#toei mysterious comedy series

[showamagicalgirls]

The series that has been occupying my mind lately is Sing! Great Dragon Palace (うたう!大龍宮城) .

This is a late stage iteration of the Toei Mysterious Comedy Series (東映不思議コメディーシリーズ), a programming block that is best remembered by Magical Girl fans for for La Belle Fille Masquée Poitrine (美少女仮面ポワトリン).

It ran for most of 1992, which puts it slightly over the line into the early Heisei (平成) period of Japanese period, just slightly off the core topic of this blog.

But there are two things that make it interesting to me. The first is that it's a live-action musical, which is genuinely pretty unique.

The second is the way it connects back to Japanese literary history. It's heavily patterened after the Urashima Taro (浦島太郎) story, which goes all the way back to the Nihon Shoki (日本書紀), the second oldest book of Japanese history.

I have generally considered three Japanese folktales to be the most important predecessors for Magical Girls -- the story of Amaterasu (天照大御神), The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語), and Urashima Taro (浦島 太郎).

[gensoteki]

Mysterious Nile Girl Thutmose -31- 32

Cleopatra's Pickles

Thutmose wants to have a day off and leaves the job of catching a demon to Thutmose's club.

Bon Odori Practice.

A boy who likes Bon Odori dance is possessed by a demon ...

[animefeminist]

Anime’s Glass Ceiling: what keeps women out of the director’s chair?

One of my favorite current manga is Beastars, by Itagaki Paru. A bizarre mash-up of high school soap opera, murder mystery and obsessive thought experiment on how a world populated by animals might function, it earned itself enough acclaim to garner an anime adaptation produced by Studio Orange.

Orange is the best CG studio in the anime industry, but there was one aspect of their otherwise fantastic adaptation that stood out to me, like a splinter lodged in your hand from an otherwise beautiful coffee table. While Itagaki, the creator of Beastars, is a woman, the director of the anime—Matsumi Shinichi—is a man.

The world of manga is home to many talented and successful female writers and artists. Takeuchi Naoko combined the appeal of tokusatsu drama with magical girl aesthetics to create Sailor Moon, and in doing so created a whole new kind of magical girl story that remains popular to this day. Arakawa Hiromu wrote and drew one of the best shounen comics of the 2000s with Fullmetal Alchemist, and then proved herself equally capable of easy-going slice of life stories with her farming comic Silver Spoon.

Then you have Takahashi Rumiko, who is a manga industry unto herself, with masterpieces ranging from Urusei Yatsura’s zany comedy to Maison Ikkoku’s relationship drama to Mermaid Forest’s horror; not to mention that her series Ranma ½ played a central role in introducing countless American fans to anime in the 1990s.

The popularity of these authors led to their work being adapted into similarly successful anime. But most of these anime, if not all of them, were directed by men. Sailor Moon made the careers of countless animators and creators at Toei, but the main directors—Sato Junichi, Ikuhara Kunihiko, Igarashi Takuyai—were men. The 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist I watched as a kid was directed by Mizushima Seiji and written by Aikawa Sho, both men. Urusei Yatsura served as the proving ground for one of anime’s most famous auteurs, Oshii Mamoru—a man.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #168: Anime Shūkan DX! Mi-Pha-Pu

An anime television series produced by Toei Animation, which aired on TV Asahi from February 14, 1998 to February 6, 1999 for 48 episodes. The episodes usually feature 3 7-minute segments which each revolve around different series, Fushigi Mahou Fan Fan Pharmacy, Heli-Tako Pū-chan and Kocchi Muite! Miiko.

The characters who introduced the segments were Nyarome and Kemunpas, characters from Mōretsu Atarō created by Fujio Akatsuka, which would be for a future subject.

Fushigi Mahou Fan Fan Pharmacy is a magical girl series about Popuri, a girl who recently moved to a small pharmacy called Fun Fun Pharmacy, and meets a witch named Miss Fukiko, who gives her a mysterious bottle that creates magic spirits. This is the only series included in all 48 episodes since a few stories run for a half-hour.

