CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE!

The success of STAR WARS brought many a long-dormant SF franchise out of retirement; even in far away Japan the hunger for space-spanning astro-heroes was acute. If you're going to do STAR WARS, why not bypass Lucas entirely and go right to the source - the pulps?

And so in 1978 Toei Animation Company would give us an anime version of the classic 40s pulp hero CAPTAIN FUTURE . A mysterious hero of the spaceways, Captain Future pilots the mighty spaceship Comet, and, aided by his weird and powerful Futuremen, is pledged to protect Earth and our entire solar system from anything - man, beast, alien, or sentient 4th-dimensional being from beyond time -who threatens peace!

As a science-fictional amalgam of Doc Savage and The Shadow, Captain Future had 17 issues of his own pulp magazine in the 1940s, as well as appearances in other pulps in the early 50s. Created by SF giant Edmond "Starwolf" Hamilton, CAPTAIN FUTURE wouldn't win any literary awards or dazzle impressionable minds with extraordinary prognostications of future trends. What Hamilton's stories did do, however, was entertain. Zippy, two fisted space opera for those who like their heroes with jaws of granite and their villians sneering and malevolent, CAPTAIN FUTURE is unpretentious fun even sixty years later.



(Outer-space fashions of the year 3000!)

But who is CAPTAIN FUTURE? Mortally wounded, a top scientist entrusted his infant son Curtis Newton to the care of three fantastic guardians - an artificially created being with synthetic skin and organs, a seven foot tall super-strong metal robot, and Simon Wright, a genius biologist who cheated death by having his living brain encased in a unbreakable shell equipped with electronic senses and force-beams! Raised to manhood in a secret lunar base and taught all Earthly knowledge by his three protectors, Curtis Newton has devoted all his scientific knowledge to the defeat of evil and the protection of humanity. Together with Planet Police special agents Joan Randall (requisite girlfriend) and Ezra Gurney (grizzled veteran), Captain Future pits his brains and brawn against all foes.



(Grag, the Brain, Otho, and friends; the Comet, Captain Future blasting away)

I'd been aware of the CAPTAIN FUTURE anime series for years; several episodes were dubbed by ZIV Productions and released on home video in the early 1980s. What I didn't realize was how close the Japanese version stuck to the American pulps. I had to track down out-of-print paperback CAPTAIN FUTURE reprints to find out that the "Wrecker" storyline is taken right from the original pulps. Ditto the time-travel story "Lost World Of Time" - straight from Hamilton's overworked typewriter, right to Toei's overworked animation staff.

All of the CAPTAIN FUTURE highlights are present in Toei's show: the friendly rivalry between Grag the robot and Otho the synthetic man; the comic relief of Grag's metal-eating "moon-pup" and Otho's weird meteor-mimic, the persistent outer-space Lois Lane antics of Joan Randall; they're all there, right down to Curt Newton's twin proton pistols, always ready for action. One non-canonical addition to the series was Ken Scott, a (cough cough) kid sidekick.



(Joan Randall, the Earth President, the Moon-Pup)

The cheese factor of the sixty-year old pulps is matched by the cheese factor of the thirty year old animation, which today can't help but look clunky and dated. The work has a lot of the same on-again, off-again character model problems that plagued CAPTAIN HARLOCK, also from Toei around this time, but there's a hand-drawn authenticity to the show that has appeal in today's digital age. The mechanical design is decidely NOT pulpish - what in the 40s was a streamlined, teardrop shaped torpedo of gleaming steel is in 1978 a '2001' style NASA-approved space vehicle with segmented units, auxiliary thrusters, pod bay doors, et cetera - all properly utilitarian, and yet still able to match velocities and penetrate to the electrical universe that exists inside Halley's Comet, or utilize heretofore unheard-of polarities to travel back in time to the birth of the Solar System - and beyond.



(the Futuremen ready to defend galactic peace!)

