Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
Licensing anime in the west is difficult to digest, especially when dubs were expected of every property so some do become lost, especially when you get into the legal side of things. Here are ten dubs lost to time.
10. Futari wa Precure
Before Precure was a household name there was an attempt by 4kids to dub the series but unable to find a channel that would take it, the license ran out which was then picked up by Ocean dubs for Canadian and British release, it's unknown whether they got anywhere with it but there are rumours of a 4kids opening that was likely made as a promo.
9. Cyborg 009
The original dub for Toonami was lost after the broadcast when they re-recorded some episodes due to mild profanity, there's also episodes recorded of two different voice actors for the lead role and because Cartoon Network are dicks, they didn't release the final episodes despite already being dubbed.
8. Escaflowne
The Fox Kids alternative dub was butchered beyond belief to the point that it was barely recognisable, but it's been lost since it's cancellation with only the first dub in it's entirety on dvd being a clue of it's fox kids era.
7. Idaten Jump
A toy based anime expected to jump start another franchise ultimately failed leaving only a couple of dub episodes littered online with the bonus of the original Japanese also being notorious to find.
6. Gurren Lagann
ADV Film's last attempt at a dub was never finished as the company went under and the anime ultimately went to another company, this is also the reason why it started release as a subbed only until the rights were sorted.
5. Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
ADV Films again had this one but failed to find a broadcaster so the rights ended up expiring but TV Aichi who own the rights has the full completed dub in their possession with no plans to release it and still have it.
4. Keroro Gunso
Guess what? ADV Films again, they had three different versions of the dub with lots of switched around voices and even when it went to Funimation there were still unreleased dub episodes.
3. Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
The death of 4kids animation came with it a lengthy bankruptcy period in which Yu-Gi-Oh was caught in the middle. This would need another post to explain but in short 4Kids dub still exists but another company made a dub which was never used and ultimately never will, Yu-Gi-Oh is dubbed by it's own company run by Konami with a few ex 4Kids employees who currently hold all the Yu-Gi-Oh dubs.
2. All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku
A British dub was made but no evidence of it exists on home release with only occasional videos popping on Youtube. I have seen these dubs but sadly I can't give evidence.
1. Dream Dimension Hunter Fandora
But I can with this one.
Youtubber Kenny Lauderdale is an expert at finding long forgotten anime but as to where this dub was found is a mystery, as you can see it's god damn terrible. It's probably at this time the most lost dub in existence as at least with the others there was proof that it existed. This one has no leads other than that footage.
It's been a while, let's fix that.
Joe is a massive film buff, particularly the Superhero genre, on a date to the Cinema with girlfriend Silvia, the movie begins to act weird which leads to Silvia being kidnapped by an organisation calling itself Jadow dragging Joe into Movieland. Joe must take on the role of a superhero dubbed Viewtiful Joe bestowed to him by his idol Captain Blue in order to stop Jadow and it's unique army of monsters to get back Silvia and defeat it's big boss. Joining Joe is another movie fan in Captain Blue Jr and even Silvia herself after she gets rescued which is followed up by another evil group taking over in Season 2.
While the anime stays pretty faithful as an adaptation of the games, it's a little bit tame, which is a shame as it's art style lends itself to some pretty stylish scenes and gives Viewtiful Joe a unique identity among it's peers, it's main weaknesses are trying to aim at a younger audience, having to shoe horn in Blue Jr and going through a few episodes of nothing, plus the plot twists are kind of predictable.
But as for producing good characters, it does a superb job at making every character memorable, I especially love Silvia and her romance dynamic with Joe as being relatable to anyone who's had to date a geek.
Dub is nowhere near as good as the games' actors and I actually prefer the subbed version in Japanese and even Spanish.
Final Verdict: It's biggest offence was not using it's full potential, nonetheless it's a solid anime adaptation to a great cult video game franchise.
Okay, that happened, I wasn't expecting to review this but Youtube had it.
Hyoudo Riki is the toughest guy in school, but his day gets crazy when the king of the demon world takes control of his body who apparently sees Riki as his doppelganger; forced to work with this being, Riki is drawn into a private war against the Fairy Master who is taking students from Riki's school and mutating them into monsters to fight Riki, with an exorcist and a space police officer being dragged into the equation who have their own business with the Demon King.
This is ultra violent which is surprising since I found it on Youtube of all places but Youtube has always been into double standards.
Being honest it's pretty terrible, there are a few set pieces which are never really brought up again and there's not really enough time to go over the plot as a whole, it doesn't help that Riki is an absolute clueless dumb ass.
However I'll give it a pass on the dub mostly because it just makes it laughably terrible in the process which helps it alot because something this crude can only really be witnessed in English.
