1978: Anime's Greatest Year?

(portions of this column were originally presented early Sunday morning at AWA 2018. Thanks to all who battled through their hangovers to attend.)

So, 1978. Let me tell you about 1978. First off, it was still the 1950s sometimes, thanks to Sha Na Na, Grease and Happy Days. On the other hand, we had three Popes that year! Jimmy Carter brokered Mideast peace and signed the Panama Canal treaty. The Cowboys won the Super Bowl, the Yankees took the World Series, and M.A.S.H. and Little House On The Prairie weren't even half over. Me, I was eight years old, and if there was one thing I loved more than pestering anyone with a car to take me to see Star Wars again, it was watching cartoons on TV. Sadly, apart from Bugs Bunny re-runs, that Fantastic Four show starring Herbie the Robot, and of course, Super Friends, our network cartoons were all dreck like Fangface, Web Woman, and Galaxy Goof-Ups.

Meanwhile in Japan, lucky shoujos and shonens were literally wallowing in an ocean of colorful, wild, and occasionally ridiculous pop culture, as Japan's entertainment machine kicked into overdrive spewing out Pink Ladys and Ultramen, Chogokin super robots and Micromen and Space Invaders, all part of a nation's creative output... including an anime industry that just might have hit its peak in 1978. 

Seriously? 1978? Japanese animation as we know it has been a thing for more than fifty years. Why would I do something so silly as to pick a year and claim it's the greatest? Well, okay. I freely admit this is a foolish, subjective endeavor designed primarily to let me cheerlead for some of my favorites, using forty years of hindsight as leverage. But even skeptics have to admit 1978 brought new works by some of Japanese animation's greatest talents and sequels to some of anime's greatest properties. Japan's class of '78 cartoons proved popular around the world and many of these shows are still watched today. We're still feeling their impact forty years after the fact.

1977 hadn't quite stopped yet

The year started out with an advantage thanks to all the terrific anime that carried over from '77. The Leiji Matsumoto-created super robot series Danguard Ace continued to show Ichimonji Takuma and Captain Mask battle Leader Doppler and his army of monster robots. Candace White Adley struggled from heartbreak to heartbreak in the landmark shoujo anime Candy Candy. The "Robot Romance" series of Tadao Nagahama began with Voltes V, which we'll be seeing released here on DVD soon from Discotek Media.

In Japan's movie theaters, Space Battleship Yamato came cruising back with the July release of the film Farewell To Space Battleship Yamato: Soldiers Of Love, or, as the English-language text on the promotional material dubbed it, Arrivederci Yamato. After 1974's tepidly-received Yamato TV series and a vastly more successful 1977 release of a compiled Yamato movie, the question was, could producer Nishizaki turn Yamato into what today we call a "franchise?" He could, and did. Farewell To Space Battleship Yamato: Soldiers Of Love was a hugely successful epic gotterdammerung of a film in which the revived planet Earth is menaced by the Comet Empire and the crew of the Yamato must defy orders, save Teresa of Telezart, and make the ultimate sacrifice. Produced at breakneck speed by top tier Japanese animation talent like designer and collaborator Leiji Matsumoto, director Noboru Ishiguro, and character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Farewell is a terrific film that delivers an entire new civilization's worth of space vehicles to threaten our heroes, gives the Comet Empire that monumental, shuddering Hiroshi Miyagawa pipe organ theme, and still delivers Yamato style outer space romantic mysticism in a 151-minute epic that makes every minute count. North America received Voyager Entertainment VHS and DVD releases of this film, but as of now it's out of print.

Sure, we all wept at the (spoiler!) climactic sacrifice of the Yamato and her crew at the end of Arrivederci Yamato. However the Yamato would return in October's TV version of the Comet Empire story, Space Battleship Yamato 2. In this series the Yamato's tragic end isn't quite so tragic or final, as we see an expanded version of the film that gives more screentime to our crew, allows space dictator Desslar a chance at redemption, and finally standardizes the Yamato's formerly lackadaisical mechanical design. This show and the first Yamato TV series would be packaged in foreign markets as "Star Blazers" and air in US markets in 1979, a crucial series for many a North American anime fan (like me). Available on DVD as part of Star Blazers and currently out of print.

