Month: March 2011

Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke (Magic Boy) movie

Sasuke and animalsI recently tracked down a copy of the Magic Boy (Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke) movie [a.k.a. “The Little Samurai”] made in 1959. This is very early anime, and was the first Japanese anime to get a theatrical release in the USA. Even today, the quality of the animation is quite good, and it’s well worth a look. Bear in mind that in 1959, colour TV anime was still several years in the future!

The story is set in an alternate mediaeval Japan. Young Sasuke plays with his animal friends, till an encounter with a witch, who kills one of the animals and attacks Sasuke.  Sasuke goes off to learn to be a great magician, so that he can defeat the witch. Add some bandits and a local lord, and you have the story.

The movie came with three soundtracks (Jap, Eng, Spanish), and an Italian .srt file, but no English subs.  There’s a  Japanese-only DVD available if you feel like aiding Japan right now. In fact this isn’t a movie that depends heavily on dialogue, and there are passages several minutes long without any. One of the animals is killed in an incident rather reminiscent of the death of Bambi’s mother 🙂

After struggling with the .srt file, I made my own English subs .srt file, which you can find in the Manga Translations part of this site (at the bottom of the M.T. page).  I recommend using it with VLC Media Player.

Japan Earthquake Comments

I expect that the death toll will rise considerably from the current tally of a thousand. It’s clear that scores of square kilometers of built-up area along the coast were totally trashed by the tsunami, and anyone caught in those areas would probably die.  Evacuation orders were given, but if less than 100% effective, that would leave large numbers at risk.  On the news aerial pictures, one can see that some people were caught and washed away in their vehicles.

We haven’t heard if the wrecked train seen in the news was one of the two “not accounted for”.   As for the lengthy stoppage of train services in the wider area, one can understand that they’d need to have every metre of track, bridge, overhead wire and tunnel checked by engineers just in case the earthquake had damaged something.

The explosion at the nuclear power plant will not be a surprise to those who have for years been warning about just this disaster scenario.

If some of the new season anime is a few days late, it’ll be because the producers are lacking electricity, or transportation, or generally have more pressing things on their minds.

Site upgrade

I’ve given the Anime & Manga Database part of the site a refresh to make searching and navigating a little easier, and to highlight the World Masterpiece Theater and Shoujo Anime lists. Also added an option to display anime by date, oldest first.

Also tidied the Ryouko Ikeda feature pages (in Old Features).

More old anime available

Here’s a list of older (i.e. possibly older than you, dear visitor) anime that I note has become available on Animesuki and/or Nyaatorrents.

Marvelous Melmo #01
Angie Girl #01
Homeless Child Remy #01,02,03. (Ie naki ko Remi) [The WMT “homeless girl” version]
Tokimeki Tonight #01-07
Aim for the Ace #22 [tennis]
NG Knight Lamune & 40 #01-06
Kimagure Orange Road TV #15 [US licence expired]
Little Princess Sara #01-46 [“A Little Princess” novel]
Heavy Metal L-Gaim #40
Gear Fighter Dendoh #12
Genshi Shonen Ryuu #16
Kinnikuman #13
Babel II #9
Ginguiser #1
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo #14-17
Iga no Kabamaru #5
Goldfish Warning #34
Mikan Enikki #0-3

Here are some fansub groups that appear to specialise in older anime:
Saitei, Takara, mSubs, Anime_Daisuki, KiteSeekers, ARR, Live-evil, The Skaro Hunting Society, Hokuto no Gun, Bluefixer, Honobono, Fuko Ibuki Fansubs.

There are rather more of these than I imagined when I started this post. The quality of these old shows varies (depending on your tastes). Some are well worth preserving. Others cause me to react with a “Why?”
Several are detailed in my database; here’s one to start you off:
Remi

Old Anime