Heli-Tako Pū-chan is based on the manga by Sasaki Takemaru, and follows the adventures and hijinks of a strange red octopus creature.

Kocchi Muite! Miiko is based on the comedy manga by Eriko Ono, and follows the life of a fifth grader named Miiko Yamada

Okay so I know I rushed this one out but I couldn’t care. I just haven’t seen it…

[peacholivarosetta]

Wacky Precure (New Precure series concept)

This is the logo of Wacky Precure the new Precure series concept. Wacky Precure's signature motif is weirdness and while the main themes are weird, surreal, slapstick, magic and mystery, Wacky Precure will have the orange, green, blue, red and black cures in it. Wacky Precure has Cure Copy the orange cure, Cure Logic the green cure, Cure Boomerang the blue cure, Cure Rubber the red cure, and Cure Blast the black cure as the main characters, Cure Rubber will be an adult cure and while Cure Blast will be a male cure. And lastly, Wacky Precure will be a comedy with funny humor and funny jokes in it, Wacky Precure is going to be Precure's weirdest and hilarious season ever.

Pretty Cure Series and PreCure © Toei Animation Co., Ltd. / All-Nippon News Network / Asahi Broadcasting Corporation / TV Asahi Corporation.

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG ENTERTAINMENT: Representing the LGBT way - TV Asahi's "Crayon Shin-Chan" and "Wonderful PreCure!" join forces in a new special crossover episodes [#OneNETnewsEXCLUSIVE]

(Written by Luz Isidora Noceda / Regional Correspondent of Disney XD News)

TOKYO, JAPAN -- Twice the heroine, double the weekend fun! A Tokyo-based anime studios between Shin-Ei and Toei Animation proud to present the world's first anime collaborative crossover of 'Crayon Shin-chan' and 'Wonderful PreCure!' airing both last Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning the next day (May 18th and 19th, 2024 -- Japan local time).

In a spot report via Crunchyroll News, a special collaboration recently happened first on national Japanese kids TV. Airing just for the occasional purpose since both anime shows are part of the same network at JOEX-TV 5's TV Asahi, among the affiliated All-Nippon News Network TV stations across Japan.

For those don't know about these anime collaborative shows on TV Asahi last weekend… 'Crayon Shin-chan' is a long-running comedy anime series centered around the misadventures of a mischievous kindergartener named Mr. Shinnosuke Nohara (knowing simply as Shin-chan) and his family of Nohara. While 'Wonderful PreCure!', one of a latest magical anime girl franchise of 'Pretty Cure' follows a group of the 2nd-year middle-school student sisters between 'Komugi Inukai' and 'Iroha Inukai' of Second Wangan Middle School (SWMS) who transformed together into magical warriors to protect the world from evil forces.

The show is known for its little to adult humor, quirky characters, perverted bits in several episodes and slice-of-life storytelling. And on the other side for a new 'Pretty Cure' anime franchise, they introduces new characters, themes and magical transformations who puts into teamwork with talkative animals.

Crunchyroll and OneNETnews are on the scene in action, in the upcoming episode titles on both anime shows called "Ora, I'm a Precure" and "The Mystery of the Mirror Stone". Anime fandoms on both sides in Japan are excited to see the difference in this said collaborative crossover event. It is unclear if they are going to have a secured animation and local licensing partnership on both animation studios of Japan.

Between 'Crayon Shin-chan' and 'Wonderful PreCure!' if Shin-Ei and Toei officially plans to have a limited 8-episode series event on TV Asahi, sometimes more or less… Everyone soon to be shocked globally and turns himself into an LGBT-style anime show with the same anime title but not on 'Crayon Shin-chan' at that time.

'Mr. Shinnosuke' (Cure Oshiri) and a pet dog 'Shiro' (Cure Wataame) may soon obtain the transformation item together of 'Wonderful Pact', saying their phrase individually "Pretty Cure! My Evolution!". Fighting to save the world in a normal life of Japan but, this needs to be a short training for both gay-like Cure heroine individuals for a while.

