Otaku, No Video

First off: I accidentally published a half-written review of the 2003 Astro Boy TV series yesterday.  Sorry about that.  I just pulled it back, and will be expanding it further before I post it again.

In other news, last night I caught two episodes of an incredibly obscure anime series: Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, or Silver Fang ~ Shooting Star Silver. That’s not a typo; they use “Silver” twice in the title.

It’s about a puppy who joins an army of dogs who’ve run away from their owners to fight giant, evil bears with glowy red eyes that are threatening to overwhelm Japan.  I’m not kidding; that’s the premise.  And the puppy is the son of the dog army leader, who’s voiced by Gihren Zabi’s voice actor.  So, of course, he makes lots of big speeches to inspire his troops.

Toei animated the series in 1986, so each episode (at least, of the two I watched) contain many awkward poses and much limited animation.  This isn’t helped by the fact that the animators were drawing dogs.  Animators usually spend their time drawing humans, so lifelike representation of animals, especially on a TV budget, is usually incredibly hard.

The odd story doesn’t help–I haven’t even mentioned the American super-gun that’s the only defense against the evil bears–but the story is told with passion. Each character is distinctive. Heck, the manga received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1987 for best shonen title.

I’d say it’s worth checking out, but I don’t think you could find it. The copy I saw was an old bootleg. Sadly, I doubt that anyone cares.