Cable TV within the 80s modified into kinda distinctive. A full bunch nationwide channels + no longer a form of programming = strangeness. USA Network modified into running the bizarro hippy punker clip-demonstrate extravaganza Evening Flight, Discovery Channel would on occasion demonstrate total days worth of Russian television, and all the pieces modified into at possibility of be interrupted by native commercials shoehorned in by your mom & pop cable TV carrier. And pointless to negate in each residing there modified into Japanese animation! Whenever you occur to weren’t staring at 90 minute compliations of Force Five episodes or Thunderbirds 2086 episodes on Showtime, you had been catching Belle & Sebastian or Mysterious Cities Of Gold in between The following day Of us marathons on Nickelodeon. And even as you occur to had been particularly laborious core you might behold Superbook and Flying House – the Japanese anime Bible cartoons – on Pat “700 Club” Robertson’s CBN community.
To be just, CBN got a form of mileage out of anime. Screening the 2 Christian cartoons is a pure, however they also ran the compilation movies for Voltes V and Starbirds (the English dub of Struggling with Ordinary Daimos), to boot to pronounce-to-TV sharp movies indulge in the Tatsunoko adaptation of the literary traditional “Daddy Longlegs.
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| let’s volt in |
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| kung-fu combating giant robot that turns true into a truck and romances the space females |
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| I surprise who her mysterious benefactor will flip out to be |
And even as you occur to had been alert or un-hung-over enough to be staring at TV at noon on Sunday, you would also rating two of my favorites – Honey Honey and Leo The Lion.
Every dubbed by some Florida outfit referred to as “Sonic World”, they look like abnormal decisions to bound on cable within the 80s – a shojo comedy residing in 1910 and a violent talking-animal sketch from the boring 60s? – however attempting to resolve out the actions of television executives is a fruitless task. The crucial thing is that Honey Honey, per the manga by shojo manga-ka pioneer Hideko Mizuno (who would later hump on to pen the groundbreaking rock’n’roll manga FIRE) is a though-provoking and steadily wacky series that is a minor gem. The distinctive 1966 manga by Hideko Mizuno modified into printed in RIBON (“Princess”) MAGAZINE, however the anime series would no longer air except 1981. What’s up with that?
Young teenage orphan Honey Honey, making ends meet in Austria within the early allotment of the final century, befriends a small white cat named Lily. As a outcomes of this friendship Honey Honey finds herself pursued literally one day of the sphere by Princess Plant life of Austria, Plant life’s four ethnic-stereotype suitors, and the mysterious thief Phoenix. And Phoenix’s cat.
Turns out Lily swallowed the famed gem the Smartly-known person Of The Amazon, the possession thereof being the one situation pursuant to marrying Princess Plant life. Over the subsequent 25 episodes we sight auto chases, UFOs, sultans, samurai, Viking warriors, spies, crooks, Robin Hood, circuses, storms at sea, ninjas, King Kong, you name it. It’s a whirlwind of a demonstrate that mixes slapstick with romance, and the English dub is amateurish however entertaining. The animation by Kokusei Eiga varies from mediocre to amazing – there’s one episode that rivals one thing else on TV at the time – however largely the demonstrate is widespread television quality.
Six episodes of the demonstrate had been launched on dwelling video by Sony in assorted formats including Beta and 8mm. VHS copies on occasion demonstrate up on eBay and native video stores, so preserve your eyes commence. Honey Honey’s rights are currently owned by Enoki Movies – one among our farsighted American outfits could well silent contact them, commence the demonstrate on DVD, and create us all jubilant. More records about Honey Honey could well furthermore be realized on this very weblog!
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| the sinister Princess Plant life, Herr Gustav, Geronimo, King Pika-Pika, and Sheik Oil Buck |
CBN’s other Sunday anime powerhouse is Leo The Lion, which pointless to negate is Tezuka’s sequel to Jungle Emperor/Kimba The White Lion, per Tezuka’s traditional manga series from the boring 1950s. After he produced the first 1965 series (Japan’s first shade TV sketch!) underneath NBC’s guidelines, Tezuka went on to diagram Leo (customary title “Susume Leo”) staying closer to his customary manga. This plan persevering with storylines, darker subject issues, and loads of animal-on-animal action total with defenestrations, impalings, contusions, beheadings, shotgunnings, and heaps others.
Leo (you would keep in mind this white lion underneath his childhood name of “Kimba”) and his accomplice Leia (“Kitty”) protect the jungle and lift their two young of us Runi and Ruki . There are the occasional episodes of whimsical comedy – the James Bond spoof episode in pronounce – however for essentially the most allotment this series is loads darker and no more “relaxing” than Kimba. It’s no longer enticing NBC would rob a cross on this one, I will have the ability to’t sight it getting previous the watchdog mothers of 60s The United States. For certain twenty years later CBN either has no accomplishing with it, or what’s extra doubtless, has no belief they’re running a sketch demonstrate in which a blind Masai warrior has his arm ripped off by a tribe of sinister leopards.
Leo has been launched on low-imprint public-area dwelling video a total lot of events, largely in shoddy EP VHS tapes that own edited versions of the episodes. Purchaser beware! Right here’s one other series that deserves DVD residing as a accomplice to Correct Stuf’s Kimba commence.
And the CBN anime chronicle doesn’t stop there! Previous to Honey Honey and Leo, CBN ran the weekly Japanese most modern affairs news program Previous The Horizon. Once in a while overstepping the boundaries of traditionally outlined “news”, Previous The Horizon would contain up its airtime with 12-minute half-episodes of the 1972 Toei giant robot demonstrate Mazinger Z. This mysteriously-dubbed model of the gorgeous robot traditional featured the nasty English-language theme songs sung phonetically by Isao Sasaki.
Fortuitously anime fan seneschal Steve Harrison taped the issues with his prime-loading mono wired-a ways flung VHS deck, shooting this artifact for posterity. However why would a news program bound a young of us’s robot sketch? Cultural background? Entertainment commercial context? Time-filler for gradual news days? Simplest Pat Robertson knows, and he ain’t tellin’.
-Dave Merrill
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