Hot damn, never thought I’d see the day. I’m not gonna act like my linking that article about the Tsuburaya anime waaaayyyy back in the comments of your Genma Wars video somehow inspired you making this video, but it’s funny how life works like that. Actually the article mentions a bit about what happened after Tsuburaya stopped making media: apparently he got caught up in some legal drama regarding his company transferring its business. So that’s certainly one hell of an end to this story
the most insulting thing about this is not even the cheap production values of his works, but the fact that he almost exclusively adapted classic manga made by legendary authors. You would expect that the japanese would put Shotaro Ishinomori, Leiji Matsumoto and Go Nagai in a higher regard than that instead of letting japanese Uwe Boll adapt their works.
The thing I've learned about Japanese culture is that they have a cultural adherence to societal harmony. Provided everyone gets along - or at least gives off that impression - then society functions smoothly. I.e Don't rock the boat. So if there was any issues, no-one was going to speak up about it. Not publicly anyway.
@@stevenguitink5947 Meanwhile in the west the Dr. Seuss widow hated the Cat in the Hat live action movie so much she forbids anyone to adapt her husband's books to live action for as long as they don't become public domain
That moment when you are so shocked and angry your soldiers where wiped out by a teleporting psychic you immediately turn into a lizard, but die anyway
it didn't, the adaptation was of devil summoner, one of the infinite smt spin-offs that exist though to be fair, that game does have shin megami tensei in its japanese title, despite just being a spin-off, something it shares only with the first persona
@@comfyghost The original Devil Summoner was titled with Shin Megami Tensei, as was TV drama. Technically it is a part of a separate megaten series but it started out as part of SMT.
“Ninja Turtles! Chew your gum, properly!!” -An actual line from the ED song If I’m being honest that OVA is at least aesthetically pretty good to look at. It was still insane though
That one where the Turtles get "super-mutated"? Could have been the start of a potential crossover between the Heroes in a Half Shell and the Ultra Brothers
I wonder if there will be remakes. If so, I really hope it's in the same style again, just better handled...You know, so it feels like it fits in the era, like it's pulled from an alternate universe.
Iono, man, I did watch Gun Frontier, Submarine Super 99 and other shows from this dude (at Animax) and they were actually quite decent, all the Leiji Matsumoto stuff was well drawn and the animation was decent for its low budget.
When those bodies were falling out of the ship, they had the EXACT animation battle and quality of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab2021. I couldn't stop laughing, it was like a beautiful parody of overdramatic anime. But it was serious. Which made it even more hilarious.
I'm not sure how to describe it, but something about the fall looks disturbing. Dunno if it's the weird side of my brain being like " ohhh scary." or if it's more "This is so bad, it's scary."
As a huge fan of Tsuburaya's tokusatsu productions, hearing that all these infamously bad anime adaptations were connected to the company in any way is uh. Um. Well suddenly I feel stuff like Ultraman Powered or Leo aren't the biggest flops associated with the family name.
for what it's worth, Powered gave us amazing showa ultra monster redesigns. was really hyped seeing Powered Dada in Ultraman Trigger, and Ultraman Powered himself was done justice in The Absolute Conspiracy spin-off. Tsuburaya definitely remembers Powered in a fond enough memories at least. the same might not be the case with these anime.
@@gakeeeen It's been a long long time since I watched Powered. All I remember are the cool designs, creepy atmosphere, great theme song and horrible action scenes.
Yeeees! I remember, in Animax they aired Genma Wars, Demon Lord Dante, the Beast Apocalypse one and Mars. I remember thinking they all were crappy (funny) and weird, but I thought they were rip-offs of better series. Btw I'm dominican so I guess most Latin America got profaned with this crap XD
According to the story, the Lost Universe episode was only like that due to a fire at the studio which meant they had no time to finish the final productions and went with a 'layout draft' which was 'good enough' in that the principal colors and basic animation was there, just nothing that should have been for broadcast because it WASN'T meant for broadcast. Edit: The VPN skit was brilliant.
What a coincidence, I'm doing a panel on the extended Tsuburaya family for Kaiju Masterclass next month. To answer your question, Akira sold Tsuburaya Eizo to ArtPort around 2006. However, that meant that ArtPort got all of their debt as well, including a big chunk owed to Tsuburaya Productions, who Akira worked for at the time of the sale. ArtPort sued TsuPro over this in 2010, but by then Akira had moved over to his nephew Hideaki's company Tsuburaya Dream Factory, which made the disastrous Chinese hero Metal Kaiser, while TsuPro itself had transferred out of Tsuburaya family hands as of 2007. ArtPort basically got out of the movie game at that point and became more interested in real estate, while TDF was basically DOA. But yeah, he's still around, occasionally doing appearances and stuff at TsuPro events.
I'm pretty sure each iteration of harlock is a different "timeline" so to speak, what's canon in one series may not be in others "example Mayu", like no one rly wanted to decide a concrete story for it,
Man, can you imagine being a laughingstock in the anime industry, especially since he had plenty of time over the years to improve his animations but just can't seem to do it. Maybe this career just isn't for him, no one says he has to follow his father's footsteps
God damn japan was ahead of the curve, making animations for advertisements for a service that wouldnt exist for another 30 years on a platform which wouldn't be easily accessible to the public until the early 2000s. Gotta admite such forsight.
I watched most of these shows in Animax Latin America, for some reason Cosmo Warrior Zero and a few other of these productions got movie-level dubbing, so they sounded way better than the clips from the English dub. (While other shows on the same channel got low budget Venezuelan dubs, like GetBackers and Full Metal Alchemist) To this day I'm still trying to get Cosmo Warrior Zero's OST, Jidai was a great music piece.