Harlock, Herlock, whichever

Japanese audiences were experiencing Leiji Matsumoto overload in 1978. Danguard Ace was still on the air, the Yamato was battling the Comet Empire in theaters and on TV, and March would see the first episode of one of Matsumoto's most iconic series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Harlock and his forty fellow space pirates defy the evil plant women of the Mazone, who return to Earth after millions of years to lay claim to their ancient-astronaut home. As we mentioned before, this terrific TV series is currently available on streaming video and in a Discotek DVD release, and Harlock would go on to star and co-star in feature films and TV series for decades to come. 

Not enough Leiji? Enjoy his April '78 science-fiction Journey To The West pastiche SF Saiyuki Starzinger – localized here as Jim Terry's Spaceketeers - or settle in for a ride on the Galaxy Express 999. Leiji Matsumoto's wistful meditation on life, death, and everything in between as seen through the eyes of a young boy travelling to Andromeda to get an immortal machine body, Toei's Galaxy Express 999 TV series first aired in September of 1978 and ran for 113 episodes. As we discussed earlier, this series is currently streaming and soon to be available on DVD from Discotek.

Harlock wasn't the only space captain zipping around '78; Golden Age SF writer Edmond Hamilton's 1940s hero Captain Future launched in November for 52 episodes of Toei-produced interplanetary adventure. These reasonably faithful pulp adaptations were thankfully updated with 70s era mechanical design and starred the titular Captain Future, Curtis Newton, and his shipmates the android Otho, the robot Grag, Simon "The Brain" Wright, and Space Girlfriend Joan Randall as they battle the evil forces that threaten to wreck the solar system. A big hit in Japan and Europe, the series has seen home video releases in almost every format and almost every region, with the exception of (sigh) North America.

Gatchaman II

Tatsunoko's Science Ninja Team Gatchaman series first aired in '72 – the cast's giant flared jeans are a dead giveaway - for 105 episodes of science ninja vs international criminal action. One of creator Ippei Kuri's most iconic creations, Gatchaman would get a theatrical compilation film in July, just in time to get audiences ready for the October start of the sequel to Gatchaman, Gatchaman II. The missing Condor Joe (spoilers!) returns early on, and the new show wastes no time getting back to battling robot monsters and evil Galactors. 1978 would also be the year that the '72 Gatchaman series would be edited, rewritten, dubbed by an all-star cast of American voice talent including Alan "Wilbur" Young and Casey "American Top 40" Kasem, and reach syndication in America as Battle of The Planets. Packed with action, great characters, and stunning mechanical mayhem, BOTP grabbed Americans by the eyeballs and turned them into what we now call 'anime fans.' Both BOTP and Gatchaman have had several iterations of home video release in North America, and the entire mythic Gatchaman cycle of Gatchaman, Gatchaman II, and Gatchaman F is available on DVD from Sentai, right now for the bargain price of eighty dollars.

it's kid-tested

Lupin III, hands down the world's greatest second-story man, safecracker, confidence trickster, and all around thief, made the jump from Monkey Punch's manga and a few hundred TMS produced TV episodes to the big movie screen in his 1978 feature film debut, directed by Mushi Pro vet Soji Yoshikawa and released by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. Known in some circles as "Mystery Of Mamo," this very 70s film is a wild roller coaster ride around the world as Lupin battles the possibly immortal Mamo past sight gags, 2001 references, spaghetti western homages, Clark Bar comic book ads, and the kinds of sleazy, lustful TV Lupin behavior that Hayao Miyazaki would totally abandon when directing the next Lupin III film. Mamo's long-lost English dub is now available on the Discotek DVD along with four (!) other English dubs.

The title can be literally translated into English as "Here Comes Miss Modern", "Here Comes Miss High-Collar" ("haikara" a Japanese portmanteau of "high collar"), or "Fashionable Girl Passing By," but in Japan they call this series Haikara-san ga Toru. In 1977, Waki Yamato's original Shoujo Friend manga series won the first Kodansha Manga Award. The Nippon Animation adaptation of Haikara-san ga Toru began airing in March of 1978, taking us all the way back to Tokyo in 1920, where teenager tomboy Benio Hanamura is always getting in trouble and advocating for new-fangled modern ways. 

here comes miss modern tree-climber

Though opposed to arranged marriages, she's engaged to the dreamy young Army captain Shinobu. Benio tries to sabotage the engagement but finds herself falling in love in spite of herself. Can their romance survive war in Manchuria, amnesia, and the Great Kanto Earthquake? A new anime film of Haikara-san was released earlier this year and Eleven Arts licenced it for North America, so look out, here she comes!

