of anime titles I have completely neglected to mention, including HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and the Toei LITTLE MERMAID and many others, including that one that's your favorite. Please feel free to fill up the comments about how I "forgot to mention" these titles, because I love it when you do that.

Spaced Out Japanimation, Man

Back in the misty ages of the past - we're talking the 1990's- when the twin trip-hammer blows of POKEMON and SAILOR MOON had blasted an American pop conciousness already reeling from the art-house opus AKIRA and the cries of disbelief as entire divisions of college sophomores entertained their dateless peers with sensual, late-night screenings of LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND and NINJA SCROLL... there came a time when the Eighth Seal was opened and THE TRUTH was revealed to America's home video marketing executives.

This TRUTH was, of course, that we'd now reached a point in Western civilization where people would buy DAMN NEAR ANYTHING that had a Japanese cartoon character on it. I'm talking skateboards. "Hook-Ups" T-shirts. Comics drawn in the "manga style" by Americans. And, of course, videos! Videos of new anime releases, videos of anime movies, and videos of anime TV shows from twenty years ago that have been through the "public domain" mill so many times that the "public" is looking desperately around for somebody to take over the copyright just to get it out of the "$1.99 Movies" bin at the Wal-Mart to make way for Dorf golfing videos and remaindered copies of "Batman Forever".

But how to sell goofily-dubbed primitive Toei super robot cartoons to the sophisticated American retailer? One word - packaging.



And that's how Parade Video (distributor of, among other things, the incredible Peter Sellers film THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT) came to unleash SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION on the world! Yes, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION, the amazing 4-tape set that satisfies ALL your Japanimation needs,as long as your Japanimation needs include "buying a Christmas present for that nephew who will NOT SHUT UP about something called "Japanimation". How many kids asked Santa for, say, GUNDAM WING or ESCAFLOWNE videos, and instead found SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION under the tree? Many a forced grin and a stammered "Thanks, Granpa!" would be heard on Christmas morning that year, I can tell you!

Sold through your snappier mall video outlets like the late, lamented Suncoast Video, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION stands as a testament both to the staying power of cheap, public domain video AND to a public's brief but intense love affair with those big-eyed Japa-heeno cartoons. Not to mention the "throw it all up there and slap a gradiated logo on it" design aesthetic of the 1990s, where minimalism and taste were abandoned in favor of FLAMES!!! and METALLIC SHEEN!!! If there isn't a van out there with this artwork airbrushed on the side, I can only ask "why not?"




And yet, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION is not without its charms. This 4-tape set devotes one tape each to GRANDIZER, SPACEKETEERS, GAIKING, and STARVENGERS - all Jim Terry dubs from the seminal super robot TV package FORCE FIVE that entertained us all in the fall of 1980 when the world was young and we wanted nothing more than to climb into a flying saucer that jammed itself into a giant robot armed with "hydro-phasers" and "space thunder" like in GRANDIZER. STARVENGERS enlightened us all to the possibility of jet planes that combine to form super robots battling demons, and GAIKING asked the anime question, what if an alien planet was destroyed by a black hole and the aliens attacked Earth which was defended by a giant robot space dragon that launched a horned super robot piloted by people dressed as baseball players? What if? And SPACEKETEERS - well, SPACEKETEERS had Princess Aurora, whose beauty entranced us all whether she was dressed in her space miniskirt or her space prom dress. Missing from the SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION set is DANGUARD ACE, the series where Leiji Matsumoto really started working out his Velikovsky theories about tenth planets careening wildly through our solar system. But they only had room for 4 tapes in the set, so something had to go.


The subject of a wide early 1980s home video release from Family Home Entertainment, the FORCE FIVE shows could be found in episodic and compilation-film versions in your neighborhood video rental shops. A few years later incredibly cheap public-domain video releases with titles like "Robo-Formers" and "Zalo" began to appear in drugstores and discount shops across the land, poor transfers of FORCE FIVE episodes.



On first glance, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION would appear to be just another cheap, 6-hour speed public domain copy of a copy of a copy release of our old Force Five favorites. But the surprising fact is that, even though these tapes are recorded in the penny-pinching SLP 6-hour mode, the transfers are actually pretty good. Better, in fact, than the video quality of the bootleg DVD sets that are floating around. When we consider that the FHE tapes are starting to disintegrate because of their age, SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION becomes a possible alternative to our other choice, which is the unthinkable possibility of NOT WATCHING SPACEKETEERS EVER AGAIN. And we can't let that happen.



SPACED OUT JAPANIMATION - exploitative bargain-basement video release? Signpost of a time when anime ruled the video stores? Or valuable part of your balanced Japanese cartoon collection? It's all these things... and more.

dyna-cool, frank

Back in the 80s it was business in the front and party in the back - all the time! No film distributor exemplified this wisdom more than Peregrine Films, who released a slate of Japanese anime films just in time to miss out on the anime video explosion. Their marketing strategy was explained in a garishly airbrushed glossy booklet.