CAPTAIN FUTURE ran for 52 episodes, from October of 1978 until November of 1979, and even got a theatrical release of a featurette entitled "Great Solar System Race". Scripts for the series were taken from the 13 original Hamilton pulps. Toei's staff included Tomoharu Katsumata, who would go on to work on My Youth In Arcadia and Saint Seiya. ZIV International, the pioneer of syndicated television, would release two home video CAPTAIN FUTURE adventures - "The Wrecker's Plan" and "Lost World Of Time" - with indifferent dubbing that managed to completely misinterpret the properties of the rare element "gravium", not to mention giving Simon Wright a woman's voice. However, the series would achieve tremendous success in Europe, particularly Germany, where an electronic funk-disco soundtrack by Christan Bruhn would help turn the show into a cult hit. To this day CAPTAIN FUTURE fan clubs operate in Germany.



(diecast metal Grag toy with amusingly spelled nameplate)

Japan wasn't done with the Hamilton estate, however; his three part STARWOLF series (which I highly recommend) would become a live-action TV series from Tsuburaya in the late 70s, but wouldn't enjoy the authenticity or the popularity of CAPTAIN FUTURE. It would, however, be immortalized by Mystery Science Theater 3000.

In 1984 Toho would release an ambitious, partially-computer-animated film version of E.E. "Doc" Smith's pulp SF classic LENSMAN, a film that blithely ignored key story elements in favor of stylish visuals, a daring gambit that almost - ALMOST - succeeded.



To this day anime fans sneer at the camp and cheese of pulp SF, while golden age scientifiction enthusiasts turn up their noses at the lurid excesses of 'japanimation'. But there are plenty of us in the mushy middle who enjoy space opera no matter what language it's in. Will CAPTAIN FUTURE and the Futuremen blast out of obscurity again someday? Will the quick draw of a proton pistol once again spell the difference between life and death amidst the booming suns of outer space? Only Curtis Newton and the estate of Edmond Hamilton know for sure!

the new adventures of gigantor

Back in the mid 1990s, watchful cable TV viewers got to see a 1993 English version of the 1980 series that was a remake of the 1963 anime series based on manga that had first been published in 1956. Confused? Yes. What am I talking about? The New Adventures Of Gigantor, of course!



In 1980 the anime scene was in the midst of what would become a periodic spasm of remake fever. 60s shows like Tetsuwan Atomu and Cyborg 009 had recieved exciting new color updatings, and other 60s shows like Sazae-San had actually never gone away. The time was ripe for the return of the original space-age robot, Tetsujin-28!

Based on the pioneering manga by Mitsuteru "Giant Robo" Yokoyama, it's the story of a young boy and the flying super robot that is at his command, enabling him to wear blazers and short pants and battle evil monsters and villains and not have to go to school. Dubbed and released in the United States as Gigantor, it became an integral part of the childhoods of TV-babysat children. The 1963 Tetsujin-28 series had been produced by Tele-Cartoons Japan, an early TV anime studio that produced other popular series like Eight Man and Prince Planet. Many TCJ shows would become hits in America, among them Gigantor, which was produced by Fred Ladd and screenwritten by Peter Fernandez, who would later go on to produce something called Speed Racer.

TCJ later changed its name to Eiken, and would later produce UFO Daiapollon and Cooking Papa. For some reason the show was revived by a different studio, Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS for short), at the time known for manga-based hits aimed at an older audience like Lupin III, Rose Of Versailles, and Aim For The Ace.

The new Tetsujin-28 series had a completely redesigned look; gone were the popeyed big-foot Tezuka style characters and the pot-bellied, charmingly clunky Tetsujin - instead we got slick 80s style super robots and a clean, high tech ultra scientific look, with appealing, international clear-line style character design.



