Two kids become adoptive parents to a UFO baby that crashes to earth.

It made it to some European countries, but for an English version you’ll need to go with fansubs. In the same way that director Hiroaki Sakurai would capture the manga aesthetic of Cromartie High in its anime adaptation, he really gets the aesthetic of both Mika Kawamura’s manga, and the general aesthetic of shojo aimed at that middle school demographic.

Watched the first episode, there’s lots of narrative elements you can see that appear in a lot of these series – heroine’s world turned upside down, heroines expectations of how the world should work thwarted, forced to share space with a “horrible” boy – these all sprung to mind as elements I’ve seen before, but also make perfect sense for the age range it’s aimed at. There’s also a nice line in absurd humour, mainly provided by the sitter-pet, Wannya. In particular, the tale of how Wannya and the baby got to Earth, takes a huge sci-fi concept and reduces it down to something incredibly mundane. It’s great.

Also, extreme reactions:

Another guy who was big in the late 90s/early 00s, but kind of dropped off, was Keiji Gotoh. Before Gate Keepers, his character design work had been seen on shows like Nadesico, Sorceror Hunters, Those Who Hunt Elves, Hyper Police. While he was in the process of making the transition to director here (in the Chief Animation director chair), his actual character design work falls off once he starts regularly working as director.

Which is a shame as his character design work is very distinctively his, something lacking in a lot of character designers today. Though to be fair, the character designer he does tend to work with now is his wife Megumi Kadonosono, so he’s probably got his reasons. But we’ll get to those shows later.

I seem to remember interest in Gatekeepers around it’s release, primarily due to Gotoh, as the video game and manga it’s based on were never around in the UK. It’s the story of alien invasion in the sixties, thwarted by superpowered Japanese school kids. It was followed in 2002, by Gate Keepers 21, a sequel set in modern times.

Go Nagai’s number one fan, Masami Obari gets around to copying Evangelion. I remember seeing some of this and not being impressed, but at the same time, I can’t recall why. Obari is another guy whose work you’d never mistake for someone else, even when he’s blatantly showing off his Nagai love (the Sirene looking lass in the credits). And he’s a great animator.

However, I’d question his merits as a director. I don’t think I’ve seen anything he’s directed that’s left a lasting impression, outside of when his work’s been re-cut as a music video.

I think I’ve may have found the SHAFT show I’d like.

The anime tales of KONISHIKI as a young boy directed by Nabeshin. Apparently huge (pun intended) in South America, this is another show I had never heard of until I started doing this series of posts. KONISHIKI doesn’t actually do his own voice, instead it is provided by anime’s top androgyne Kujira (Orochimaru from Naruto).

Yeah, I totally want to see this.

The reboot of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, now based firmly around the Lovecraftian collectable card game, and the show that brought Yu-Gi-Oh to the west. Arriving in the states in 2001, it was the show needed to rekindle the “anime fad” in the US as Pokemon was reaching it’s natural peak 3 years in. Given how successful 4kids were with adapting Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, it’s fascinating how they lost their way when they tried to adapt other shows for their viewers as they grew up, grossly underestimating their audience’s intelligence. That was, of course, best illustrated by Alfred Kahn’s “Kids today don’t read, they read less today” comment.

Italian opening there, as that’s all I can find.

Created by writer Shou Aikawa (Ayakashi Ayashi) and directed by Tetsuro Amino (Macross 7) this seems to be a show totally overlooked in US/UK fandom. It’s about a pair of brothers who use Karakuri to battle evil. Aikawa would return to crazy uses of karakuri in Oh Edo Rocket. Distinctive character design comes from G Gundam’s Hiroshi Osaka.

Completely irrelevant mystery show gets “comedy” dub from ADV. Of course by “comedy” I mean time sensitive popular culture references that rely of recognition rather than actual humour.

Well, here’s another show that I’ve never heard of. It’s a Madhouse show based on a Tezuka manga about a doctor (one of Tezuka’s ancestors) and a samurai’s friendship in the 19th century. Someone’s uploaded it all to youtube (unsubbed) if you are interested.

Another show that passed me by. I think it’s safe to say that UK anime fandom had a near zero interest in the Time Bokan franchise in 2000. In fact, I think it’s going to take the Miike directed Yatterman film to muster any real interest.

This was the 8th Time Bokan series, the twist this time being that the Kiramekiman duo are theives, and their three goofball enemies are the police. Otherwise it’s the usual mix of superheroics, slapstick and crazy looking mecha.

Transformers is one of those topics I’m loathe to write about as its fandom is so obsessive there’s plenty out there written already.

So lets just mention the uneasy mix of 3D and 2D animation in the opening. This wasn’t new, I remember Lost Universe have some particularly egregious usage of 3D animation. But the use of 3D animation to represent giant robots fighting is something that permeated the decade.

Here’s the US opening, that wisely does away with all that 3D nonsense: