This Week in Anime

Reading Rainbow

Coop
If you're from any other part of the country, that might as well be another world! Much less Newfoundland, Chris! Or Quebec... Which all goes to show that Canada has many lovely multitudes.

That's mighty kind of you, Chris! I've been busy talking to the school librarian about all that manga they've just got in. Here's hoping I can convince them to nab the full run of Slam Dunk! But more to the heart of this week's topic, adaptations of classic western literature have been an anime hallmark for as long as the medium's existed! Funnily enough, we can roll much of the conversation back to the 1979 Anne of Green Gables television series—a show directed by a little-known director, Isao Takahata.

No kidding! One could easily say that the late 60s and 70s installments of the World Masterpiece Theater series cemented the style and creative groundwork seen in the Studio Ghibli productions that followed. And since you mentioned him, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Hayao Miyazaki's 1978 directorial debut, Future Boy Conan! Unlike the series we already mentioned, Conan was based on a contemporary science fiction novel, Alexander Key's The Incredible Tide from 1970.

Conan's an especially peculiar example of these titles making their way to North American home video. Unless it was a company's one-off tape or something cut together for syndication in the 70s, many of these series have never been seen in our neck of the woods. It makes it all the more surprising that Conan has a brand-new English dub too! More classic literature-inspired titles are starting to make their way to home video thanks to the efforts of GKIDS, along with Discotek Media and AnimEigo—a pair of companies I occasionally work with.

I almost forgot about these commercials! It's a wonderful little collection of esoteric tributes that flew over the heads of the gaming public at large.
But since you mentioned Heidi - A Girl of the Alps, I'm reminded that it is perhaps the only WMT production currently available for streaming...and on a Prime Video channel of all places!

Naturally, I'm curious to see how those subtitles look given the platform, but I'm glad it's available in some form. Especially with how often Heidi has been lampooned in all forms of Japanese media—from anime to even light novels!

Only the finest vintage memes for these fine vintage series.

I could break out Xzibit again for this, but Lynzee told me I only get one every six to eight months.
But that's very true, classic literature continues to influence anime to this day! Much like that confluence of Hemingway and Leblanc in Lupin Part 6, it's fascinating when anime classics swim in the same creative brain stew. 2023's Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is an scrumptious meal made up of pickled First Gundam, scrumptious servings Shakespeare's The Tempest, and a large glass of Revolutionary Girl Utena.

I love how the creatives behind G-Witch played those overt connections, as if they were putting on their own production of The Tempest in a way. However, this production went into the Gundam well while taking many a cue from Utena to strengthen their vision of this story. It's an incredibly satisfying conversation of various "classic" source materials—one you don't see often nowadays, aside from series that strictly focus on their relationship to other series. It goes to doubly show the strength of the World Masterpiece Theater era of anime—back when a broader swathe of series took inspiration from way more than just other anime...or gacha games in today's world.

Don't you mean Fate/Stay All Night?

That's a shame! John Leguizamo's Tybalt is already anime-ready!

I vividly remember talk of Romeo x (not +) Juliet popping up in-between classes during my freshman year of high school in 2009. Maybe folks wanted another way to spice up Shakespeare for their teenage minds, or perhaps I kept seeing ads for it in Otaku USA.

I wonder why I didn't watch this in high school. For better or worse, I enjoy an adaptation that strikes out to craft its own identity within the original's framework. I also need more of Zorro Juliet!

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is so visually mesmerizing. Any of my encounters with the series has left me with a lingering feeling... One that tells me: this is a series you need to sniff, drink in, and swish around in your mouth like a fine wine.

The closest visual comparisons that come to mind are Mononoke and Puella Magi Madoka Magica's witch encounters, but I'm not sure if they even broach the same territory.

Now that's affecting alliteration, Chris! Just as I raved on with G-Witch, those changes make these adaptations all the more appealing. Speaking of robots and radical departures from the source material, that's exactly why 1983's Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger clicked with me as an (extremely loose) interpretation of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.

I love how I.C. Blues strikes up a bet to hit every planet in the solar system and ends up assembling a very Lupin-esque crew to assist him in his goal. And that's all before he buys a transforming robot train with a credit card to get the crew around space. It's deeply unserious, but it hits me with the same fuzzies I feel whenever I see a good heist flick.
Like Blues, we both know what it's like to buy a robot with a credit card, don't we, Chris?

I wasn't expecting a tokusatsu pull this evening! But I will say, I love that the yellow dude's name is simply "Evil."

By that logic, Keifer Sutherland is not only Venom Snake, but a Power Ranger as well.

However, that loops us back around to World Masterpiece Theater and the many films the creatives behind them went on to make. Of course, I speak once again of Studio Ghibli. Be it Howl's Moving Castle, When Marnie Was There, or The Secret World of Arrietty, the studio has carried on that WMT ethos well into today.

It also has me thinking that Miyazaki's next "last" film could very well be another adaptation of classic literature. After all, while not a western novel, The Boy and the Heron takes that fast-and-loose approach to elements of 1937's How Do You Live? That book will be 100 years old before we know it! And now I ask myself, "How do I live?"

At least we know that pitching an Animorphs toyline won't work out.

This has a potential for unforgettable Beast War—a tale passed down from father to son, just like the classic stories we've spoken of today.