Final Verdict: I don't need to tell you how bad this is, just uttering Ultra Violent is enough for it to be utterly terrible only saved by the fact that the dub makes it laughable.
I'm back after a mini break so let's look at an entry into the Brave series.
First some background, the Brave series began as a new franchise to replace the declining popularity of the Transformers franchise in the early 90s in an attempt to jump start the giant robot genre that started losing sway when Gundam was losing profit; after forging a deal with Sunrise, Gundam's owners, the results were mixed to say the least but ironically saved Gundam when they attempted a similar move with G Gundam, as for the Brave series, they didn't get really popular until GaoGaiGar was released, the most recent and last in the franchise and the only one that still has media made from it today.
This review looks at Season 5 J-Decker, in the 21st century, mankind turn to the creation of giant police robots known as the Brave Police. Deckard is our Optimus Prime as a transforming corvette police car created to take out threats deemed too dangerous for humans but during his creation his AI develops emotions when he interacts with ten year old Yuuta, a boy who dresses like Jubilee from the X-Men and a little androgynous with gender as early concepts were meant to depict him as a girl but kept much of the character design.
With Deckard operating better than his specs due to the emotions in his AI, the police chief makes Yuuta a police officer and Deckard's guardian.
More robots arrive in the Brave Police in the form of construction vehicles along with a few other noteworthy robots all with their own unique personalities.
All this is just really corny, it's the type of universe that can only come from an imagination of a ten year old as it becomes fairly obvious when they introduce a genius engineer 12 year old later on and very few questions seem to arise when they leave Deckard in the hands of a stubborn ten year old but chief Saejima does have the heart of a man child at times, it very much follows the tired fomula of a boy and his robot but it can also creep into some weird territory when the prominent female characters get introduced and have crushes on some of the robots.
No dub, most of the Brave series were never released stateside.
Final Verdict: J-Decker behaves like a Transformers cartoon and has all the corniness to go with it, it's pretty harmless but it has elements that make it authentically Japanese to the point of almost parody. I at least can have some fun from it.
Now for a series that I should hate.
Aikatsu has a very basic plot that runs throughout the whole franchise, Starlight Academy is a training ground for aspiring new idols who participate in numerous auditions showcasing singing, drama and fashion; fashion especially as the title system Aikatsu, is a digitised system allowing the girls to transform into pop idols and enter virtual live stages for their performances powered by collectible cards that coordinate fashion to match the performance or to a character's personal taste such as goth lolita or sugar pink pop princess, the level of detail maintained in all the various costumes is incredible mostly because each performance relys on CGI taken from it's video game source material making it one of the most accurate adaptations of any video game ever and the fact it's been going since 2012 means it's not leaving anytime soon but one thing that's going to create questions, why do I like this idol show, but hate the others?
I think it's because at the heart of it all, it knows what elements it wants to sell, it is not ashamed to admit that it's based on a game and runs with it by putting emphasis on it's set pieces, the performances themselves, it also helps if the music is catchy. This makes the most tedious parts all the more bearable as the actual idol industry itself is really tiring to sit through, Aikatsu fixes this by promising a performance at least once per episode to breakup the interactions the girls have to deal with such as communicating with the designers; it doesn't weigh itself down by shoehorning in a corrupt music producer conflict (Jem and Eriko) or go through the notion of having to do this to save the school (Love Live) or having to make a preteen become 16 years old so she can live out her dreams with childhood naivety in check (pretty much all 80s shoujo) nor does it go through an entire process of the industry looked through the eyes of a faceless ring master (Idolm@ster) it's just a cornucopia of fantastic rainbow kawaiiness that just makes you smile.
If Aikatsu has any problems, it's the fact that the characters feel so forgettable that I never even bothered to name them, now it does work in a weird way because it represents any character that can be designed by a player playing one of their games and each character represents a style path anyone can follow but it also makes it very difficult to judge them by their own merits since the girls only follow one personality setting, even Love Live remembered to add some depth to their characters even if they were lazy about it. This comes to my only conclusion about Aikatsu, watch in small doses, to marathon the series would piss you off and it's set pieces leave less of an impact the more frequently seen, mostly because the characters can't offer anymore to their one dimensional blueprint so basically it's like watching a music video on VH1 with a special on how it was made, the difference is you learn nothing about the performers.
Being a shojo of this calibur, of course there's no dub but I do believe it would wipeout trends in the toy industry faster than the IPHONE if it did come stateside.
Final Verdict: It's cute, colourful fun with enough ideas to last a lifetime just don't go into this expecting anything deep or meaningful.