The show would almost serve as a visual blueprint for TMS's next super robot series, the seminal God Mars, also based on a Mitsuteru Yokoyama manga. Script-wise the new Tetsujin series was an updating of the original 1963 show; young Shotaro Kaneda finds his departed father had secretly built a super robot that coincidentally can be controlled via joystick and voice commands. In the original, Tetsujin was built as a weapon for the Imperial Japanese Army; but in the 1980 version Shotaro's dad was preparing for attacks by space aliens. Shotaro's scientist friend Dr. Shikishima and policeman Inspector Ohtsuka return to assist in the battle against evil.



The 1980 series would prove popular in Japan and other worldwide markets, but in spite of America's fond memories of Gigantor, it would be 13 years before the show would be seen in the United States. Fred Ladd- producer of the original Gigantor, Astro Boy, Kimba The White Lion, and fresh off working on Sailor Moon for DIC- took the 1980 Tetsujin-28 and reconfigured it into "The New Adventures Of Gigantor".

The original calypso-beat Gigantor theme was pressed back into service, and a colorized sequence of the original show served as a segue into the new series, which was presented as a sequel. The show ran from September 1993 until January 1994 as part of a block of cartoon programming on the Sci-Fi Channel- not even half a year. It's a shame, because it's an appealing, fun show that quickly dispenses with the 'monster of the week' format. As the series progresses it moves into outer space with fleets of laser-blasting warships displaying both a Star Wars influence and the training TMS was getting in preparation for the galaxy-spanning adventures to come on God Mars.

Hopes of a DVD release are faint; Mr. Ladd reports that the home video rights were held by LIVE Entertainment Inc., which went under in the late 1990s. With the death of Tetsujin-28 creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama, the ownership of home video rights was made even less clear.

Still, we've seen releases of even more obscure series... I don't know that there's a lot of demand for The New Adventures Of Gigantor, but the show deserves more of a chance than four months of cable TV exposure.


Tetsujin-28 would of course go on to spawn the early 90s sequel Tetsujin-28FX (a sequel to the original Tetsujin-28, not the 1980 version), a live-action film with computer-generated giant robots smashing cities and each other, and a 2004 remake anime series that returned Tetsujin to its 50s postwar roots. Clearly the interest in bigger than big, stronger than stronger robots is still there, and they will always be ready to fight for right... against wrong.

Spee Dracer

Short post from me this week because I am busy with Real Life Sorts Of Things. If you want to read something I wrote about classic anime, I would suggest you hie yourself to your nearest newsstand and pick up the latest issue of OTAKU USA, where among other things there's an article I wrote about Speed Racer.



There's also a great interview with Ippei Kuri and loads of other features about anime and manga and videogames and movies and otaku culture around the world. So don't delay, do it today! Also give a hoot, don't pollute, and be cool, stay in school.

the untold saga of Anime Hell flyers

For years I've been doing a free-form anime-themed clip show called "Anime Hell". It started out as hotel room parties at SF conventions in the late 80s, and as anime cons came into being, the event moved into function rooms and eventually 1000+ seat ballrooms with giant video screens, projectors, PAs, and all the technological accoutrements that are really hard to operate when it's 10pm on a Saturday night and you've had a few. Today five or six separate groups of people do "Anime Hell" type events at anime conventions in two different countries.

The show itself has been described as "all about the corniest, strangest and otherwise anime/anime-related things out there," and that's not a bad description. I've shown educational films, anime music videos, fake commercials, clips from 60s 70s and 80s anime, scenes from 8-bit video games, homemade Indiana Jones films, parody subtitles, promotional beer cartoons, anti-drug PSAs, European TV singers, and dogs riding bicycles.

Part of the fun of the show is the promotional flyers; I started making flyers for the Anime Hell parties in the late 80s with clip art and markers. When I started doing all-night Anime Hells at Atlanta's Dragoncon, the flyers got more elaborate.



(flyer from Dragoncon 1996)

Eventually stronger graphic elements started to come to the fore, as I determined scientifically that teeny tiny text might not be the best thing to read when it's taped to the wall of a hotel elevator.



