Once Upon a Time in the 60s, British band The Beatles decided to make a cartoon of themselves, they didn't like what they saw and saved animating for their Yellow Submarine.
After that the Osmonds & the Jackson 5 also tried their hand at their own cartoons, and a new genre was born.
Back then it wasn't unusual for a celebrity to be animated and turn up in Scooby Doo, but appearing as yourself in your own cartoon was something else.
The core of the 70s also found other celebrities wanting to give it a try, this time being sportsman such as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali & performance Basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters.
Muhammad Ali would be an adventure hero while the Globetrotters became weird superheroes, but the cartoon scene also worked for comedy acts as well.
Laurel & Hardy had a lengthy run in the 60s under Hanna Barbara, the late Gary Coleman used a character from one of his films to create his own show and lastly Bill Cosby's project Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids, which trademarked the catchphrase "Hey Hey Hey!"
The 80s on the other hand saw the big muscled icons step into the fray with cartoons from Chuck Norris, Mr T & Hulk Hogan, each one keeping to the extended toy advert style that so defined 80s cartoons.
But its in the 90s where everyone wanted to give it a try, so I'll divide this group into categories.
Music Stars
I believe I've already covered Hammerman, MC Hammer's overly ambitious cartoon project but this is gold compared to other celebrity cartoons such as "New Kids on the Block" & "Kid N'Play", the latter is some rap duo that even I've never heard of and I'm a 90s child.
It got better in the 00s with Class of 3000 by Outkast front man Andre 3000 restoring some pride in self promoting music stars
Comedy Actors & Stand ups
The problem with trying to appeal to a lower age group is that kids would never have heard of you, this was true with shows like "Life with Louie" & "Bobby's World" with Louie Anderson & Howie Mandel, both of which I've never heard of but I've seen both cartoons and Bobby's World was actually quite good, but I wouldn't have guessed they were both celebrity cartoons at the time. Animated film fared no better when Rodney Dangerfield thought it was a good idea to create a cartoon film about him as a dog called Rover Dangerfield.
Who here remembers Roseanne? Yes even she made herself a cartoon and was more than happy to ruin a number of other cartoon characters with it, with a number of pointless cameos. But the worst of this group is Dr Katz, the shaky animated adult cartoon, promoting the works of comedian Jonathan Katz; it's on my list of 100 worst cartoons.
Sportstars
When I say Micheal Jordan you automatically think Space Jam, that is true but not the one I'm on about, in the early 90s Micheal Jordan joined Ice Hockey hero Wayne Gretzky and Baseball & Football star Bo Jackson in a very cheesy cartoon where they help kids and stop evil bad guys with rocket shoes and the powers of love & friendship and recycling, yes the 90s legacy was unkind to the Captain Planet generation.
Movie Stars
A couple of real failures first: John Candy's "Camp Candy" didn't exactly fare well, Macaulay Calkin's "Wish Kid" didn't last long in another screw on his terrible downfall and Pamela Anderson thought she was still Baywatch's number one when she made Stripperella.
It wasn't all bad though, Rick Moranis actually took a backseat in his own cartoon "Gravedale High" about a school for monsters, (No not that one, sweet jesus not Monsters High) Gravedale High was a charming little series if not strikingly similar to alien high school cartoon "Galaxy High"
The Olsen Twins were quick to respond with teen spy cartoon, "Mary Kate & Ashley in Action" which goes nicely with all their other crap films, to be fair on the cartoon it wasn't that bad, passable at best.
Bruce Willis had great fun with his creation "Bruno the Kid", where the title character convinces an international spy organization to hire him using a 3D avatar of Bruce Willis making them think he's an adult, it's a little silly but great fun as well and Bruce has lots of fun singing the opening theme.
But the cream of the celebrity cartoon is "Jackie Chan Adventures" where Jackie is an archeologist getting dragged into an Indiana Jones plot, with it's own tagalong kid and crazy old guy.
Japanese Stars
The Japanese aren't exactly immune to this either, Eriko Tamura made herself into a downtrodden heroine in Idol Densetsu Eriko, which gets rather uncomfortable to watch quite early on.
Punk band Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi took their cartoon idea to America, to promote the new wave of Japanese culture hitting the shores in the early 00s, although Puffy AmiYumi is basically the Dirty Pair if they were rock stars.
Finally the most obscure comes from Saban when they made a show about Japanese Magician Mariko Itakura called "Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic", It was meant to make up for losing Sailor Moon but failed to go further than one season.
