#mamoru hamatsu

[gifmovie]

[pierppasolini]

TO-Y (1987) // dir. Mamoru Hamatsu

[dresdencodak]

MFW someone’s talking about The Heroic Legend of Arslan but it’s not the 90s OVA:

[anamon-book]

アルスラーン戦記 松竹株式会社事業部 製作＝角川春樹、原作＝田中芳樹、監督＝浜津守

[yoyoyopt]

[pierppasolini]

TO-Y (1987) // dir. Mamoru Hamatsu

[pierppasolini]

TO-Y (1987) // dir. Mamoru Hamatsu

[littleeyesofpallas]

pulling a random paper sleeve from the trash bag they've been sleeping in, my first salvage of the day is... The original 1984, "Glass Mask"/GLASS no Kamen, adapting the classic 1970s manga of the same name, by Suzue Miuchi. (And right behind it two DVDs of the 2005 remake)

The original manga started running in Hakusensha's Hana to Yume/"Flowers & Dreams" shoujo magazine(and later its, now defunct, supplementary magazine, Bessatsu Hana to Yume) in 1976 --The magazine itself started in 1974-- and ran until 2012 (with a little gap between 2006 and 2008) when it was put on its now indefinite hiatus. With over 50million copies sold across 49 volumes, it is one of the best selling shoujo manga of all time. Especially impressive considering Hakesensha is a bit of a runt of the litter in terms of big manga publishers; they're not exactly "small" but they don't stack up anything close to the big hitters like Shueisha, Kodansha, of Shogakukan.

The 1984 anime was by Studio Eiken, whom are kind of all but forgotten these days. They really peaked between the 80s and 90s, but were responsible for a handful of real foundational classics. They did Tetsujin-28 and 8-Man, which were of course the basis for early American anime imports Gigantor --one of the early giant robot series-- and Tobor The 8th Man --which would go on to influence the creation of Robocop, and get a shout out in Big O.(the electric eel episode is an almost shot for shot remake of an 8-Man episode.)

The director of the original TV series was Gizaburo Sugii who is himself a real monolith of the early anime industry. He was an animator on White Snake Legend/Hakuja-den(Panda and the Magic Serpent in English) an early anime film adapting the Chinese Lady Whitesnake myth, often cited as part of what inspired Hayao Miyazaki to become an animator. Gizaburo, like Osamu Tezuka, for whom he worked, was himself inspired by the Japanese theatrical release of Disney's Bambi. He was also an animation director on the original Tetsuwan Atom/The Mighty Atom (aka Astroboy in English). He's been a key figure behind a bunch of classics, often sports series, and in Mushi Production's Animerama film trilogy, as well as a few iterations of Lupin III and Street Fighter, but perhaps his most uniquely enduring work was as the creator behind Night on The Galactic Railroad, adapting the 1934 Kenji Miyazawa novel.

The 2005 series had a different kind of big name behind it: Mamoru Hamatsu. He may not have been a godfather to the art or the industry, but he was no slouch as far as pop culture hits go. He's the director behind the original Dirty Pair and Urusei Yatsura, Yoroiden Samurai Troopers aka Ronin Warriors, all of which had substantial success in English release, and some big but slightly B-list giant robot series like Giant Gorg and King of Braves GAO GAI GAR.