I actually remember watching a bunch of these years ago. They were dubbed to Spanish broadcast in Animax (Latin American). I remember kind of liking Cowboy Captain Harlock. The rest... not so much 😂
Harlock's voice actor in the Mexican dub was also present on the CG movie, José Arenas (Jake from Adventure Time), the Spanish dub of these series made them way better and more enjoyable.
I was just about to mention how wierd is to hear that some of these series where never released in North America,yet i,a Mexican,totally remenber seein those series beein broadcast and dubbed in Animax,they where ok from what i remenber,i do like the opening theme to Gun Frontier
Been waiting for this. Always a joy to get these history lessons to educate myself. Don't really have the time for anime right now but this keeps me interested.
Working with Media Blasters... I blame the scripts more than the actual dub. Its one thing to have a terrible dub- however its worse to hear what they spouted. That said, thank you for this great video and looking back at these classics! Greatly appreciate it!
I remember some of these shows being broadcasted by the South American version of Animax in the late 2000's, with Enoki Films in the credits and everything.
Beat Takeshi's efforts to make "Takeshi's Challenge" the worst most frustrating game ever made actually made it one of the funniest to watch other people struggle through.
From my experience "island episodes" was coined after the 12 or so "extra" episodes inserted into "Nadia the Secret of Blue Water". Never heard it in regard to Gundam, though big Gundam fans seem to to use "in the desert" for time wasting arcs).
in the desert sounds like they're talking about the Rambal Ral arc which is a great arc. Island episode did originate from the Cucruz Doan's Island episode, It was a misconception among Japanese youths that the term originated from Nadia at the time of Lost Universe's controversy though and it has been stated how ironic that both Nadia and Gundam would have low quality episodes centered around characters trapped on an island.
It's interesting to see someone else discuss this topic. Back when I was viewing most of these anime for the first time, I noticed a lot of similar traits like the bad animation, similar episode count and same animators/in-betweeners/production studios kept popping up whenever I looked for information about them. I merely guessed that there had to be some kind of coincidence...but upon digging further, once I discovered that nearly all of Tsuburaya's TV anime were originally airing within the same timeframe of one another, that pretty much paints the picture for you. Even a prolific director or executive producer would never schedule that many TV anime to all air without giving the studios behind production a chance to breathe. What this man was doing was insane. As an artist, I don't personally like to take verbal dumps on other's work...but there's simply no defending some of the Tsuburaya legacy. For me, the worst offenders truly are Genma Wars, Wild 7 Another and Beast Fighter. Genma Wars is the epitome of an awful modern anime and it's still quite baffling how we still haven't had any American licensor obtain the uncut masters from Enoki (and this might not even be possible now). Wild 7 Another is so awful, it's a flat-out obscurity. While the original OVA is niche itself, it was decent and well-animated. Learning of a sequel in existence peaked my interest and after seeing it finally get a DVD release, I wasted no time buying it....I half-regret ever touching the series now. Pitiful, inconsistent animation, horrible plot, surprisingly listenable soundtrack but that was the only redeeming quality. Once someone makes it to the final episode, they will understand the true meaning of "time wasted that you will never get back." Beast Fighter is debatably the worst of them all, but thankfully, it's so stupidly scripted and horribly animated at times, it's laughable. I'm amazed as well by the fact that I have yet to see anyone who has mentioned Beast Fighter and Demon Lord Dante talk about the fact that the anime are both practically borderline blasphemy against Christianity. Again, it's so stupid that I don't take personal offense myself but it does nothing for the quality of those anime overall. These are just my thoughts. Thanks for reading, if anyone did. This was an intriguing video.
@@SuperCosmicMutantSquid Wild 7 Another is pretty pitiful. It is however something you would have to actually watch in order to truly understand why it sucks so bad. Screenshots of the bad animation aren't enough to convey the whole picture. Your only real chance these days is picking up Discotek's DVD release off Crunchyroll. Before Discotek released it, there were no (good) subs or uploads of the series on any anime site. Discotek will soon discontinue all of their current DVD editions so this is the last chance anyone will have to own these obscure releases. I also recommend actually watching the two episode Wild 7 1994 OVA. It is a product of its time what with the gratuitous violence and all, but there was actual effort at making a decent screenplay with this OVA and the animation is solid and fluid, as it was done by a studio closely affiliated with Pierrot. The OVA only had a VHS release in the States, but has been preserved on the Internet Archive.
The live action Kikaider show and its sequel Kikaider 01 were and still are very popular in Hawaii, which explains why a semi official Kikaider fanclub called Generation Kikaider exists in the first place! I wonder if a Japanese Hawaiian snuck the Kikaider anime footage into the HQ of the defunct Bandai Entertainment America? Was it before said footage got dubbed into English?
Absolutely amazing. As a teen, the local anime-only cable channel was my life. But I hated most of the anime they aired during the daytime, it felt all generic and boring and all in the same style. I just realized with this video that a lot of it was Tsuburaya anime and other companies that were an offshoot of his productions, and they probably aired it during the daytime because it was cheap to license a lot of it to fill up the least watched time slots. Now THAT's a mystery I never expected to see solved, much less 15 years later
Something interesting that I found out is that most of the anime produced by Akira Tsuburaya had a Latin American Spanish dub (made in Mexico) since they were distributed here by a company called Ledafilms. It's kind of funny how easily they brought almost everything
This reminds me of why I don't have fond memories of the early 00's era of the anime industry. The cheap digipaint look did NOT age well, even for some of the better looking shows.
@Janeiro I I feel like you're missing a lot from what they've been offering since 2010s. Not sure what do you mean by "overlitten", unless you're referring to effects or increased color profiles. I mean those are just them utilizing the available tech, most of them are put into good use. There are definitely good works out there in the past decade. What genres are you into exactly? Also, TV anime nowadays don't exactly have big budgets. Sure it's more than what they used to have but when anime looks good, it's mostly down to talents and good management. We have no shortage of good writers for them, either. Even something like Fate/Zero or Violet Evergarden, they just have really talented in - house artists.