Peregrine took nine fairly recent anime films, either used the 'international' versions already extant or found somebody to dub them, and released them to home video. Some of these films were odd men out even in Japan, like SPACE WARRIORS



A Toei compilation film of the Ashi television series BALDIOS, this show was mostly known for the usage of a minor character in an internet meme twenty years later. Other titles like TECHNO POLICE had similar weird also-ran or never-were pedigrees.



But other Peregrine titles were, shall we say, less forgettable. Like, say, Captain Harlock's feature film MY YOUTH IN ARCADIA.



Only now the film is called VENGEANCE OF THE SPACE PIRATE and it's got a lackluster dub that features weird audio problems, and the box art uses scenes that don't actually appear in the film. Another troubled production was their version of MACROSS:



Retitled CLASH OF THE BIONOIDS - a title that guarantees no viewers over the age of 10 - this version of the 1984 MACROSS feature is the 'international' dub that was packaged as a extra on the Japanese laserdisc release. If you've ever watched a bad kung-fu film from the late 70s you will recognize all the voice 'talent'. To date this is the only legitimate version of the MACROSS movie to ever get a United States video release. Where's the justice here? Who will save us? Look up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Locke The Superman!



Oh wait, we can't call him "Locke The Superman", because DC Comics will sue us, even though they didn't invent the word "Superman" and the two characters are nothing alike. Let's change it to "Superpower". That'll work. This is another stiff, weirdly accented dub ("esper" is pronounced "esp-aar") of the 1984 Locke film based on the popular SF manga by Yuki Hijiri.



Different Locke anime videos have been released in America on three separate occasions, and yet the plucky little green-haired dude can't ever seem to catch a break, even with his "lightning sword". Another hard-luck story is producer Haruki Kadokawa, who spent the 80s producing slick high profile films until he got busted for cocaine. (He's out now.) One of Kadokawa's slickest productions was the awesome Rin Taro film DAGGER OF KAMUI:



A stylish and colorful historical fantasy, KAMUI is about a half-Ainu boy raised as a ninja who finds a treasure and goes to America and meets Mark Twain and falls in love with an Indian princess who's actually French nobility and defeats an evil ninja Buddhist priest against the backdrop of, what was that, the Meiji Restoration? There are hallucinogenic ninja fights and a Siberian husky sidekick and lots of flashing blood everywhere. Of course like most of these film releases, KAMUI would be heavily edited, dubbed badly, and retitled REVENGE OF THE NINJA WARRIOR, which is about as generic a martial arts title as you can find.

Other Peregrine films included versions of PHOENIX 2772 and CYBORG 009 - LEGEND OF THE SUPER GALAXY. In fact most of these films would get trimmed by about half an hour and released on home video by the "Just For Kids" label. A few years later uncut versions would be released again by "Best Film & Video", some with their original titles. But the real irony is that if this had all happened four or five years later - once a market had been established for direct-to-video releases of uncut, subtitled anime without dumb kiddy titles or crazy dubbing - think of how (to use 80s terminology) AWESOME that would have been!!

Anime on CED

During the Format Wars of the 70s and 80s the struggle was on between VHS and Beta. But other format battles raged in the background. One such format was Capacitance Electronic Disc, or CED. Known also under its brand name of RCA Selectavision, it was a unique system that used a metal disc. Image and sound were recorded on the disc electronically and read by the stylus, like a needle on an LP record on that turntable gathering dust in your attic. The discs were housed in plastic cases that slid in and out of the player. The resulting product delivered a picture superior to then-current videotape with crystal-clear fast forwards and rewinds. Unfortunately, this media was non-recordable, which meant you can’t tape your soaps or Johnny Carson. So the CED system coughed, sputtered, and died. Today you can find the discs in thrift stores and antique malls across North America, presenting a cross section of American film circa 1978-1983, sold by people who think they’re laserdiscs, bought by people who think they’re valuable collectors items.

At any rate, this is a blog about Japanese cartoons so we’ve got to work the things in here somewhere. So here goes! After years of research and excavation, ANIME ON CED is proud to present our in-depth exploration of the ENTIRE FIELD of Japanese Animation as released in the CED format. Following is a COMPLETE LIST of anime titles released on CED.

1. JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
2. THE WIZARD OF OZ

There, that was fun and enlightening, wasn’t it? Start your collection today!

Seriously, I’m pretty sure there are more titles out there, but these two are the only ones I personally own. So therefore, review.



THE WIZARD OF OZ, at least the 1982 Toho version we’re talking about here, is one of at least three different versions of Oz animated in Japan. This version features the voice and singing of Aileen Quinn, who had just finished her role as “Little Orphan Annie” in the musical and film of the same name. Also notable in the voice cast is Lorne Greene as The Wizard. Aileen belts out a few numbers and generally is the most bombastic thing about this lackluster production. The animation is jerky, the character designs are nothing to write home about, and Dorothy has a gigantic head. Seriously, I know anime characters have big heads, but her head is huge. Her giant blank eyes and unfortunate choices in lipstick shade make Dorothy a freakish doll-faced spectacle, even next to the cartoony Tin Man and a foppish, dreadlocked Scarecrow.