Hiromi Oka leaps from the pages of the sports shoujo manga classic Aim For The Ace by Suzumu Yamamoto, joins her high school tennis club and finds the tennis superstar inside that only the challenge of Ochofujin and the Demon Coach can bring out. This October '78 remake of the amazing 1972 Aim For The Ace series didn't feature 1972's Osamu Dezaki direction or Akio Sugino's character designs, but that's OK, they were working on the terrific 1979 Aim For The Ace movie. None of Aim For The Ace is commercially available in English in any form. Why is this? Somebody make it happen.

New Aim For The Ace

April 1978: Tadao Nagahama and an all-star cast of anime geniuses (Masaki Tsuji, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Yuki Hijiri, etc.) continues his "Robot Romance" series with Fighting General Daimos. Kazuya Ryuuzaki, a young karate champ/astronaut, returns from deep space along with his sword-slinging Afro-sporting copilot Kyoushirou to find Earth under attack from space aliens fleeing the destroyed planet Baam. As befits the star of an anime show, only Kazuya can pilot the transforming truck-robot Daimos to battle the invaders. His thirst for vengeance is derailed slightly when he falls in love with the Baam princess Erika. Can their romance survive the struggle between two worlds? Animated by Sunrise under contract to Toei, this show packs a one-two punch of super robot destruction and soapy love story melodrama that totally satisfies. Daimos eventually aired in the Philippines, Italy, Poland, and even in an edited compilation video titled "Star Birds" that was released on home video and a few airings on Pat Robertson's CBN cable network.

from a Fighting General Daimos children's storybook

Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island has enjoyed many cinematic adaptations, and the world of anime is no exception. There have been one, two, at least three separate Japanese cartoon versions of this seminal pirate adventure story. Unquestionably the best Japanese anime iteration – the one without talking animals, anyway - is the October '78 TMS Treasure Island series, directed by genius Osamu Dezaki. This is what he was doing instead of remaking Aim For The Ace, I guess. Treasure Island aired in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Columbia, Taiwan, the Arabic world, and after circumnavigating the globe, finally reached the English language audience via YouTube with TMS subtitles.

Treasure Island never looked so great

1978 started its journey with the New Years Day premiere of Perrine Story, the 1978 Nippon Animation series based on the Hector Malot novel Sans Familie. Young Perrine struggles to make her way from one end of Europe to another to find her estranged grandfather and experience the clash of class and race at the tail end of the 19th century. Nothing explains the power of Japanese animation quite like its ability to entertain regardless of viewer demographics, and it's when you are on the edge of your seat hoping Perrine and her weakening mother and their long-suffering donkey Polikare can muscle their wagon up the muddy 19th century roads through the Alps, well, that's when you realize the true power of anime. I defy anyone to fail to be moved when that donkey makes a reappearance later in the show, which sadly is unavailable commercially in English.

Perrine, Baron, and Polikare, the donkey who drank too much

Sanrio, the Hello Kitty people, spent the 1970s branching out into other media, including the shoujo manga magazine Lyrica and a series of animated films, including 1978's Ringing Bell, a 47 minute film based on a children's book about a cute little lamb named Chirin. Devastated when his mother is killed by a wolf, Chirin swears eternal vengeance, and ironically is taught to be a violent survivor by the very same momicide-committing wolf. Chirin grows to learn the world is a terrifying nightmare of unending conflict. You know, for kids! Released on American VHS by Columbia in the 1980s and recently revived on DVD by Discotek, Ringing Bell is a beautifully animated film that illustrates perfectly how even the most talented of artists can completely misjudge their audience.

don't be fooled by that Ringing Bell box art

Between April and October of 1978, viewers were treated to what many believe is the best Japanese anime series ever made, Future Boy Conan. Based on Alexander Key's 1970 dystopian YA SF novel "The Incredible Tide" – yes, he's the guy that wrote "Escape To Witch Mountain" - this Nippon Animation series was produced by the anime dream team of Yasuo Otsuka, Isao Takahata, and Hayao Miyazaki. Remember that world war we had back in July 2008, the one that saw the use of super powerful magnetic weapons more powerful than atom bombs? After the world is thrown off its axis, the survivors of a flooded Earth struggle to rebuild civilization, represented by the polar opposites of the techno-fascist Industria and the peaceful, agricultural High Harbor. We first meet our hero, the titular Conan, living a bucolic, shark-fighting life with his grandfather alone on Lonely Island. The world, or what's left of it, intrudes when the girl Lana washes up on shore, with soldiers from Industria in hot pursuit. To protect Lana, Conan leaves Lonely Island and finds both friends and enemies in a world still reeling from the great disaster. Future Boy Conan is filled with adventure, action, humor, intrigue, disaster, and redemption; it's the kind of broad-appeal anime property that's made its creators famous the world over, and of course is commercially unavailable in English.

