The Mike Toole Show

Test Pilots

A couple of weeks back at pilot episode to get even more funding from traditional sources, leading to more episodes.

That got me thinking about pilot episodes. You're probably familiar with what a pilot episode is, right? It's kind of a proof of concept for an in-development TV series – a single finished episode or segment, used to convince producers to pony up the cash and resources needed to produce a full season. The original Star Trek pilot is famous, both for launching an enduring TV and movie franchise and because it had weird-looking Starfleet uniforms, a smiling Spock, and a different guy as the ship's captain. But even when they don't lead to full shows, pilots are an interesting curiosity that often come to light eventually, either through studio leaks, DVD extras, or spotty, just-filling-airtime summertime broadcasts. That's how we've gotten to see amazing shit like Heat Vision and Jack and Poochinski. Just like regular old American TV, anime is chock full of interesting pilots. Let's meet some!

I've touched on a few famous anime pilot segments in this space before. I've Ulysses 31. Ulysses 31 eventually got done, but its pilot episode differs significantly from the final product, with a much more obviously-anime look.

But let's wind it back to the dawn of the medium, when pilots were often necessary to lure sponsors into the new, untested waters of Japanese TV animation. Princess Knight was actually developed in 1966 for their planned theme park, and features weird interstitial segments narrated by a puppet. Ultimately, though, it's still a surprisingly taut, enjoyable depiction of many of the popular manga's key moments, so it was no surprise that the pilot led to a full series the following year.

Looking at that Princess Knight pilot, it's not much different from the eventual TV series. But that's not what always happens with pilot episodes. During that same period of the 1960s, Tezuka and Mushi Production threw a number of pilots at the wall. Some of them, murky shorts with titles like Flying Ben, Goku's Great Adventures, a lot more mischievous and irascible. He ended up looking a bit different , too!

The last Mushi Production pilot to make big waves in the 60s was of Dororo. The company made a 15-minute reel of color adventures starring Hyakkimaru, the cursed clockwork swordsman and his pint-sized sidekick Dororo. For years, the existence of this pilot confused the hell out of me, because it was in color, but the eventual TV series was black and white. Before everything old gradually re-emerged on DVD, I'd tell people that the Dororo series of 1969 was in color, but I was totally wrong – seeing that pilot threw me off the scent. You gotta be careful with pilots, because as we're already seeing, they don't always reflect the final product.

It wasn't just Mushi Production doing pilots during this era, either. Before they went head-on into color production with global hits like dub of the show's first episode.

Pilot films weren't just limited to TV projects, either. Shorts have also been commissioned to help sell feature films. If you picked up the Akio Sugino really left their mark.

One of anime's most famous (and a bit infamous) pilot films is the 3-minute short produced by the future Ray Bradbury contributed to a project that took close to a decade to finish, and put a big dent in TMS's bottom line.

Incredibly, the “Ghibli” pilot wasn't the only one created for Little Nemo. Masami Hata to get the movie finished. These pilots are both beautiful, and while I dream of TMS unearthing the original films so a HD version can be created, I'm just happy that these ones even exist and fans can find and watch them.

In 1990, pop musician OVA was also released in 1994. It has radically different character designs, but still the same talking Schnauzer.

Actually, that Nippon Animation and Mad House versions. Both One Piece and Hunter x Hunter would quickly become anime/manga juggernauts, but that Leader Takeshi deal, a gag comedy about an oaf who tries his best to become a leader of men, never made it to the screen again.

Some pilot episodes turn out to kind of exceed the reach of their eventual descendants. My favorite example of this is a pretty debatable one, but I've always been extremely fond of the English-language pilot episode of Right Stuf's Cobra DVD release. It's still my favorite episode of the series.

One pilot episode that I think almost definitely outdoes its eventual TV version is Vampaiyan Kids. The show, a family comedy from Suzuka Yoshida instead. This pilot's pretty easy to find, and the kind of thing that I look at wonder how many American TV companies ended up seeing it.

Last but not least, there's Andrea Romoli for the anthology magazine Altri Mondi, because its got an blu-ray release in Japan, and because it looks almost nothing like most anime, featuring weird, rubber-limbed cartoon aliens jabbering and cracking wise at each other and having adventures across the cosmos. It's one of those anime shows from the 80s that seems to have been dubbed and shown in every corner of the world except North America. Fortunately, there's a 10-minute pilot episode produced a couple of years prior to the TV version. It's another great-looking little film, and more accessible than most since there's no dialogue.

We've seen pilots for TV shows and movies, but not all pilot films get any traction. Some of ‘em make a small impression, but circumstances keep them from getting picked up. One good example of this is Pony Metal U-Gaim, a novel little concept that basically takes Creamy Mami herself, kills her in a car accident, and rebuilds her as a cyborg that fights evil robots. This is a pitch piece from an era when animation studios would try practically anything, and it shows. But underneath the weird concept and dumb title, there's 90 seconds of absolutely amazing, exhilarating animation. It's kind of ridiculous that even this pilot film went into production, but decades later I'm glad to see it freed from its obscurity.

Maurice Leblanc caused sponsors to flee the production. Despite that, an entire episode was produced—only no dialogue was ever recorded, so the version you might turn up by googling furiously for it will have sound effects and music only. It's a weird and watchable version of Lupin the 3rd in the far future, back in the day when you could take any old famous franchise and tack on “… only they're in the future,” kind of like the contemporaneous approach of “…only they're kids!” that brought us Flintstone Kids, Yo Yogi!, and Tom and Jerry Kids. Anyway, if you can find Lupin VIII, why not dub it yourself?

After Mahiro Maeda finally showed up. This one is the dark side of pilots, a promising idea that turns out to be a really dull, lackluster pitch film. There's also been talk of a Royal Space Force follow-up called Blue Uru for years, and oddly enough, Gainax are trying to get it made this year. It's gonna be a pilot film at first, of course.

Ultraman never really caught fire in the US, but it wasn't for lack of trying. 70s kids eagerly gobbled up the original series, but latter-day attempts to sell the franchise to Americans, be it the Australia-produced Ultraman: Towards the Future, the made-in-America-but-never-shown-here Ultraman Powered, or the most recent to hit US airwaves, Ultraman Tiga, audiences just never bit on the silver-and-red superhero. But there was some Ultraman animation, too: a 1980 TV series called Adrienne Barbeau, of all people.

Finally, sometimes I'll dig up an old American cartoon and start to think “Is this anime? It looks too good to be American…” That's a dumb sentiment, but one that's served me well, because I soon saw the closing credits and this screen:

This was for a pilot TV cartoon called Robo Force, the American answer to cool robots like the Toei Animation lifer.

I think perhaps my favorite anime pilot is one that isn't truly anime, or at least falls into that multi-nation co-production gray area. In the early 2000s, an artist named Oban Star-Racers.

I love seeing anime pilot films, both because they can be very revealing about the eventual production, as the Little Nemo pilots are, and because they can be an amazing surprise, as the Cobra and Vampaiyan Kids pilots are. The thing is, there are still so many that we haven't seen. In the wake of financial troubles, Gonzo canceled their Origin: Spirits of the Past. Where is it?! I want to see it! But sometimes pilots are just hard to come across. Has a pilot convinced you to try watching a show? Sound off in the comments!