I finally know why Demon Lord Dante & Beast Fighter Apocalypse look so cheap. I was tempted to buy Wild 7 due to the cover art on Discotek expecting to be this niche manly thing but now I don't feel like it. Thank you.
I can't believe you not only brought up the remake of Babel II but also used its theme - it's by a now-obscure visual kei band called Lapis Lazuli whose most famous member today is probably singer Hiroshi Kitadani who sang the original opening to One Piece and has done a lot of work with JAM Project. I'm a big fan of them, which is the only reason I'd ever heard of Babel II at all!
Man, as a huge Leiji Matsumoto fan this guy gives me agita. Some of the stories like Cosmo Warrior Zero and especially Gun Frontier are great too, they just look awful. I've seen most of those even worse adaptations of his as well, like Barom, Dante and Genma... I knew those 3 were by the same guy because they're just so similarily awful, but I didn't realize it was the same guy that did all the Matsumoto adaptations too, as they weren't quite that bad. Great video.
The problem is we probably wouldn't have the stories at all if it weren't for the shoe string budget. The shows served a purpose, even if the animation suffered. I'd rather have them than not.
I'm still waiting for Discotek to license Genma Wars, schlock of quality that pure shouldn't be left to rot in obscurity. If any company would dare to relicense it, it would be the one that got Mad Bull 34 and Violence Jack (and half of the Enoki catalog as is, clearly). Genma Wars is easily my favorite bad anime, Garzey's Wing, Mars of Destruction, they blush in the presence of Genma Wars.
@Janeiro I Schlock is a German word meaning "low-quality goods." It's been used by bad movie fans for over 20 years, along with "schlockmeister" eg, "one who sells low-quality goods."
@Janeiro I They generally like so-called "bad" movies, either in spite of, or even because of, perceived badness. As for the word schlock... English has borrowed words for a thousand years; shoot modern English was even created by blending several languages together. (Here's a decent summary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English.) There's no harm in having a vocabulary, & schlock has a slightly different connotation than bad. Schlock implies that the film is primarily a product instead of a work of art; which is correct if you're talking about AIP & similar exploitation production companies.
Great video man. Almost all of the 2000s Tsuburaya anime aired dubed into spanish here in Argentina through Animax. I loved demon lord dante and gun frontier, GF opening song was sick
He does have a google search however. Said search has mentioned him as Eiji Tsuburaya’s youngest but only surviving son. His two older brothers died rather early, at 42 (for the oldest) and 60-61 (for the middle).
This makes me realize just how bad Animax LA's situation was, to have a need to purchas every single one of these to have something to air. And no, people didn't really like them either here, except maybe for Gun Frontier.
The characters in each series nearly always look alike. I get that they are linked by either the mangaka plus team or the story (or both), but man give them characters some variety. There's always edgelord macspaceship and lady van unrealistic beauty standard.
To give credit where credit is due, Akira kept the character designs mostly similar to how they were in the manga. Same face syndrome was in full effect with old school manga
While it's from the same family, Akira Tsuburaya's Tsuburaya Entertainment (or sometimes Tsuburaya Pictures) is different from Tsuburaya Productions who made Ultraman and some of the classic giant heroes.
I'm a big fan of the Leijiverse series he's helped make, but goddamn did they look like garbage. It's just too bad that they wouldn't have existed otherwise
I'm surprised you didn't mention the mao dante anime had an exclusive ending just like the genma wars anime because both manga weren't finished. or that eiji tsuburaya's grandchild hiroshi would become the star of Space Sheriff Shaider
I mentioned that the Genma Wars manga was cancelled during the skull city in my solo review of Genma Wars a few years back. I only read a few chapters of Mao Dante and it was specifically to compare scenes to the anime.
If someone from latin america is reading this, then you probably had the same thought as me: Animax de verdad compro varias de estas series por 2 pesos antes de morir (demasiado sueño para seguir escribiendo en un mismo idioma)
❤❤❤. NIce retrospective look back at this series! When I first discovered animie about 25 years ago, there was one series I found very interesting, intriguing, and disturbing at the same time. The series was called " Crying Freeman, Golgol -13 " and was about a ruthless professional assassin ! Kind of reminded me of James Bond Japanese version. Except that the animie was extremely violent, bloody, and grotesque at times ; what surprised me was the language used was very adult and coarse, and there was nudity as well !
Funny thing is that here in some countries of Latin America, there was this channel called "Animax" and for their first years they aired most (if not all) of these bad animes xD I remember my sister always telling me to watch Gun Frontier and I was confused why some of these animes had the "same" protagonist... The only thing I remember from Mars the Terminator was the opening which is good. I don't know if the latin spanish dub was before or after there was an american release. No doubt why later the channel had better animes to show
12:33 I actually saw all of Wild 7 Another through Discotek's DVD release - a decision I made purely because an English translation was pretty dang rare and I wanted in on that - and I don't remember the animation in that scene being THAT bad. Yeah, there was low-budget animation, awkward CG and QUALITY for days - none of which detracted from my personal enjoyment of the show - but I'm pretty certain that was a video glitch on the fault of the Latin American release where I assume you got those obviously 480p clips. Still, love the topic covered here. The AT-X Famous Creator Series is infinitely interesting to me, and between this and the Land of Obscusion's entry on "Akira Tsuburaya's Retro-Modern Anime Club Band", I welcome all the coverage these rightfully forgotten anime can possibly get.
In Latin America a bunch of his works were dubbed. I only remember liking Gun Frontier and even by as a dumb kid I could see that Demon Lord Dante being a disjointed mess XD.