my Conan frame-tray puzzle

Naturally, being on the other side of the world, I had no idea these cartoons even existed. But it wasn't so terrible, back in 1978. For instance, one summer night our whole neighborhood kid gang were dropped off at Cobb Center Mall to see a movie. This was back in the day when parents felt perfectly confident in leaving their 8 and 9 and 10 year olds unsupervised at movie theaters. We all got out alive, so I guess it was OK. Anyway the movie was a rollicking sci-fi actioner titled Message From Space, and we all agreed it was pretty awesome, almost as good as, if not as good as, that other space movie with the Death Stars and the light sabers. I spent years looking for Message From Space, back when my only hope was to catch a late-night UHF TV broadcast. I'd find out it was directed by the guy who made Battle Royale, and that it starred faded Hollywood royalty and top-of-the-line Japanese movie stars, that Shotaro Ishinomori was one of the writers, that it was a sci-fi updating of the Hakkenden legend, and that there was a followup TV show starring a space ape. You can judge for yourself with the DVD from Shout Factory. 

So was 1978 anime's greatest year? I think I've presented a pretty solid case, and I didn't even mention Invincible Superman Daitarn 3 or that Pink Lady anime series. But to be honest, who's to say 1977 or 1979 or any other year might not be just as great? In a field that continues to produce amazing work year after year, who knows what classics lie ahead? All I know is, I'll probably be watching.

-Dave Merrill

1978 says "So long!"

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badge of honor

At Anime North a few weeks ago my wife spotted something groovy in the dealers room. No, not glomping crossdressing furry cosplayers – but something that was actually related to Japanese cartoons! Namely, a set of buttons from Albator.

 You know, Albator! The French language version of Toei’s 1978 Captain Harlock series, broadcast to the Francophone world in the late 1970s. Albator, whose name was changed from “Captain Harlock” because, as the story goes, the French localizers were afraid children would confuse the character with “Captain Haddock” from the popular Belgian comic Tintin. Because the characters are so much alike! There isn't a similar story to explain why every other character in Captain Harlock got his or her name changed, nor why all the music was thrown out in favor of vastly inferior replacements.

At any rate the buttons are pretty cool. Not just because Tadashi Daiba – sorry, “Ramis” - is clearly missing an eye, or the general sloppy fan art vibe of the artwork, but mostly for the 70s era CBC logo plastered onto the images. Albator was broadcast on the French-language CBC – sorry, “Radio-Canada Television”- starting in 1979, and along with other French-language anime hits like Goldorak, Candy Candy, and Le Roi Leo, gave the Francophone Canadian anime fan a distinct advantage over the Anglophone Canucks, who were forced to make do with Star Blazers and Force Five on Buffalo UHF stations.

You might notice that one of these characters is not like the others. Sure, Captain Future, the '78 Toei series based on the pulp series by Edmond Hamilton, was popular in Europe, where he was known as "Capitane Flam". However, how a button of Captain Future’s girlfriend “beautiful Joan Randall” wound up with some Albator badges is anybody’s guess. You know those Japanese cartoons, they all look the same. And the character's slight name change only proves the Electric Company's hypothesis that a Joan can become a “Johan” merely by adding our good friend “silent h”.

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, and only occasionally resorting to making stuff up. 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 - and this column -  is 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 actually written by Samuel Clemens, 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, Rascal The Raccoon,  Dog Of Flanders, Remi, Hans Christian Andersen stories, the anime based on Hector Malot's En Famillie (Perrine Story), 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 series (whimsically named "Four Sisters Of Young Grass") from Movie International in 1981, and a Nippon Animation World Masterpiece series in 1989. 

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.

Zuyo Eizo HEIDI's US VHS release from Mike Nesmith's Pacific Arts

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.

from the 12-minute "Wizard Of Oz"

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!

the anime that dares to ask 'who's your Daddy?'"