In this day and age, the celebrity cartoon is more or less extinct, which considering what we did get is probably for the best.
No you're not reading the title wrong, it makes sense in context.
I went to a Japanese Culture convention a couple of days ago and wandered what anime truly represent Japanese Culture?
This list features ten such anime along with their subject matters to better describe what I'm talking about.
10. Sports - Initial D
It was a choice between numerous sports titles such as Eyeshield, Hajime no Ippo, Slam Dunk, Captain Tsubasa & Princess Nine, and Bamboo Blade came really close but nothing is more Japanese than illegal street racing with modified cars. This series is coming to an end real soon.
9. Advertising - Nurse Witch Komugi
Tiger & Bunny originally came to mind but the concept of that show is more American than Japanese so we come to spin-off show Nurse Witch Komugi, where idols perform as marketing models for various companies, it seemed to also work as an advertisement for Tatsunoko as a whole.
8. Business - Salaryman Kintaro
Goldenboy was considered, but Salaryman Kintaro is more business based. It's about a former fisherman turned Salaryman which is another term for a businessman, in order to fulfill a wish for his departed wife. The business world in Japan is surreal to an outsider, most Western societies wouldn't be able to cope.
7. Cosplay - Cosplay Complex
I would never choose Comic Party so Cosplay Complex is the next best thing. To name all the anime references in this show is an achievement in itself.
6. History & Martial Arts - Rurouni Kenshin
It was really tough to choose between so many martial arts anime, but I think the best one has to be Rurouni Kenshin. The Samurai is a good choice warrior & the Meiji era is often seen as more popular in terms of writing than other eras. It should've been Sengoku Basara but said show is far too over the top.
5. Folklore - Inuyasha
A strange choice but nevertheless, Inuyasha plays with more Folklore than most anime, playing on numerous Folklore tales using Rumiko Takahashi's signature styles.
4. School - Azumanga Daioh
Again there are many school titles but Azumanga Daioh trumps them all thanks to ADVFilms guide to the Japanese references, I learned more about Japan in this series than any other.
3. Gaming - World God Only Knows
Okay he does nothing but play dating sims, but Keima is still a gaming genius when you consider what he owns in hardware, plus it's the only video game anime to actually play by Gaming logic.
2. Sentai - Ultraman
The only one on this list to be more popular live action than anime. Ultraman is the obvious choice when it comes to Sentai, more so than other classic mecha series or homages to Ultraman itself, out of all the giants that have walked the streets of Tokyo, Ultraman stands on the same level as Godzilla.
1. Japan Official Mascot - Doraemon
But who should represent Japan as a whole? Pikachu? Hello Kitty? Hetalia's Japan? Hatsune Miku? (We can only hope) Anpanman? (Getting warmer) None of those, it's Doraemon; made in the late 60s, Doraemon is Japan's national cartoon, no other series can claim that title nor can it's closest opposition steal it from them. Very few cartoons in this world can claim the same title as Doraemon, what makes it even more amazing is that it hasn't been tainted by modernization, nothing has changed from it's core structure for nearly 45 years.
Welcome to my semi regular news section, Endless Wardrobe, a post for things that don't need a full post.
So What am I Working on?
Walk of Fame should finish off it's current theme of Chinese Heroes.
Back on Retro Retrospective we have....
A top ten list with a Japanese theme, if that sounds weird, there's a reason for it and you'll see why.
Anime reviews for Rune Soldier & Creamy Mami.
Dirty Pair week won't be until late August at the earliest.
Kyatto-Ninden Teyandee review is also in the works.
The promised video game feature is on hold.
Shezow is cancelled until further notice.
Cartoon Vault will be welcoming two more entries.
On Victory Script
Ballard of Goldena Moonlight has begun as well as Pokemon Behind the Anime.
Keima Katsuragi vs the World is in planning stage.
First anime ads will be posted hopefully in two days.
Victory Script story will hopefully start soon.
My OC will be introduced with other characters very soon.
There's also a special short story fanfic on the 3 Kingdoms.
Now for some bad news
Well it's not bad, it's just that I'll be away from 7th August until the 13th, so you can see why I have so much planned, for the next week or so.
And now just for fun
Here's a picture of Chibi Squid Girl
Slow news day an all.
Whenever I cover cartoons from my home nation, I only seem to comment on the lousy ones but today's vault entry is special, this cartoon, next to Wallace & Gromit is our finest cartoon ever created, presenting from 1990 the Dreamstone.