I feel like the ending of a pretty throurough summary of this weird line of anime productions being a NordVPN sponsor dubbed over one of those scenes in a campy way is the perfect way to end this video (the text at the end caught me off guard lmao)
3:59 = Wait, I recognize that intro for Enoki Films! I always saw it at the beginning of one of my favorite childhood films... ..."Scamper The Penguin"! ☺️ God, that takes me back... ^_^
Side note, Wild 7 also had a live action series in the 70s, which was popular with TV viewers, but was forced to end after 25 episodes due to concerns of violence being shown. A live action film was made in 2011. Science Investigation SRI: The Laughing Man In Flames was a sequel series to Eiji Tsuburaya's last TV production before his passing, 1969's Kaiki Daisakusen (Operation: Mystery, lit. Mysterious Strategy), a horror mystery series that focused more on paranormal phenomena than the typical monster fare of Tsuburaya's works.
Hot damn, never thought I’d see the day. I’m not gonna act like my linking that article about the Tsuburaya anime waaaayyyy back in the comments of your Genma Wars video somehow inspired you making this video, but it’s funny how life works like that. Actually the article mentions a bit about what happened after Tsuburaya stopped making media: apparently he got caught up in some legal drama regarding his company transferring its business. So that’s certainly one hell of an end to this story
Hope he doesn't drop the soap
Is that the one with the Thai "Ultramen"?
@@iwasanangryyoungman not Thai....It's Malaysian Ultraman
I think he was talking about chaiyo
@@johnong2655 you may be referring to his cameos in Upin & Ipin
the most insulting thing about this is not even the cheap production values of his works, but the fact that he almost exclusively adapted classic manga made by legendary authors. You would expect that the japanese would put Shotaro Ishinomori, Leiji Matsumoto and Go Nagai in a higher regard than that instead of letting japanese Uwe Boll adapt their works.
You are not wrong
Japanese Uwe Bowel.
Yeeowch.
Not innacurate, but Gosh DAMN!
I think they just don't have too Much money . Uwe bol is a idiot whit tons of money but no brain
The thing I've learned about Japanese culture is that they have a cultural adherence to societal harmony. Provided everyone gets along - or at least gives off that impression - then society functions smoothly. I.e Don't rock the boat.
So if there was any issues, no-one was going to speak up about it. Not publicly anyway.
@@stevenguitink5947 Meanwhile in the west the Dr. Seuss widow hated the Cat in the Hat live action movie so much she forbids anyone to adapt her husband's books to live action for as long as they don't become public domain
That moment when you are so shocked and angry your soldiers where wiped out by a teleporting psychic you immediately turn into a lizard, but die anyway
I didn’t even know that Shin Megami Tensei had its own live action show, that’s pretty cool actually.
Go watch Marsh's video on it and watch the show itself, it's really funny and crazy.
it didn't, the adaptation was of devil summoner, one of the infinite smt spin-offs that exist
though to be fair, that game does have shin megami tensei in its japanese title, despite just being a spin-off, something it shares only with the first persona
Persona 4 dub anime is funny just want to mention that
@@comfyghost The original Devil Summoner was titled with Shin Megami Tensei, as was TV drama. Technically it is a part of a separate megaten series but it started out as part of SMT.
@@CatManThree it's still a spin-off of smt though
I can just imagine the Tsuburaya family Christmas dinners being just the Tsuburaya's roasting Akira and rightfully so
They’re Catholics after all.
Or just eating KFC.
Oh brother.🙄😠😆
@@neckromancer009 why not both
Suddenly I found you Ery😂
Unfun fact: Tsuburaya also co-animated the infamous TMNT anime OVA from 1996.
I thought there was a fever dream that was real?
“Ninja Turtles! Chew your gum, properly!!”
-An actual line from the ED song
If I’m being honest that OVA is at least aesthetically pretty good to look at.
It was still insane though
@@auralunaprettycure Yeah, it was definitely pretty wild.
That one where the Turtles get "super-mutated"?
Could have been the start of a potential crossover between the Heroes in a Half Shell and the Ultra Brothers
@@iwasanangryyoungman Yep, that one.
The fact this man laid hands on my Maetel and Harlock universe hurts me in ways I can't describe.
...so you moved on to watching Virtual RUclipsr content? 😂
@@Lakhshamana the only way to reach SALVATION
@@usokitsuki butbutbut the crisp white sheets...
I wonder if there will be remakes.
If so, I really hope it's in the same style again, just better handled...You know, so it feels like it fits in the era, like it's pulled from an alternate universe.
Iono, man, I did watch Gun Frontier, Submarine Super 99 and other shows from this dude (at Animax) and they were actually quite decent, all the Leiji Matsumoto stuff was well drawn and the animation was decent for its low budget.
When those bodies were falling out of the ship, they had the EXACT animation battle and quality of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab2021.
I couldn't stop laughing, it was like a beautiful parody of overdramatic anime.
But it was serious.
Which made it even more hilarious.
I like how some are just appearing mid fall instead of coming from offscreen.
I'm not sure how to describe it, but something about the fall looks disturbing. Dunno if it's the weird side of my brain being like " ohhh scary." or if it's more "This is so bad, it's scary."
@@Xylospring It's called the uncanny valley. The animation for the falling scene just looks so unnatural its almost alien
As a huge fan of Tsuburaya's tokusatsu productions, hearing that all these infamously bad anime adaptations were connected to the company in any way is uh. Um. Well suddenly I feel stuff like Ultraman Powered or Leo aren't the biggest flops associated with the family name.
@@gakeeeen And Ultraman Leo is underrated. One of the best Ultraman series
@@gakeeeen is Powered the one with the monster suits that were amazing looking but too fragile to actually do good fights with?
for what it's worth, Powered gave us amazing showa ultra monster redesigns. was really hyped seeing Powered Dada in Ultraman Trigger, and Ultraman Powered himself was done justice in The Absolute Conspiracy spin-off.