(Flyer from Anime Central 1999)

The "Hell" logo with the flames was taken from the early 70s Marvel war comic "War Is Hell". The other clip art elements came from damn near everywhere - Chick comics, old UFO magazines, Weekly World News, Archie comics, Dirty Pair "mooks", old encyclopedias, whatever would hold still long enough to photocopy. I stopped doing Anime Hell at Dragoncon in... I wanna say 1999, and concentrated on Anime Weekend Atlanta and Anime Central, but for some reason I didn't do flyers for the AWA shows. Anyways, everybody at the early AWAs knew what Anime Hell was.



(flyer from Anime Central 2001)

In the early '00s the capacity crowds and my laziness meant I wasn't doing any more flyers, which was OK since the months before two conventions were taken up with feverish preparations anyway.

When I moved to Canada in 2004 and started doing Anime Hell at Anime North, I knew I couldn't slack off any more. Canada had no idea what Anime Hell was. I needed to get back on the job!



This flyer is my first color flyer, and features a totally reverse-engineered "Canada" logo. For the next year I went back to black and white, but produced five different flyers, of which this is one:



At this point I was getting more into taking an image that already had ironic or kitsch value, and manipulating it in a very basic way. There are 10,000 people at Anime North and most of them are only going to be able to see this flyer for five seconds, max, so a lot of frippery details and confusing, conflicting images will only deflect my message. So simplification became my watchword. My AWA flyer for that year was even simpler:



For the next Anime North I went back to color, taking a cheesy movie poster and reworking it to my own advantage. It's still a little busy, in my opinion.



For AWA that October, I had been really stuck for ideas and was getting desperate, until I saw a one-sheet for EASY RIDER. What resulted is the simplest and the best Anime Hell flyer I think I've ever done.



Sailor Moon's head is a little off, but other than that, it's perfect; the quintessential mix of weird and powerful and kitsch. Besting that flyer is a tough challenge, and I don't know if I'll ever do it, but this year's Anime North flyer is a strong contender:



Anime Hell, Saturday May the 24th, 8pm, Doubletree International Hotel, International Ballrooms B and C, Toronto Ontario Canada. Brought to you by Anime North. See you there!

a tragic waste of cel paint and acetate

(this is an exact transcription of a review that appeared in LET'S ANIME #4, fall 1993. While I regret the convoluted sentence structure and general snotty tone of the piece, I think it's useful not only as a snapshot of the popular trends in anime at the time, but as a look at what some of us thought about those popular trends.)

a tragic waste of cel paint and acetate: SILENT MOBIUS

You know, I was willing to give the movie a chance. I'd seen the overpriced, senseless comics in the store, even tried to read a few, but I have this funny habit of preferring comics that actually have a coherent plotline. So anyway, when I heard that Streamline had dubbed the first Silent Mobius movie, I figured that it would be a good way to get a grip on this whole Silent Mobius thing and figure out just what the hell is going on. After all, it's a one-hour movie! Surely they'll make sure the thing is pretty coherent and understandable!

Boy, was I wrong.

Yes, the characters in the film were speaking English, but that's where the last tenuous link with understanding ends. I sat through the entire film and I still don't have the slightest idea what happened! Who are all these women psychic cops? Why are all these demons attacking Neo-Tokyo? Why aren't there ANY male characters in this film? What is the "Advanced Mystification Police"? Does that mean they're better than the "Regular Mystification Police", or what? How did they manage to rebuild Tokyo into a 5000 square mile city in thirty ears? How did they blow up a building that must have been several miles tall, and yet bystanders just say "Oh!" Shouldn't they be fleeing in terror as several tons of debris rain down upon them? How did all these female cops get magic powers anyway? What is the deal with the talking stick that the lead psychic-magic-cop-chick carries? Do they all have talking sticks? Why does the "Advanced Mystification Police" have an entire truck that folds out to be nothing more than an interrogation chair and some lights? Isn't it just easier to shine a flashlight in the sucker's face? Why does the main character refuse to admit that hideous demons are attacking her and her mom, even though it happens four times? And most importantly, why should we care?