It may be the best to go on late nights at primetime in one go each weekend, right after your local news in their selected affiliates of "All-Nippon News Network" and a main TV station of TV Asahi in Tokyo. Neither of the show creators yet to be approved either for web streaming exclusive, a TV-anime show for teens and maybe adults, or both. One things for sure if 'Mr. Shinnosuke' (Cure Oshiri) and the pet dog 'Shiro' (Cure Wataame) now soon become a legal LGBT-style precure duos… His future depends on it, in time for this anime collaborative crossover event with a good professional, quality-wise storytelling that makes Japanese viewers and around the world to see themselves in history.

Here in the Philippines for international syndication, 'Crayon Shin-chan' airs in the early millenium of 2000s on IBC 13, RPN 9 (now RPTV) and ABC 5 (now known as TV5). While the defunct-cable anime channel 'Hero TV' in the late-June 2007, 'Pretty Cure' was aired (part of the ABS-CBN cable network, now as Kapamilya Channel) in a potential lost media of Tagalog dubs.

It's a sure delightful blend of contrasting styles & looks, and Japanese fans of both anime series likely enjoyed seeing their new protagonist boy-heroine characters interact in this unique and upcoming crossover anime episode events! 'Crayon Shin-chan' and 'Wonderful PreCure!' are available to stream right now on demand thru 'Abema TV' and 'TVer'.

SCREENGRAB COURTESY: Shin-Ei and Toei Animation via JOEX-TV 5's TV Asahi

SOURCE: *https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/latest/2024/5/11/wonderful-precure-crayon-shin-chan-anime-crossover [Referenced News Article via Crunchyroll News] *https://us.oricon-group.com/news/522/ [Referenced News Article via Oricon News] *https://anitrendz.net/news/2024/01/08/wonderful-precure-is-the-next-pretty-cure-anime/ [Referenced News Article via AnimeTrendz] *https://4nn.cx/.210821 [Referenced Editorial Article via Anime News Network] *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crayon_Shin-chan#Anime *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderful_Pretty_Cure!#Anime *https://crayonshinchan.fandom.com/wiki/Crayon_Shin-chan_in_Philippines *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_Philippine_television

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[mgtitlecards]

“Fushigi Shoujo Nile na Thutmose” - January 6, 1991

[toeifushigicomedyheroines]

Fushigi Shoujo Nile na Thutmose - ED 1: Tsukiyo no Gondola

Some wholesome shots of Sanae with her sister Manami

[all-things-cute-and-wonderful]

Tuttmose by ルナ・ルーン

[majokkoradio]

“Terminal” - Fushigi Shoujo Nile na Thutmose - Image Song

[showamagicalgirls]

More images from the opening of Sing! Great Dragon Palace (うたう!大龍宮城).

[gensoteki]

Misterious Nile Girl Thutmose - 29, 30

Warsa's Sister

The demons of the nile want to make a syndicate to face thutmose. they are looking for a leader.

Warsa's Lover

A smart boy is rejected by Manami and her friends, the boy is attacked by a demon.

[2centsoframblings]

A place in which I ramble about what I saw:

Bungō Stray Dogs: Anime Season 1

Golden Kamuy: Anime Season 1

Hagane no renkinjutsushi - Fullmetal Alchemist: Anime 2003/2004 - Shamballa o Yuku Mono

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Gō (Anime)

Joker Game: Anime

Mahō Shōjo Ikusei Keikaku (‘Magical Girl Raising Project’): Anime

Monster: Anime

Ō-sama Ranking: Anime

Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijō ni Tensei Shite Shimatta…/HameFura: Anime Season 1

Saint Seiya: Kogane Tamashī - Soul of Gold

Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Anime

Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon (‘My Happy Marriage’): Anime

X: OAV

Yami no Matsuei (‘Descendants of Darkness’): Anime

Yōjo Senki - The Saga of Tanya the Evil: Anime

Yūkoku no Moriarty (‘Moriarty The Patriot’): Anime Season 1

My two cents

- Strongly recommended - Recommended - Not recommended - Strongly not recommended

Category

- Josei - Seinen - Shōjo - Shōnen

Genre

- Action - Adventure - Coming of age - Crime - Dark Fantasy - Fantasy - Historical - Isekai - Japanese-Style Western - Magical girl - Martial arts - Military - Murder Mystery - Mystery - Mythological - Political Thriller - Psychological horror - Psychological thriller - Reverse Harem - Romantic Comedy - Spy Fiction - Steampunk - Supernatural - Supernatural Horror - Supernatural Thriller - Survival Action

Media

- Anime motion picture - Anime television series - O.A.V.