Tsuburaya definitely remembers Powered in a fond enough memories at least. the same might not be the case with these anime.
@@gakeeeen It's been a long long time since I watched Powered. All I remember are the cool designs, creepy atmosphere, great theme song and horrible action scenes.
I know they actually got Kane Kosugi to voice Powered in the English dub of TAC, too.
Oh man, I used to watch those as a kid, they were laughably bad. Believe it or not almost all of them managed to get a dub release here in Chile
in all latin america i remember watching some in Animax
Yeeees! I remember, in Animax they aired Genma Wars, Demon Lord Dante, the Beast Apocalypse one and Mars. I remember thinking they all were crappy (funny) and weird, but I thought they were rip-offs of better series. Btw I'm dominican so I guess most Latin America got profaned with this crap XD
And here I thought I was tripping because some seemed familiar.
Creo que dieron en ese canal "Sony spin" verdad?
Algun tenia a un sujeto siendo cortado en la cara con un trincho?
You know it's sad when the anime is shit, but the opening is fire😫
First anime that comes to mind is "Virgin Fleet."
According to the story, the Lost Universe episode was only like that due to a fire at the studio which meant they had no time to finish the final productions and went with a 'layout draft' which was 'good enough' in that the principal colors and basic animation was there, just nothing that should have been for broadcast because it WASN'T meant for broadcast.
Edit: The VPN skit was brilliant.
What a coincidence, I'm doing a panel on the extended Tsuburaya family for Kaiju Masterclass next month. To answer your question, Akira sold Tsuburaya Eizo to ArtPort around 2006. However, that meant that ArtPort got all of their debt as well, including a big chunk owed to Tsuburaya Productions, who Akira worked for at the time of the sale. ArtPort sued TsuPro over this in 2010, but by then Akira had moved over to his nephew Hideaki's company Tsuburaya Dream Factory, which made the disastrous Chinese hero Metal Kaiser, while TsuPro itself had transferred out of Tsuburaya family hands as of 2007. ArtPort basically got out of the movie game at that point and became more interested in real estate, while TDF was basically DOA. But yeah, he's still around, occasionally doing appearances and stuff at TsuPro events.
Very nice trivia to see what happened on that front as well.
Let's not forget Eiji's grandson who played the lead Dai in Space Sheriff Shaider
@@iwasanangryyoungman The whole Tsuburaya clan was covered! Look for a Kaiju Masterclass video titled "The Other Tsuburayas". :)
"Worst anime producer"
RoosterTeeth: "Am I a joke to you?"
"You are the joke... while I'm the jester on the guillotine."
Crunchyroll to roosterteeth: am i a joke to you
::Crunchyroll banging at the gates, demanding to be let in::
This comment aged pretty well.
One of the Kings of Tokusatsu fathered one of the Jesters of Anime. How Tragic.
Gun Frontier looks like something I unironically want to watch so thanks for bringing that up. I had no idea Harlock was an AU series
I'm pretty sure each iteration of harlock is a different "timeline" so to speak, what's canon in one series may not be in others "example Mayu", like no one rly wanted to decide a concrete story for it,
I hated it so much. Especially Shinunora. It was Matumoto's worst manga. It's got the same gritty edgy adult atmosphere as Lupin III mangas, but bad.
The only old anime these guys are qualified to adapt is Chargeman Ken
LOL
i it even possible to make Chargeman Ken even worser?
@@The_Str4nger Given the shows Akira Tsubaraya and his company made, they could have easily found a way to make Chargeman Ken boring.
Man, can you imagine being a laughingstock in the anime industry, especially since he had plenty of time over the years to improve his animations but just can't seem to do it. Maybe this career just isn't for him, no one says he has to follow his father's footsteps
He‘s probably rich though. I wouldn‘t care if I were him lol.
@@mojabaka Honestly that might be it. He's a producer connected to a legendary entertainer with a presumably large family fortune, why should he care?
@@SpinyPufferfish Because he's ruining good properties, that's why he should care
@@popcultureoverdosed He doesnt really have to give a shit trought.
@@Amahankage2004 Yes he does
God damn japan was ahead of the curve, making animations for advertisements for a service that wouldnt exist for another 30 years on a platform which wouldn't be easily accessible to the public until the early 2000s. Gotta admite such forsight.
The only Akira Tsuburaya anime that I vaguely knew about was "Gemna Wars". It's featured in one of TV Tropes' "So Bad, It's Horrible" pages!
I watched most of these shows in Animax Latin America, for some reason Cosmo Warrior Zero and a few other of these productions got movie-level dubbing, so they sounded way better than the clips from the English dub. (While other shows on the same channel got low budget Venezuelan dubs, like GetBackers and Full Metal Alchemist)
To this day I'm still trying to get Cosmo Warrior Zero's OST, Jidai was a great music piece.
that NordVPN ad though
I actually remember watching a bunch of these years ago. They were dubbed to Spanish broadcast in Animax (Latin American). I remember kind of liking Cowboy Captain Harlock. The rest... not so much 😂
Harlock's voice actor in the Mexican dub was also present on the CG movie, José Arenas (Jake from Adventure Time), the Spanish dub of these series made them way better and more enjoyable.
Yes! I remember them too. Some were entertaining to watch, and others were awful.
It was right before Animax Lat Am fell.
I was just about to mention how wierd is to hear that some of these series where never released in North America,yet i,a Mexican,totally remenber seein those series beein broadcast and dubbed in Animax,they where ok from what i remenber,i do like the opening theme to Gun Frontier
I don't remember if Animax was also in Argentina, my country...
Damn, did you got Zas over there?
I wondered where all these strange low budget adaptations of classic manga came from and...now I know! Thanks.
Been waiting for this. Always a joy to get these history lessons to educate myself. Don't really have the time for anime right now but this keeps me interested.