The Land of Dreams is separated by a light & dark side, on the light side we have Noops, no not "Noobs" Noops which can be best described as a cross between a troll & a dog, who live and work in the Dreamworld not much different to humans while the Wuts who just look like alien dogs defend the land from the darker side of the realm known as the Land of Nightmares from a population known as Urpneys which resembles the traditional troll but with large noses and large colored spots; they are led by Zordrak, a truly terrifying looking beast, that resembles a traditional evil dragon with the voice to match; he was once a Dream Maker but kept creating nightmares which eventually made him into his current monstrous form. Zordrak wants the Dreamstone, a special gem that creates all the dreams in the dream world; in charge of this beautiful gem is the merlin-esque head of the council the Dream Maker who also has a pet literal dogfish named Albert. That pretty much sums up the setting and basic plot, now for the story itself.
The main character is a Noop named Rufus who does nothing but daydream, some of his dreams need to be seen to be believed as they have some beautiful scenery and great orchestra music from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sadly for Rufus his daydreaming costs him his job, however his friend Amberley suggests that he works for the Dream Maker, seeing as his daydreaming makes him the most qualified. He gets the job despite a few mishaps but inevitably gets involved in Dream Maker's battle against Zordrak.
Dreamstone follows a simple formula of plot of the week, where the enemy always tries a different method every week to attempt the same task, tried and tested, nothing special but what makes Dreamstone special is a combination of beautiful vivid scenery, incredibly well done music soundtrack and a truly terrifying looking villain. Going back to the soundtrack, it really had some care and attention put into it, as a CD track costs around £70 which is about $107 on the current exchange rate, it even has a celebrity backed track called the "War Song of the Urpneys" sang by British Rock God Ozzy Osbourne, Former Heavy Weight Boxer Frank Bruno & Scottish Comedian Billy Connelly; even the main theme "Better than a Dream" was re-released by Katie Melua just last year.
Dreamstone is proof that Britain can make cartoons, I just wish they did it more often.
This isn't an official anime series despite how professional the art is, today's review is about web light novel series Okashina Futari, but first a bit about the writer Mashiro.
Mashiro is a TG writer, which of course stands for transgender, he produced numerous works on his own website including Kayo-Chan & the sequel Second Chance Hunter Series, Kayo-Chan is about a well dressed little girl who solves problems by transforming the reluctant customer into a girl wearing a fanservice costume, the Hunter series is a taskforce assigned to reverse the process, which is the best I can do with limited translation tools and speaking of translations, another work named Okashina Futari was translated into English by a group of dedicated fans and that is today's review.
Again due to the length of the story as of now not all of it has been translated with only the first 250 chapters translated out of something along the lines of 1500 chapters, if that seems excessive some of the chapters are only something like two sentences long.
The story revolves around a brother & sister who can transform each other into the opposite gender with the power of thought and includes a fanservice costume as well as the rules of the powers are clearly defined through illustration, where when you change gender you must change the clothing to match said gender.
What makes this unique is the way the brother & sister react to the changes; the sister Satori doesn't actually mind being a boy as she believes it to be a challenge where as brother Ayumi is rather uncomfortable about the whole experience as defined below where he's turned into a Chinese Girl.
And it's Ayumi who gets the lead as the story is told from his perspective where many of the transformation scenes are described in great detail throughout the chapters, talking through feelings, describing the unusual feel and design of the clothes, the reactions of the general public and wondering what to do next; Ayumi reluctantly agrees to become Satori's dress-up doll for most of the story, and while it's okay at home, it's not okay in public during one of the most re-posted TG flash of all time where he's transformed into a bride on a public train.
You can find all the translated work on Okashina Futari here along with short stories and another series called BUG. Links to the bride transformation flash is at the bottom, more flash animations on the left side bar which also include a Ballet & Waitress transformation, there's also a gallery of all the pictures which is also at the bottom.
http://castle.midnightaurora.com/mainpage.php?siteID=1&pageID=1&itemID=Okashina_Futari.php
Also I have the link for Okashina Futari's main illustrator Ohyuki.
http://ohyuki.grats.jp/
Ohyuki is a very talented artist who has his own online comic and frequently sends illustrations to Japanese Online RPG sites along with commissioning for Mashiro for Okashina Futari, check out his work, you won't regret it. (Site is in Japanese though)
Final Verdict: Okashina Futari is an interesting read, there aren't many TG story writers who can go into that much detail from a first person perspective and keeps it's audience in until the scene is done and then you do it all again with the next scene but don't expect the translation for this series to be completed in your lifetime, it's already taken 14 years to get this far.