Anime Studio

- Bones - Geno Studio - J.C. Staff - Kinema Citrus - Lerche - Madhouse - NUT - Passione - Production I.G - Silver Link - Studio Deen - Toei Animation - WIT Studio

[animefeminist]

Anime’s Glass Ceiling: what keeps women out of the director’s chair?

One of my favorite current manga is Beastars, by Itagaki Paru. A bizarre mash-up of high school soap opera, murder mystery and obsessive thought experiment on how a world populated by animals might function, it earned itself enough acclaim to garner an anime adaptation produced by Studio Orange.

Orange is the best CG studio in the anime industry, but there was one aspect of their otherwise fantastic adaptation that stood out to me, like a splinter lodged in your hand from an otherwise beautiful coffee table. While Itagaki, the creator of Beastars, is a woman, the director of the anime—Matsumi Shinichi—is a man.

The world of manga is home to many talented and successful female writers and artists. Takeuchi Naoko combined the appeal of tokusatsu drama with magical girl aesthetics to create Sailor Moon, and in doing so created a whole new kind of magical girl story that remains popular to this day. Arakawa Hiromu wrote and drew one of the best shounen comics of the 2000s with Fullmetal Alchemist, and then proved herself equally capable of easy-going slice of life stories with her farming comic Silver Spoon.

Then you have Takahashi Rumiko, who is a manga industry unto herself, with masterpieces ranging from Urusei Yatsura’s zany comedy to Maison Ikkoku’s relationship drama to Mermaid Forest’s horror; not to mention that her series Ranma ½ played a central role in introducing countless American fans to anime in the 1990s.

The popularity of these authors led to their work being adapted into similarly successful anime. But most of these anime, if not all of them, were directed by men. Sailor Moon made the careers of countless animators and creators at Toei, but the main directors—Sato Junichi, Ikuhara Kunihiko, Igarashi Takuyai—were men. The 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist I watched as a kid was directed by Mizushima Seiji and written by Aikawa Sho, both men. Urusei Yatsura served as the proving ground for one of anime’s most famous auteurs, Oshii Mamoru—a man.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[godzillandmuseum]

Toei Tokusatsu World and the Mysterious Comedy Series

In a rare move from the Toei company, and to help people with the current events, Toei has started officially releasing their older tokusatsu (special effects) shows in their new youtube channel Toei Tokusatsu World Official.

Most of these shows have english subtitles, many for the first time ever! And with this cute little ninja fox as the mascot!

There is a lot of variety even if the Sentai series are off-limits due to copyright shenanigans. There are several classics like Android Kikaider and Robot Detective, many of the Metal Heroes series like Jaspion and Winspector, oddities like the somewhat Ultraman-related Captain Ultra, and there’s even an entry from the Kamen Rider series: the gritty 90s movie Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue.

But not only that! The channel is also very generous to the fans of cuteness!

Toei has had several branches of Tokusatsu shows througout the decades, the most popular are easily Kamen Rider, Super Sentai and Metal Heroes, but there is another one that ran from the early 80s to the early 90s, called Toei Fushigi Comedy Series, fushigi meaning “mysterious”, wich focused on cute monsters, cute robots and cute girl superheroes!

They are cute, they are weird, they are full of puppets, and they are highly recommended to check out! 

Here’s a list of the shows available, I don’t know wich are blocked by region (to be updated):

Robot 8-Chan [ep 1, ep 2] (robot)

Batten Robomaru [ep 1, ep 2] (robot)

Pettonton [ep 1, ep 2] (monster)

Nemulin [ep 1, ep 2] (monster)

Kamitaman [ep 1, ep 2] (monster)

Marin Gumi [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Hard Gumi [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Magical Girl Chukana Paipai [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Magical Girl Chukana Ipanema [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Poitrine [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Thutmose [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

Utau! Dairyugujo [ep 1, ep 2] (superheroine)

All the shows available have at minimun two episodes each as of this writing. The channel is scheluded to keep uploading more episodes of different shows as time goes on, but keep in mind that the more popular series are more likely to get episodes sooner, so if you end up liking any of these entries then consider supporting them with views, likes, comments, sharing etc!