Queen Emeraldas, Maetel Legend, Cosmo Warrior Zero, Gun Frontier and Submarine 99 are awesome. And Space Symphony is my absolute favorite.
Agee on everything but Gun Frontier. Shinunora was so insufferable that it polluted the whole thing.
Working with Media Blasters... I blame the scripts more than the actual dub. Its one thing to have a terrible dub- however its worse to hear what they spouted. That said, thank you for this great video and looking back at these classics! Greatly appreciate it!
Media Blasters should've gone for the abridged method, but I guess anime self awareness tropes were not fully in flux at that time.
@@battlion507 varies on the title but still possible
Media Blasters really should've realized sooner that they're really only good at dubbing hentai.
I remember some of these shows being broadcasted by the South American version of Animax in the late 2000's, with Enoki Films in the credits and everything.
No creative person who works on something does so to make it bad. I see Akira Tsuburaya exists to try and disprove that.
Lmao 30 likes
Beat Takeshi's efforts to make "Takeshi's Challenge" the worst most frustrating game ever made actually made it one of the funniest to watch other people struggle through.
This video randomly showed itself on my RUclips and omg its so interesting. Great work man
From my experience "island episodes" was coined after the 12 or so "extra" episodes inserted into "Nadia the Secret of Blue Water". Never heard it in regard to Gundam, though big Gundam fans seem to to use "in the desert" for time wasting arcs).
in the desert sounds like they're talking about the Rambal Ral arc which is a great arc. Island episode did originate from the Cucruz Doan's Island episode, It was a misconception among Japanese youths that the term originated from Nadia at the time of Lost Universe's controversy though and it has been stated how ironic that both Nadia and Gundam would have low quality episodes centered around characters trapped on an island.
It's interesting to see someone else discuss this topic. Back when I was viewing most of these anime for the first time, I noticed a lot of similar traits like the bad animation, similar episode count and same animators/in-betweeners/production studios kept popping up whenever I looked for information about them. I merely guessed that there had to be some kind of coincidence...but upon digging further, once I discovered that nearly all of Tsuburaya's TV anime were originally airing within the same timeframe of one another, that pretty much paints the picture for you. Even a prolific director or executive producer would never schedule that many TV anime to all air without giving the studios behind production a chance to breathe. What this man was doing was insane. As an artist, I don't personally like to take verbal dumps on other's work...but there's simply no defending some of the Tsuburaya legacy.
For me, the worst offenders truly are Genma Wars, Wild 7 Another and Beast Fighter. Genma Wars is the epitome of an awful modern anime and it's still quite baffling how we still haven't had any American licensor obtain the uncut masters from Enoki (and this might not even be possible now). Wild 7 Another is so awful, it's a flat-out obscurity. While the original OVA is niche itself, it was decent and well-animated. Learning of a sequel in existence peaked my interest and after seeing it finally get a DVD release, I wasted no time buying it....I half-regret ever touching the series now. Pitiful, inconsistent animation, horrible plot, surprisingly listenable soundtrack but that was the only redeeming quality. Once someone makes it to the final episode, they will understand the true meaning of "time wasted that you will never get back." Beast Fighter is debatably the worst of them all, but thankfully, it's so stupidly scripted and horribly animated at times, it's laughable. I'm amazed as well by the fact that I have yet to see anyone who has mentioned Beast Fighter and Demon Lord Dante talk about the fact that the anime are both practically borderline blasphemy against Christianity. Again, it's so stupid that I don't take personal offense myself but it does nothing for the quality of those anime overall. These are just my thoughts. Thanks for reading, if anyone did. This was an intriguing video.
Dang it, after reading all of this I actually want to see how *BAD* Wild 7 is.
@@SuperCosmicMutantSquid Wild 7 Another is pretty pitiful. It is however something you would have to actually watch in order to truly understand why it sucks so bad. Screenshots of the bad animation aren't enough to convey the whole picture. Your only real chance these days is picking up Discotek's DVD release off Crunchyroll. Before Discotek released it, there were no (good) subs or uploads of the series on any anime site. Discotek will soon discontinue all of their current DVD editions so this is the last chance anyone will have to own these obscure releases.
I also recommend actually watching the two episode Wild 7 1994 OVA. It is a product of its time what with the gratuitous violence and all, but there was actual effort at making a decent screenplay with this OVA and the animation is solid and fluid, as it was done by a studio closely affiliated with Pierrot. The OVA only had a VHS release in the States, but has been preserved on the Internet Archive.
my gosh that vpn plug was outstanding, you deserve some kind of award
Is NO ONE going to talk about the sponsorship ad at the end? One of the best parts of the whole video. And I didn't skip it, either.
The live action Kikaider show and its sequel Kikaider 01 were and still are very popular in Hawaii, which explains why a semi official Kikaider fanclub called Generation Kikaider exists in the first place!
I wonder if a Japanese Hawaiian snuck the Kikaider anime footage into the HQ of the defunct Bandai Entertainment America?
Was it before said footage got dubbed into English?
Ironically Hawaii is one of a few places that helped created both the anime and furry fandoms.
Absolutely amazing. As a teen, the local anime-only cable channel was my life. But I hated most of the anime they aired during the daytime, it felt all generic and boring and all in the same style. I just realized with this video that a lot of it was Tsuburaya anime and other companies that were an offshoot of his productions, and they probably aired it during the daytime because it was cheap to license a lot of it to fill up the least watched time slots. Now THAT's a mystery I never expected to see solved, much less 15 years later
I am now cursed with knowing a shin megami tensei show exists
Something interesting that I found out is that most of the anime produced by Akira Tsuburaya had a Latin American Spanish dub (made in Mexico) since they were distributed here by a company called Ledafilms. It's kind of funny how easily they brought almost everything
0:32 this line could very well be in a ghost stories dub episode
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but holy hell can it roll down the hill!