Probably the most ostensible howler occurs when the head demon kidnaps the main character's mom (and ties her hanging upside down from a crane on a rooftop). So what Mom does is prick her finger and use blood to start drawing a magic diagram on the rooftop, OK? So the scene cuts away from her for a bit, and then goes back to her, and she's traced this huge diagram in what must have been hundreds of gallons of blood, all over the roof! The entire audience of the theater where I had the questionable pleasure of seeing this movie erupted into uncontrollable laughter at this scene. That, and the part where they invoke the name of "Helios, the Sun Goddess". Pardon me, but wasn't Helios a sun GOD? Isn't this taking anime feminism a bit too far?

OK, sure, I know that this film is aimed directly at model-building, dateless 15-year-olds who aren't overly concerned with plot or coherent storyline as long as it involves cool explosions and a few good shower scenes. And sure, the overall quality of the animation was pretty good.

But someone needs to tell these people that when you make a movie, these boring things like character development and plot ensure that the viewing audience gives a shit what happens to all your pretty girl cop characters. And giving a shit is precisely what we don't do.

Apparently the committee that wrote this mess (28 people, we counted) rightfully concluded that the last thing their target audience was interested in was coherence. This film's popularity among so-called anime "fans" in the States only serves to illustrate the true nature of both the film and its fans; i.e., clueless.

(at the time I can recall being frustrated at the current trends of Japanese animation - forgettable OVAs populated with ciphers that invariably ended with two characters shooting magic force beams at each other, papered over with a glossy sheen of high-tech nonsense. Not that anime hasn't always been home to glossy sheens of high-tech nonsense, but it helps to have some characterization and a little heart, maybe some old-fashioned burning with the fires of justice to wash it all down. That's why people still talk about Mazinger Z, Gatchaman and Yamato while most of the OVAs of the 90s are currently residing in the "can't believe we used to watch this" pile. )

here comes prince planet

My “career” of writing about Japanese cartoons seems like an eternally repeating cycle of recurring motifs. Every ten years somebody pays me to write about Star Blazers, and no matter what medium I write in or what name it goes under, I eventually wind up writing about Prince Planet. The show impacted my brain at an early age, and you might say I’ve been under its influence ever since.



(splash page from a 1965 issue of SHONEN MAGAZINE)


The show’s original title, YUSEI SHONEN PAPI, means "Meteor (or Asteroid or Comet, take your pick) Boy Papi". It was produced by Tele-Cartoons Japan (TCJ) who also produced Tetsujin-28-Go/Gigantor,Eight Man/Eighth Man, Yusei Kamen/Asteroid Mask, Kamui The Ninja, Kaitei Shonen Marine/Marine Boy, and Skyers 5. Papi’s original Japanese air dates were June 3, 1965- June 27, 1966, totalling 52 episodes. The show was based on the manga by Hideoki Inoue, which appeared in Shonen Magazine, the '60's weekly comic which also featured Tetsuwan Atomu/Astro Boy, Tetsujin 28-Go/Gigantor, Wonder Three/Amazing Three, Eight Man/Eighth Man, and Ashita No Joe/Joe Of Tomorrow. Papi was sponsored by Japanese candy manufacturer Glico, the name of which makes up a refrain at the end of the Japanese theme song.



Spurred by the success of Astro Boy, Gigantor, and Eighth Man, "Papi" was turned into “Prince Planet” and dubbed by Miami-based Copri International Films, an outfit partially staffed by gun-toting anti-Castro Cubans. The show was distributed to independent TV stations in America and elsewhere by American International Pictures, the same outfit responsible for releasing hundreds of cheap biker movies, most Gamera films, Alakazam The Great, Wild In The Streets, Roger Corman’s Poe epics, and Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot. AIP was later bought by Filmways, which was bought by Orion Pictures, which in turn was bought by MGM, part of which was aquired by Sony/Comcast. At this point nobody at MGM or Sony or whoever seems to be aware they even own Prince Planet. Two episodes of the series were released on the “Starman” DVDs from Something Weird, and several gray-market outfits are selling DVDs of the show online and through eBay, at conventions, etc.