Just keep in mind that all these shows are decades old and come from a country that for many is foreign, meaning they may have some moments and jokes that are not to some/many people’s tastes, like depictions of violence as funny.

With that said, and of course, this being a Godzilland blog I inmediatly directed my atention to the three “monster” shows: the ET-inspired alien Pettenton, the sleepy fairy Nemulin and the mischievous god Kamitaman:

[himitsusentaiblog]

How do you feel about continuity errors in Toku? Like when a newer show references an older one but gets details wrong or returning characters are written differently?

It doesn’t bother me too much these days.  It used to, it used to a lot but back in the old days, the shows were all disconnected and didn’t really have crossovers or returning characters with a few notable exceptions.

Showa Kamen Rider was pretty good at maintaining a sense of internal continuity between the shows.  There were a few strange thing, like the weird return of Riderman after his death in Kamen Rider V3.

The mess of the M78 Ultraman continuity can be chalked up to it being a retroactive continuity with the first three series (Ultra Q, Ultraman and Ultraseven) originally being separate shows with no real connections forced into a timeline after the passing of the original creator.

There really wasn’t a strict adherence to the concept of continuity as we know it today with our sometimes obsessive fandom culture back in the 1960s and 1970s.  Then they started to do the massive crossovers in the 1990s starting with Chouriki Sentai Ohranger vs. Kakuranger.

That’s when Super Sentai started to create a kind of hodgepodge continuity, cobbled together on the fly to justify crossovers for series designed first and foremost to make sense as individual narratives more than pieces of a larger story.  There were some serious mental and narrative gymnastics required for some of these teamups to make any sense whatsoever given the clashing themes and timelines of these shows.

For example, Ohranger supposedly takes place in the year 1999 and Carranger is set in the then present day of 1996.  However, to make a crossover work, they have to handwave the differences in tone to make them work together.

That’s not even to mention the completely different tones of the two series, with one being a fairly serious story of military heroes vs mechanical enemies and the other being a ridiculous comedy about auto mechanics fighting space bikers. For the record, that crossover is HILARIOUS and I love it dearly, even if it doesn’t make a lick of damn sense when you think about it too long.

I have learned to just kind of roll with the continuity issues in Tokusatsu unless they are egregiously in violation of the series that are airing at the moment. For example, the most recent Super Hero Taisen film bothered me a lot.

My biggest issues with it being how out of character and out of story everything was.  First off, the CR Division ONLY treated victims of the Bugster virus so there is no reason for them to bring Amu down there to treat her.  Second, there is no explanation at all for how the Kyurangers showed up.  It had already been established that they existed in another galaxy (if not another universe) and they had had to go through a ton of effort to get them to crossover with Gavan and Dekaranger in their own series.  So, how did they just randomly show up on OUR Earth to help with this?  

Of course, all of the Super Hero Taisen movies are a mess continuity wise so I tend to just roll my eyes and deal with it.  Especially if they give us awesome spinoffs like the Kamen Sentai Gorider mini-series.

I have learned to just accept continuity goofs, fudges and retcons for the most part unless they are extremely egregious in tokusatsu.  As long as the originated series a character comes from maintains its own internal logic and continuity, that works for me.  Crossovers, guest appearances and cameos are really just treats for the fans and ways for Toei or Tsuburaya to make a little extra cash on the side with some ticket/video sales.  

However, when the errors really start to bug me, when the out of character moments great, I remember my mantra, the wise words of Mystery Science Theater 3000:

And then everything is better.  Or I keep screaming at the TV/Laptop and shut it off to go do things that actually matter.  Sometimes though, if the idea hits me while watching, I come up with fanfic ideas that explain away the errors in convoluted ways.