This reminds me of why I don't have fond memories of the early 00's era of the anime industry. The cheap digipaint look did NOT age well, even for some of the better looking shows.
Same, they were also all done in 480p so they look especially bad now that all TVs are HD
@@MercuryFalcon true, its quite funny when there are 1440p anime from the 80s while anime from early 00's is in 480p
@@notuxnobux which animes?
@Janeiro I What anime do you watch nowadays that you think all of them are bland, shitty, and barely animated??
@Janeiro I I feel like you're missing a lot from what they've been offering since 2010s. Not sure what do you mean by "overlitten", unless you're referring to effects or increased color profiles. I mean those are just them utilizing the available tech, most of them are put into good use. There are definitely good works out there in the past decade. What genres are you into exactly?
Also, TV anime nowadays don't exactly have big budgets. Sure it's more than what they used to have but when anime looks good, it's mostly down to talents and good management. We have no shortage of good writers for them, either. Even something like Fate/Zero or Violet Evergarden, they just have really talented in - house artists.
I finally know why Demon Lord Dante & Beast Fighter Apocalypse look so cheap. I was tempted to buy Wild 7 due to the cover art on Discotek expecting to be this niche manly thing but now I don't feel like it. Thank you.
HA
Next time you're on, we should talk about Gun Frontier! Was pleased to see you found it tolerable to decent.
Mercury falcon should just do an abridged VPN anime using multiple anime to show how ridiculous the sponsoring has gotten in videos.
I can't believe you not only brought up the remake of Babel II but also used its theme - it's by a now-obscure visual kei band called Lapis Lazuli whose most famous member today is probably singer Hiroshi Kitadani who sang the original opening to One Piece and has done a lot of work with JAM Project. I'm a big fan of them, which is the only reason I'd ever heard of Babel II at all!
Wow that dub part is creative
Man, as a huge Leiji Matsumoto fan this guy gives me agita. Some of the stories like Cosmo Warrior Zero and especially Gun Frontier are great too, they just look awful.
I've seen most of those even worse adaptations of his as well, like Barom, Dante and Genma... I knew those 3 were by the same guy because they're just so similarily awful, but I didn't realize it was the same guy that did all the Matsumoto adaptations too, as they weren't quite that bad.
Great video.
The problem is we probably wouldn't have the stories at all if it weren't for the shoe string budget. The shows served a purpose, even if the animation suffered. I'd rather have them than not.
I noticed that too! I've always loved Leiji Matsumoto's design. (Interstellar 5555 anyone?) Did he ape Matsumoto's art style?
@@Leijiverse true. I'm grateful anyway
I'm still waiting for Discotek to license Genma Wars, schlock of quality that pure shouldn't be left to rot in obscurity. If any company would dare to relicense it, it would be the one that got Mad Bull 34 and Violence Jack (and half of the Enoki catalog as is, clearly). Genma Wars is easily my favorite bad anime, Garzey's Wing, Mars of Destruction, they blush in the presence of Genma Wars.
I think Genma Wars OVA is already licensed… and I KNOW Violence Jack is.
@Janeiro I Schlock is a German word meaning "low-quality goods." It's been used by bad movie fans for over 20 years, along with "schlockmeister" eg, "one who sells low-quality goods."
@Janeiro I dude who hurt you
@Janeiro I They generally like so-called "bad" movies, either in spite of, or even because of, perceived badness.
As for the word schlock... English has borrowed words for a thousand years; shoot modern English was even created by blending several languages together. (Here's a decent summary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English.) There's no harm in having a vocabulary, & schlock has a slightly different connotation than bad. Schlock implies that the film is primarily a product instead of a work of art; which is correct if you're talking about AIP & similar exploitation production companies.
I can't believe how many shows feature Captain Harlock and the gang😂
This is incredible. Good work!
This dude is the embodiment of a meme "But when I do it"
Man, and I thought Goro Miyazaki had a tough relationship with his father.
Do you mean Goro Miyazaki and his younger brother?
Great video man. Almost all of the 2000s Tsuburaya anime aired dubed into spanish here in Argentina through Animax. I loved demon lord dante and gun frontier, GF opening song was sick
Akira isn't even mentioned as being Eiji's son on Wikipedia. XD
He does have a google search however. Said search has mentioned him as Eiji Tsuburaya’s youngest but only surviving son. His two older brothers died rather early, at 42 (for the oldest) and 60-61 (for the middle).
@@SlapstickGenius23 Did he bump them off?
@@TheSapphireLeo His bad anime killed them.
1:17 his face morphing like that had me rolling 😂
There's so much fantastic info in this vid! Fantastic work! Looking forward to your future uploads!
Funny how I've just watched Marsh's video on the Devil Summoner TV show, this feels like fate.
i like how my childhood memories made me remember all this things as really cool animes i loved to watch xD
the last part is brilliant! there's also a square space in the train.
This makes me realize just how bad Animax LA's situation was, to have a need to purchas every single one of these to have something to air. And no, people didn't really like them either here, except maybe for Gun Frontier.
1:55 Jack frost looks so traumatized
I remember watching cosmowarrior zero. It was one of the first anime I had ever seen. Didn't think it was that bad. But looking at it *now* ...
what's changed? I think it's still good.
This is exactly the type of video I love, thank you so much for this
The characters in each series nearly always look alike. I get that they are linked by either the mangaka plus team or the story (or both), but man give them characters some variety. There's always edgelord macspaceship and lady van unrealistic beauty standard.
To give credit where credit is due, Akira kept the character designs mostly similar to how they were in the manga. Same face syndrome was in full effect with old school manga
I can only think of the daft punk album
I only opened this video because I thought it was a Kenny Lauderdale video, but it was still a nice watch. You earned a new subscriber.
