#kokusai eiga-sha

[laboitediabolique]

Front cover of Galvion press sheet, 1984. Scanned from my personal collection.

[diamond-is-sparkling]

Kokusai Eiga-sha: Hey kids and fujoshi, want to see more mass environmental destruction?

I respect Kokusai Eiga-sha going hard with depicting environmental ruin in their shows, although I wonder if they actually inspired any members of their audiences to become more interested in environmentalism.

[mechanimereview]

(#MechaMarch2024) Galactic Gale Baxingar: Bringing History to the Future

I feel a little sad writing this because this is a super robot trilogy that I never knew existed until it went out of print. Discotek was the publisher which released all three of the J9 trilogy (by Kokusai Eiga-sha in the early 1980’s) and the weird thing was these were pulled from print almost immediately. I mean like months after the first series was released on blu-ray in the United States.…

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #68: Futari Daka

Originally posted on Twitter on April 29, 2023.

Based on the manga series by Kaoru Shintani, the show was produced by Kokusai Eiga-sha in its final production before bankruptcy. The series is directed by Tokizō Tsuchiya, and aired on Fuji TV from September 20, 1984 to June 21, 1985.

When Taka Sawatari and his mother were heading home after having dinner, they were attacked by a motorcycle gang. They got saved by a mysterious young man. The next day, Sawatari learned that that young man was a professional racer who has the same first name, Taka Toujou.

In a race, Sawatari loses control when entering a curve, nearly killing Toujou. After the event, the two become rivals as they compete against each other with their racing skills.

The series originally aired on a 7:30 PM Thursday timeslot, but that has changed twice.

The series didn’t get a proper ending due to the financial issues the studio had and was cancelled. But it did get some overseas attention as the show aired in France in 1990, but the final four episodes didn’t air in the country. Yeah a shame this show is forgotten nowadays.

[terebifunhouse]

Excited to see MIC’s ACROBUNCH coming to Discotek BD! It’s a show that’s held the fascination of anime fans since it first aired - this text is an Acrobunch article from a 1983 C/FO Magazine, complete with Books Nippan ad. Also in this issue was an Acrobunch fanfic story! 

[everyanimatedmovie]

479. Space Warrior Baldios (1981)

6/10

Due to the unfortunate fact that I could only find a copy in Italian, the absolute worst thing that I can say about this movie is that the animation is kind of cheap some of the time.

Despite not being extraordinarily psychedelic, or at least overwhelming me with expensive looking art, I found myself lulled into a state of nostalgic bliss which one can derive from a particular kind of 80’s giant robot anime. While the happy prisoner of this unhappy state, I gazed upon shot after shot of explosions, spaceships, and exploding spaceships, with the occasional confounding dialogue scene peppered in-between, and was brought back to an era in my life long forgotten – a time when my parents were too cheap to pay for cable, and instead of watching Cartoon Network like a normal child I was relegated to watching Saturday morning reruns of shitty 80’s cartoons on whatever channel was doing that in the zeros. Unless, and this is not altogether unlikely, I’m conflating that memory with separate incidents in which I watched VHS tapes of similar cartoons, which I seem to recall as well. Memory is a fickle thing, particularly when you spend all of your free time drugging it into submission like you’re Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner.

[diamond-is-sparkling]

I will say, however, that I love Kokusai Eiga-sha for the writing, voicing, and soundtracks in their shows.

Animation wise, we can get stuff like our heroes' eyes melting like ice cream here.

[diamond-is-sparkling]

Started watching Galvion, and within the first few minutes it's set up some interesting lore:

Humanity meets aliens.

Aliens are pretty chill and share their knowledge.

Mankind makes great strive in its own science thanks to the aliens' teachings.

World War III starts, but is limited to just humans.

In the face of humanity's violence, the aliens... just lock us in our room.

It's just backstory to set up the show, but man, it's refreshing to just see a different take on alien-human interactions.

At the same time, I'm not surprised by that refreshing feeling. Galvion is a Kokusai Eiga-sha (J9 trilogy, Acrobunch, Baldios) joint, and I've found all of their shows to be refreshing one way or another.

[diamond-is-sparkling]

So that was Galvion.

My thoughts?

The OP is an absolute banger.

The soundtrack is filled with a lot of bangers from Masao Nakajima as well.

There's also a lot I enjoyed about the show on a conceptual level.

But in terms of execution, it all felt flat.

Muu lacked the charm of other Kokusai Eiga-sha mecha protagonists, and although Maya is supposedly the co-protagonist, he never received episodes focused on him. As a whole, the characters are underutilized.

The show touched upon themes of class oppression, gentrification, prison cruelty, and distrust of authority figures. But it just touched upon them, and never really made them matter for more than one episode, if even that.

The main antagonist, Henry, did have some potential in terms of being a calculating and intimidating villain who still had moments of human vulnerability.

In terms of the episodes themselves, they varied from being fun, bombastic adventures to "I just finished this episode and it literally left no impressions on me."

Ultimately, however, I feel like I can't be too harsh on Galvion. Even though the show itself is disappointing compared to the rad opening or the novelty of it being cancelled early on and even being a piece of lost media until the 2010s, I believe the staff could have saved the show if it was allowed a full run. Would it have been the best show ever? No, because it would still have often have lackluster episodes among the first 22 episodes. But it could have been a fun time with even more jazzy songs, and that would have made it absolutely worth it.