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, and I'm also never ever sarcastic.

-Dave Merrill

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Org world, please consider joining our Patreon!

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!

Captain Future and his amazing spaceship, "The Comet"

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. How did this daring adventurer of the spaceways come to be? Mort Weisinger, future Superman editor, spent the late 1930s editing SF pulps for Ned Pines' Thrilling Publications. He'd noticed the success of pulp's continuing mystery characters - The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, Doc Savage, G-8 And His Battle Aces, Operator No. 5, etc. - and figured his nerdy teen-age scientificition audience could use a futuristic wish-fulfillment character. He tossed this assignment at one of his top writers, Edmond Hamilton, with not much more than the concept of "pulp hero in space" and a name - "Mister Future." Hamilton sat right down, changed the name, and fleshed out the concept with a backstory and a supporting cast.

By the summer of 1939 Weisinger was at the first World Science Fiction Convention in New York City, perhaps admiring the first cosplay and witnessing the first fan feud. He also announced the upcoming publication of CAPTAIN FUTURE. Hamilton's 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 villains sneering and malevolent, CAPTAIN FUTURE is unpretentious fun even sixty years later. 

original Captain Future pulp adventure

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 as he pilots his amazing spaceship "Comet" on scientific research expeditions and/or space crimefighting escapades that take him and his crew to the ends of the universe - and beyond!

CAPTAIN FUTURE would vanish from the newsstands in the 1950s, but the nostalgia boom of the 1960s would see his adventures revived in paperback form along with those of his fellow pulpsters Doc Savage, The Shadow, etc, reprinted with terrible covers for the edification of young baby-boomers, their nostalgic parents, and confused 70s kids like me, looking for science-fiction entertainment in the wake of Star Wars. This was just what Toei was counting on!  In Japan Captain Future's adventures had been reprinted several times starting in the 1960s, with a recent 2004 printing covering the entirety of the pulp's run. 

I'd been aware of the CAPTAIN FUTURE anime series for years; several episodes were dubbed by ZIV International 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 those 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.

Otho, meteor-mimic, Grag

All of the CAPTAIN FUTURE highlights are present in Toei's show: the friendly rivalry between Grag the robot and Otho the synthetic man; Curt Newton's amazing spaceship The Comet, 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.

Kids and pets and synthetic men and robots and flying brains and Captain Future

The cheese factor of the old pulps is matched by the cheese factor of the 1978 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.

Captain Future; Lumberjack Of Space

The mechanical design is decidedly 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.

from the episode "Captain Future's Space Date"

CAPTAIN FUTURE ran for 52 episodes, from November '78 until December of 1979, on Japan's premier broadcaster NHK. Toei's Manga Matsuri festival highlighted Captain Future with a theatrical release of an expanded TV episode entitled "Great Solar System Race" which is about a great race in, yes, the Solar System.  Scripts for the series were taken from the 13 original Hamilton pulps, so attentive fans will be pleased to see "The Comet Kings", "Captain Future's Challenge," "Planets in Peril," and "The Lost World Of Time." 

have all your meals with Captain Future

Toei's staff included Tomoharu Katsumata, who would later helm the Harlock film My Youth In Arcadia and zodiac-fighting anime Saint Seiya. A hit in Japan, the series inspired a wide range of merchandise, which included toys, games, and a child-size bicycle. 

the Futurebike

ZIV Captain Future video release logos

ZIV International, a subsidiary of Lorimar Telepictures,  would release three home video CAPTAIN FUTURE adventures - "The Wrecker's Plan" and the two parts of "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. The audio track would get a rare storybook LP release, and that would be it for the American release of the Japanese Captain Future cartoon. 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. The French-language dub, "Capitan Flam", would air both in France and in Quebec on the CBC. 

ZIV soundtrack LP, unrelated Atari 2600 cartridge with unlicensed Captain Future artwork

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.

Japanese edition Captain Future novel

Japan would continue to mine the SF pulps for anime inspiration: 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, and left behind a TV series, more indifferent English dubbing, and some nice Tomy toys. CAPTAIN FUTURE itself is not forgotten; the Toei series recently received a Blu-Ray release in Japan to accompany the German BD and DVD releases. 

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!

-Dave Merrill

editors note: this article has been adjusted to correct for errors of fact and to throw in that pic of the Atari 2600 cartridge, because what the heck

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