I first saw Prince Planet at the age of 2, and for years afterwards memories of this show would impinge upon my consciousness, usually spurred by the imagery of Speed Racer or Kimba or whatever Japanese cartoon that happened to cross my vision. 15 years later I’d see the show again thanks to tape trading, and nowadays thanks to the internets and DVDs the show is out there for people who REALLY want to see it; though a legit DVD release would be nice.

So what’s this show about? Prince Planet is a young boy of about 12 from Radion, a far off planet. He was sent to Earth on a mission to study Earthlings and aid them in the fight against all kinds of evil. The organization behind this is called the Universal Peace Corps, a UN-like conclave of alien beings concerned with preserving galactic peace and justice. As the narrator explains frequently, Prince Planet's power comes from his pendant, which is capable of just about anything and must be constantly recharged by a power transmitter on Radion. The plot of any given episode usually calls for the guy operating the power transmitter to be away from his post, or sleeping, or knocked unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated when Prince Planet really needs him. Our hero changes to Prince Planet form by holding the medallion and shouting "Kazow" or sometimes "Kapow" or sometimes "Kazam" or “Wowee”. Sometimes the original Japanese dialog of Papi shouting "Piiiii-Papi!" can be heard in this scene.

When Prince Planet first came to Earth, he landed on the ranch owned by Diana Worthy and her father Mr. Worthy (sometimes called "Pops Worthy"). Prince Planet took the name of “Bobby” and made himself more or less an extended houseguest. This ranch is located somewhere near the city of New Metropol. Sometimes New Metropol is close enough to walk to, and sometimes New Metropol requires a plane trip. It all depends on what the city was in the original Japanese show, and how lazy the American writers were in coming up with names for cities. Diana is approximately Prince Planet's age, dresses like the girl on the Swiss Miss package, and has a knack for getting into all sorts of trouble that only Bobby can extricate her from.




Their big pal Dan Dynamo was an out-of-work studio wrestler who lost his job because he was just too strong. He was almost led into a life of crime, but Prince Planet rescued him and thenceforth Dan Dynamo aided Prince Planet in his mission to fight evil. He also is constantly hungry. He first appeared in episode #2.

Adji Baba is an Arabian wizard from the fake Middle Eastern nation of Abadon. He first appears in episode #4. Prince Planet and the gang frequently travel from place to place with his magic carpet. At one point a hatch is opened on the carpet, revealing machinery inside, so I'm not quite sure what kind of magic carpet this is. Adji has all sorts of wacky magic powers, and they usually backfire amusingly. He and Dynamo don't get along much. The exact spelling of his name is unknown, but he has a son and three grandkids back in Abadon, whom we see in episode #51.

One recurring foe is Warlock, an evil Martian magician with an evil laugh, three feet of spiky black hair, and an incredibly high-pitched voice. His plans may be to conquer the world, steal a secret formula, or destroy something important, but they always include killing Prince Planet and/or Adji Baba. Naturally, these plans always fail. He meets his end in episode #51. The main villain in Prince Planet, however, is Krag. Sometimes known as the Master Of Misery, Krag is the evil warlord of planet Kragmire. He's like the Godfather of outer space, sending legions of enemies, monsters, and heinous devices against Earth and Prince Planet. He has a huge square head and dresses like a deranged undertaker, with a gigantic stove-pipe hat and a black suit with a flower in the buttonhole. His favorite weapon is a pocket watch with hidden sawblades – he throws it - and when he wants to fly, sleek batwings pop out of his back. They just don’t make cartoon bad guys like Krag any more. In contrast to Warlock, Krag has a very deep voice. His end comes when Prince Planet blasts him out of existence in episode #52.