"on the other hand, gold" : the Ultraman and Godzilla series
"on the other hand, painful agonizing failure": whatever this thing
While it's from the same family, Akira Tsuburaya's Tsuburaya Entertainment (or sometimes Tsuburaya Pictures) is different from Tsuburaya Productions who made Ultraman and some of the classic giant heroes.
"Is there any way I can make amends for this pathetic child?" Made me snort laugh
I'm a big fan of the Leijiverse series he's helped make, but goddamn did they look like garbage. It's just too bad that they wouldn't have existed otherwise
My boy Leji deserved better.
mentioned here anime are much more beautiful than first Captain Harlock series. I don't understand your complains
lol that ad dub fit right in with this video
loved the nordVPN ad at the end XD
I would have hated to be the artist/ artists working on these. You can see it was just work.
I just found out your channel.
That last part is how everyone should make promotions lol
Upon watching this video, you have earned my subscription. But alas, I have a genius idea: a video on Toshiki Inoue
God Majuu Sensen the apocalypse....
the final act of that show is legit narrative gibberish
I'm surprised you didn't mention the mao dante anime had an exclusive ending just like the genma wars anime because both manga weren't finished. or that eiji tsuburaya's grandchild hiroshi would become the star of Space Sheriff Shaider
I mentioned that the Genma Wars manga was cancelled during the skull city in my solo review of Genma Wars a few years back. I only read a few chapters of Mao Dante and it was specifically to compare scenes to the anime.
Yeah, the Mao Dante anime adds an ending. The manga just sort of stops.
Damn I knew the surname rang a bell...
If someone from latin america is reading this, then you probably had the same thought as me: Animax de verdad compro varias de estas series por 2 pesos antes de morir (demasiado sueño para seguir escribiendo en un mismo idioma)
Para q al final deje de pasar anime, convirtiéndose en el tsuburaya de las cadenas de tv 🤡🤡🤡
Pensé exactamente lo mismo mientras veia el video, llenaron los horarios muertos con estas series.
Man these dubs outside context is comedy gold
❤❤❤. NIce retrospective look back at this series! When I first discovered animie about 25 years ago, there was one series I found very interesting, intriguing, and disturbing at the same time. The series was called " Crying Freeman, Golgol -13 " and was about a ruthless professional assassin ! Kind of reminded me of James Bond Japanese version. Except that the animie was extremely violent, bloody, and grotesque at times ; what surprised me was the language used was very adult and coarse, and there was nudity as well !
Best nordvpn commercial ever
Funny thing is that here in some countries of Latin America, there was this channel called "Animax" and for their first years they aired most (if not all) of these bad animes xD I remember my sister always telling me to watch Gun Frontier and I was confused why some of these animes had the "same" protagonist... The only thing I remember from Mars the Terminator was the opening which is good. I don't know if the latin spanish dub was before or after there was an american release. No doubt why later the channel had better animes to show
it's jarring seeing leiji matsumoto's art in a bad anime
Rest in peace eiji Tsuburaya
You will be missed
I strongly disagree on Queen Emeraldas, Maetel Legend and Cosmowarrior Zero.
Those Matsumoto adaptations are gorgeous.
12:33 I actually saw all of Wild 7 Another through Discotek's DVD release - a decision I made purely because an English translation was pretty dang rare and I wanted in on that - and I don't remember the animation in that scene being THAT bad. Yeah, there was low-budget animation, awkward CG and QUALITY for days - none of which detracted from my personal enjoyment of the show - but I'm pretty certain that was a video glitch on the fault of the Latin American release where I assume you got those obviously 480p clips.
Still, love the topic covered here. The AT-X Famous Creator Series is infinitely interesting to me, and between this and the Land of Obscusion's entry on "Akira Tsuburaya's Retro-Modern Anime Club Band", I welcome all the coverage these rightfully forgotten anime can possibly get.
I was not ready for an ad read that doubles as an abridged one-shot
I would say than the sad part is than a lot of those are bad animes about good mangas
I actually liked Galaxy Railways & Emeraldas personally. Though I can do without punching the babies out of anyone.
Goddess Sairen is my favorite part of QE. And I like Frell's episodes in the GR. Frell is Queen Millennia counterpart from the parallel universe.
excellent video is always well researched
In Latin America a bunch of his works were dubbed.
I only remember liking Gun Frontier and even by as a dumb kid I could see that Demon Lord Dante being a disjointed mess XD.
I feel like the ending of a pretty throurough summary of this weird line of anime productions being a NordVPN sponsor dubbed over one of those scenes in a campy way is the perfect way to end this video (the text at the end caught me off guard lmao)
My god, I don't watch much films but I gotta look at some of these. This looks like the exact stuff id like
your videos are really interesting, thanks for this content
Nice use of the Toonami Deep Space Bass soundtrack!
3:59 = Wait, I recognize that intro for Enoki Films! I always saw it at the beginning of one of my favorite childhood films...
..."Scamper The Penguin"! ☺️ God, that takes me back... ^_^
Most of Leijiverse anime are dubbed in France, so It surprised me that I saw a lot of series talked about in this video
1:26 when you turn off your alarm in the morning on a weekday
Side note, Wild 7 also had a live action series in the 70s, which was popular with TV viewers, but was forced to end after 25 episodes due to concerns of violence being shown. A live action film was made in 2011.
Science Investigation SRI: The Laughing Man In Flames was a sequel series to Eiji Tsuburaya's last TV production before his passing, 1969's Kaiki Daisakusen (Operation: Mystery, lit. Mysterious Strategy), a horror mystery series that focused more on paranormal phenomena than the typical monster fare of Tsuburaya's works.
Great commercial at the end :) good job on the video!
Thanks, you helped me understand many shows I was surprised to remember. Also, 20:44 was the best ad ever, wtf.