Having never read the Oz books, I can’t say for sure, but I have a feeling this film sticks a little closer to the original story than the MGM film. If you’re an Oz fan, this film should probably cement over a few holes in your collection, and if you’re a fan of Japanese animation oddities on weird dead formats then what are you waiting for? I once saw dozens of sealed VHS copies of this film in a Goodwill, so it can’t be too hard to find.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, on the other hand, is a much more entertaining movie. This 1974 co-production is like the animation styles of three continents stuck into a blender, whipped into a fine puree, and spread over groovy 1970s toast. Directed by Gisaburo “Night On The Galactic Railroad” Sugii, this winning fairy tale was created by Mushi Productions veterans who worked on things like Astro Boy and Cleopatra Queen Of Sex and would go on to things like Glass Mask and Death Note. We all know the story – Jack, magic beans, beanstalk, giant, grinding bones to make bread, singing harp, treasure,etc.- but this film throws in an entire supporting cast of dogs, mice, princesses, and evil queens that turn the movie from yet another animated children’s film into an enjoyable experience in its own right. (a full review is online at Anime Jump.)



The character designs betray the film’s global origins; Jack and his fellow ground-dwellers have a real European cartoon look, a Peyo-style roundness that makes you want to buy Kinder eggs or buy Eurorail passes, while the cloud castle princess has a definite anime character style and her subjects are day players from Princess Knight episodes. The evil witch, on the other hand, is Disney Evil Witch all the way.

Turns out Princess Margaret of Top Of Beanstalk Land has been hypnotized by the evil Hecuba, who is going to marry Margie off to her son, the giant Tulip. Yeah, that’s his name. Poor Jack, voiced by Billie Lou “Astro Boy” Watt, climbs up the beanstalk with his faithful canine companion Crosby (??) just in time to learn Hecuba has turned the citizens of cloud-land into Disney Cinderella mice. Befriending the princess (voiced by Corinne “Trixie” Orr), Jack makes it back home with the treasure, but his conscience and a stirring song by his previously silent dog convince him to climb back up and set things right. There’s a trippy sequence where Hecuba bends the laws of time and space, some exciting up and downstairs castle chasing action as Tulip rages after the pair, and after a few songs it’s back down the beanstalk, go get the axe. One of the film’s outstanding scenes is the wedding between Tulip & the princess – since the citizenry has been turned into mice, Hecuba fills the pews and pulpit with blank-faced paper dolls she animates through magic. It’s a creepy sequence with real dread.



The film’s music ranges from wigged-out psychedelic jam guitar to a portentious tune that suspiciously resembles Caiphas’s theme from “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Hecuba applies mind-control makeup to the Princess in a scene that now has serious lesbian overtones thanks to wah-wah porno background music. The movie never misses a chance to throw in a song and while some of them are clumsy (Jack and the giant sing a duet as they chase each other) they’re all fun.



It’s available on DVD from Hen's Tooth Video - scroll down (the guys that brought us Hawk The Slayer), but for the purposes of this column let’s just pretend it’s another example of Anime On CED. So far we have a fairy tale and Oz adaption #345; not exactly representative of the field of Japanese animation as a whole. If you know of any other Anime On CED releases, contact Let’s Anime!



Goodbye, Prince Tulip! Gooooodbyyyyyyyyeeeeeee!

Unico in the Island of DVDs

FROM THE "IT'S ABOUT TIME" DEPT. -

A new outfit - New Galaxy Anime -has just announced they're going to be releasing the 1981 Tezuka / Sanrio film THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF UNICO on DVD in the United States.

Unico, of course, is the little blue unicorn with magic powers who gets involved in various adventures with other little cute animals, some of whom are devils and others who turn into teenage girls and are seduced by mysterious barons. When things get scary and/or dangerous, Unico himself turns into a giant adult unicorn who is perfectly capable of killing the bad guys. Maybe a bit intense for younger children, but everybody else will find it rocks! The animation director is Akio "Golgo 13" Sugino, which means this thing looks great. It's a high-quality production that goes above and beyond its Sanrio roots. The English dubbing is top-notch, with great songs including a melodic little number about "Katy The Kitty Witch." Both UNICO and its sequel UNICO IN THE ISLAND OF MAGIC are terrific anime films that match anything else Japan (or America) was producing at the time.



This got a fairly well-promoted home video release in the United States back in 1984 - I cadged this poster from the local Record Bar back when VHS tapes were selling for $34.95 each. As a staple of the children's video section, UNICO and its MAGIC sequel did journeyman work as video babysitters for the youngsters who would later grow up, become anime fans, and start to remember this crazy thing they saw when they were kids about a little unicorn.



Everybody should welcome New Galaxy Anime-- with lots and lots of pre-orders! New Galaxy should immediately secure the rights to RINGING BELL and next, NOEL'S FANTASTIC TRIP.