Having first been exposed to Prince Planet when I was all of two years old, I can personally testify to the strange appeal this clunky old show holds. The animation is passable at best, the dubbing is laughable, and the plots are grade-Z comic book science fiction, but Prince Planet has a wacky charm that more than surpasses its weak points. This mixture of SF, fantasy, monsters, aliens, spies, and gangsters, combined with bizarre, dada-esque scripts, villains reminiscent of the Batman TV show, and heroes that weren't afraid to blast, zap, or crush their way to justice, wound up congealing into a show that left an indelible mark on many young, impressionable minds.



A Japanese friend of mine reports that not only did she watch and enjoy Prince Planet during its original run in Japan, but she also had an entire Prince Planet costume, complete with medallion, that was obtained by collecting wrappers from Prince Planet chewing gum. The mind boggles. The Japanese DVD set of “Papi” episodes features two discs of extras that include TV ads for Glico “Usei Shonen Papi” candy, complete with all sorts of “Papi” themed prizes and giveaways. The show was a particular hit in Australia, where several other anime shows like Ken The Wolf Boy got English dubs and broadcast releases denied us here in the States, and where the later adoption of color TV meant B&W programming enjoyed a longer lifespan.

The show was one of the first animated series to have a definite beginning and a definite end; in the last episode Prince Planet hops into a spaceship and returns to Radion to make his report. Characters like Krag make their appearance halfway through the series. Other characters like Dan Dynamo and Adji Baba enter and exit the series. Since most syndicated TV shows at the time shunned continuity, Prince Planet’s continuing storyline is surprisingly progressive, in a “stuff that happened in earlier episodes is referenced in later episodes” kind of way, not in a “depicting minorities in non-stereotypical fashion” kind of way, there’s plenty of that.

Being black and white hurt Prince Planet’s chances at syndication in the 70s; stations wanted color shows. Programs like 8th Man, Amazing Three, and Gigantor joined Prince Planet on the monochromatic rubbish heap, to be revived only through video trading and the tables of bootleg VHS dealers at SF conventions.

Back in the late 1980s I started an organization devoted to 60s Japanese cartoons and deliberately set out to get in touch with fans of Prince Planet and other shows. Since then I’ve heard from hundreds and hundreds of fans who remember the show and have a real desire to see it again. Nostalgic tail-end boomers want to relive their youth, parents want to share the show with their children, and students of goofy kids cartoons always have room on their shelves for one more DVD box set of obscure 60s goodness. Other black and white cartoons like Astro Boy and Gigantor have enjoyed success in re-release; why not Prince Planet?



(artwork by Paul Young)

For your future reference and general edification, allow me to present a Prince Planet episode guide, obtained from that invaluable research resource, the Internets. The titles are from the original Japanese series; the American version would mention episode titles in the “coming next episode” trailer at the end of each show, but there was never an official title card. I’ve added commentary where appropriate.

1. A Boy From Outer Space
2. Giant on the Matters (enter Dan Dynamo)
3. The Formidable Rival
4. The Arabian Magician (first Adji Baba)
5. The Flying Jelly Fish
6. Dinosaur Men
7. A Big Showdown
8. Robot Island (features a cameo by Gigantor!)
9. The Overgrown Lizard
10. Shaberia (aka “Shabiria The Vicious Vegetable”)
11. Fancy Machine
12. S.O.S. Global
13. Gold Picker
14. Attack of the Radioactive Ants (aka “Atomic Termites”)
15. The Great Space War
16. The Star in Memory
17. The Space Zoo
18. The Stolen Mount Fuji
19. Pirate Satan
20. Planet Of Terror
21. Robot
22. Good-Bye Saturnian
23. The Earth Zero Hour
24. The Ghost Space Ship
25. Battle on a Desert Island
26. Secret Under the Sea
27. The Rocket Pilot
28. Gaist the Devilfish
29. The Gift From Prince Planet
30. Gollen, the Formidable Foe
31. The Pollen Bomb
32. Operation Rico
33. Rico, the Great Detective
34. A Spy From the Necro
35. The Demon Scientist
36. The Young Spies
37. Pollo The Secret Agent
38. The Magic Glove (aka “Diana Will Believe Pretty Much Whatever Anybody Tells Her”)
39. The Robot Prince
40. Rico's Adventure
41. The Lion in the Desert
42. Crisis on the Earth
43. The Horror of a Snowman
44. Revenge in the Valley
45. The Comet Missile
46. The Mystery of a Mummy
47. The Mystery of Organ
48. Horror at 10:10 PM
49. The Birdman Racket (aka “The Birdman Bandits”)
50. Secret Path into the Earth (aka “Invaders From Alkali”)
51. Ajababa's Grandchildren
52. The Star at Home

