The Mike Toole Show
Tatsunoko Time
by Michael Toole,
The floodgates are open. I've known just a bit more about the recently-emerged Anime Sols and Tatsunoko-- my dreams of indolence and very old cartoons might soon become reality.
In the meantime, I've been downing episode after episode of Robotech - but there are plenty we've haven't. I'm gonna talk about both categories.
It wasn't just the 3-hour Yatterman marathon that got me thinking hard about Tatsunoko-- it was poring over their list of works. The company was founded in 1962, by three brothers: Tatsuo, Kenji, and Toyoharu Yoshida. Like the similarly emerging Hiroshi Sasagawa had spent time during the planning phase training at Toei's animation studios, and was ready to take up directing Space Ace on his own.
Space Ace is a goddamn holy grail for me. Not the cartoon itself, which is really just one of a number of stylish, weird, and cheaply-animated SF cartoons (see also: VCR, and the small pockets of older Aussie anime fans, like Glen Johnson (who has even more information about Space Ace on his site) haven't been able to turn up any of the film reels. The show's English version remains buried in time.
The thing is, the mere existence of a dub of Tatsunoko's very first TV cartoon is very telling. It's a demonstration that, from the beginning, Tatsunoko were absolutely hell-bent on getting their stuff onto the international market. Rival studio franchise called Final Fantasy. The other funny thing is that, in spite of Speed Racer's broad marketability, Trans-Lux sold the series off in 1969 so they could go where the real money was: LED signboards! I guess that worked out OK for them, though, because they're still in business.
The studio would follow Speed Racer with a number of TV cartoons that went on to be huge hits around the world. Judo Boy, the Fugitive-esque tale of a young judo champ zooming across the countryside in pursuit of his father's killer, a man with one eye, somehow never made it stateside in spite of this incredibly fucking awesome opening. Seriously, look at this shit.
But Judo Boy, originally HBO for a couple of years. Don't miss episode five, in which Pinocchio, in his quest to become a real boy, attempts to kidnap a child and remove its still-beating heart!
Despite a great track record of shows solidly marketed both at home and abroad, Tatsunoko's best days were still ahead of ‘em in the 1970s. Perhaps their biggest, most enduring hit ever would come in 1972, with Gatchaman F. Closing theme “Gatchaman's Song” was such a broad hit that it was hurriedly shifted to the OP sequence midway through the series.
In the west, it'd take a few years for Gatchaman's star to rise, but rise it did-- and all thanks to B-movie and TV maven Sentai Filmworks is taking up the slack on home video.
That reach wasn't the extent of Gatchaman’s influence, though. The series had a direct impact on subsequent Tatsunoko shows, stoking the “henshin hero” boom that would give us colorfully costumed good guys like Gundam, the RX-78.
By this point, we're smack in the middle of the seventies and life is good for Tatsunoko. Well, maybe not that good-- Time Bokan. The concept is simple: two kids in silly costumes, plus their pet bird and talking robot pal, jump into a time machine after their mad scientist grandpa accidentally sends himself back in time. Opposing them are a trio of villains: a femme fatale, a skinny guy, and a squat guy with huge teeth. These folks.
Wait wait, I mean these folks.
These folks, I think?
Wrong again? Okay fine, it's these folks.
These folks, then? They seem like the right types…
ALRIGHT ALREADY.
Yeah, Time Bokan set the stage for a number of goofy formulas, and while the show was good fun, with time travel adventures that involved both historical and fantasy characters, it still ended after a year. Then, Tatsuo Yoshida died of cancer.
Man, cancer sucks. Dude was only 45! He was succeeded as president by his brother, Kenji. Tatsuo stuck around long enough to see his final creation, a Time Bokan spinoff called Yatterman, launch on New Year's Day-- but by the time the show's impact as a hit was really felt later in the year, he was in his sickbed. Yatterman turned the two-dumb-kids vs three-dumb-villains formula into a beloved institution, with crazily imaginative mecha, toilet humor, sight gags, and music that had families rushing to tune in every Saturday at 6pm. Rising tastemakers Yoshitaka Amano and Kunio Ōkawara drew the funny characters and fanciful mecha, and the faithful Sasagawa directed. More than anything else, Yatterman is the single closest analogue I've ever seen to Hanna Barbera's popular 60s and 70s fare like Scooby Doo and Yogi Bear. The animation is simple and the stories are pretty repetitive (there's a “gag of the week” involving a swarm of hilarious little mecha animals that makes me laugh like a goddamned simpleton every time), but there's a charm and inventiveness to the proceedings that make it persistently watchable and enjoyable, even thirty-five years later.
Not surprisingly, Tatsunoko would milk the Time Bokan cow until it keeled over, then set to work making hamburgers and wallets out of the carcass. Yatterman was followed by Macross.
Alright, Tatsunoko didn't make Macross themselves. Shurato
.
Then, they made this thing! You can't really hang Samurai Pizza Cats on the Discotek is releasing both versions of this show this summer, and... man. Anyone else just overwhelmed by the prospect of watching more than one episode of Samurai Pizza Cats? It's a fun little sign of the times, sure, but I can't help but view the idea of watching the entire series as something of an endurance test. Anyway! One final thing that cracks me up: the “we didn't have good scripts, so we made stuff up” story is also what drove Peter Fernandez and company to dub Speed Racer so freely. History repeats itself!
Aside from one of the best shows of the 90s (Irresponsible Captain Tylor, natch) Tatsunoko spent the 1990s mired in the Swamp of Remake. There was a Tekkaman remake (fanservice!), a Gatchaman OVA remake (really only notable for the Earth Wind & Fire tune in it), a Hurricane Polymar remake (about as good as the Casshan remake), and a Speed Racer remake.
No, it wasn't the bad American one. Ha! Man, that one was so awful. Like the above mentioned reduxes, Madoka Magica.
Tatsunoko made an irable attempt at raising the “dark hero” stakes with 2005's Casshern Sins; hopefully Anime Sols will acquaint a few more of us with the zippy and fun Yatterman 2008.
It's hard to say where Tatsunoko will head next. The company's edged away from remakes in recent years-- the big-budget Speed Racer film might've netted them a huge windfall, if it hadn't flopped so badly, and the story repeated itself the following year with the Yatterman film. Plans for a second Yatterman film were quietly scrapped, and the studio could only watch from the sidelines as Muromi-san, have kept Tatsunoko relevant in fans’ minds. But as we near the apex of 2013, one truth prevails: it's time to take another crack at Gatchaman.
Fortunately, Tatsunoko are diversifying their approach. A “safe” live-action film from Gatchaman Crowds, a summer animated project that looks completely different from any Gatcha-show before it. Casshern Sins was a surprisingly different take on the classic; I hope Gatchaman Crowds can follow in its footsteps.
As I sit here, waiting impatiently for the next Yatterman (every Thursday, gang!), I have to reflect on what a huge segment of Tatsunoko's catalog is comprised of mainstream hits, cult hits, or other trendsetters. It's easy to point at big studios like Toei and artistic maestros like Tezuka and Miyazaki as the standard-bearers of Japanese animation, but as far as I'm concerned, the Yoshida brothers might be the key figures, over the past five decades, in transforming anime from animation for Japan into animation that the entire world flocks to and enjoys. I hope the studio surprises the world again, and soon!
What's your favorite Tatsunoko show? And hey, what cons are everyone going to this summer? My profile next year will be low, since it'll be a World Cup year and Brazil will siphon away all my money. Last weekendI was talking at Anime Boston. Next week, I'm a guest no less at Anime NEXT. I'll be kicking around Otakon. It's shaping up to be a good summer. How ‘bout you?
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