I hope this list helps those of you out there with Prince Planet episodes to catalog your findings and expand your Prince Planety knowledge. Together we can keep the memories of Prince Planet alive until somebody somewhere down deep in somebody’s film archives gets the moxie together to throw this stuff on a DVD for us. With extras.

(thanks to Meg Evans, Shaun Camp, and Tim Grumbly)

anime-style astroglide(ers)

Firstly, allow me to thank those who have nominated me for "most thought-provoking blog" over at The Anime Blog Awards. No, I didn't know there were awards for anime blogs. Apparently there are.

For the past forty-odd years, the unstoppable juggernaut of Japanese cartoon merchandise has impacted every corner of the globe. This colorful path of destruction has left many an inexplicable piece of merchandise bobbing in its wake. Which brings us to today's topic of discussion - little toy gliders.



This brightly-colored styrofoam glider was found in a dollar store somewhere, and immediately caught the eye of any anime fan in the vicinity. Obviously this is a flying model of the New God Phoenix from Gatchaman II, which is the 1978 sequel to the popular 1972 Tatsunoko anime series The Brave Frog. No, wait, I mean Gatchaman.

Anyway, these dinky little stunt glider toys are merely one example of the crazy world of unlicensed toys based on Japanese anime that seeped through the semi-permeable membrane of the Pacific and found their way to toy stores, flea markets, dollar stores, hobby shops, and souvenir stands across America. In future Let's Anime posts we'll be taking a look at all sorts of similar items, but right now it's all about the gliders.



As we can see from the handy guide on the back of the package, this series of gliders wasn't limited to Gatchaman sequels, no sir. #1 is of course our Phoenix. #2, however, is from a completely different show from a completely different studio - it's the Comet, from the 1978 Toei series Captain Future , based on the 40s pulp hero created by Edmond Hamilton. #3 is of course the Cosmos Queen, the super starship from Leiji Matsumoto's matriarchi-riffic retelling of the Monkey King legend, 1978's Starzinger. This was shown in the US, retitled "Spaceketeers" as part of Jim Terry's "Force Five" package and features the only space suit designed with a miniskirt. Thank you Leiji.



#4 and #5 are reimaginations of the Cosmo Zero and the Cosmo Falcon, both from Space Battleship Yamato. Did they ever make an official model kit of the Cosmo Falcon? This cheap unlicensed glider toy might be your only chance to hold one in your hand! #6 is the G-4 from, again, Gatchaman II, piloted by Jinpei the Swallow.

But cheap Taiwanese knockoffs aren't the only flying anime-themed objects hurtling briefly through our skies! Check out this prototype unmanned aerial vehicle:



Apologies for the poor image. It's a photocopy from a page of the original print version Let's Anime #3, which in turn was a photocopy of a photocopy from a picture that appeared in an aviation hobbyist magazine of unknown provenance. Anyway, it's a model plane version of Nausicaa's "mehve" or "mowe" or however it's spelled, her powered glider/airplane thing as seen in the film Nausicaa Of The Valley Of Wind.
Who made it and why is anybody's guess. Here's a closeup of Nausicaa and her little pet fox-squirrel Teto, apparently painted on plywood.



Who knows what quasi-legal anime merchandise is hurtling through the heavens above? Keep watching the skies, junior birdmen!