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Flyer for the "Arcadia of My Youth vs Dr. Slump and Arale-chan Fair", which was held on the observation deck floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku from 23 July to 31 August 1982. This was a promotional event organised by Toei Animation to promote two of it's anime films being released in July; "Arcadia of My Youth" and "Dr. Slump: 'Hoyoyo!' Space Adventure". Apart from displays and merchandise being sold, the fair also included a Leiji Matsumoto autograph session and lecture.
Steel Jeeg (1975) animation production material
10 years ago, Toei Animation released Nijiiro Hotaru: Rainbow Fireflies, the stunning culmination of a lengthy production to honor the iconic works of their past and the power of traditional animat…
Tomb of Dracula anime movie by Toei in collab with Marvel (and Harmony Gold butts in later on)
Another dive into a blog that has lots of info on ‘Tomb of Dracula’ and its production into anime form back in the 70′s by Toei: https://spider-man.at.webry.info/200806/article_2.html
Let’s begin -------
‘When I wrote about Toei's version of Silver Surfer in my diary before, one of my friends informed me that around 1980, Toei and Marvel were connected and an anime based on the Marvel Comics' Tomb Of Dracula called 'The Dark Lord Vampire Dracula' was broadcast. I had no idea that this work existed, but I thought that, unlike Silver Surfer and 3D Man, I would be able to gather some information about it online, since it was actually produced. However, there was unexpectedly little information available on the subject, so I obtained related magazines (although only a few articles were published in the animation magazines of the time) through internet auctions and somehow managed to write an article on the subject.
Magazines and other items obtained at auction in the course of entering this article. From left to right: "Toei TV Anime Theme Song Compendium 1963-1975" (2002, Toei Video), "Anime NOW 1982 Animation Yearbook" (Sugiyama Taku, 1982, Shueisha), "Gekkan OUT September Issue" (1980, Minori Shobo), "The Anime August Issue" (1980, Kindai Eigasha).
Summer Vacation TV Animation Special
The Dark Lord: Vampire Dracula
In the late 1970s, as special effects programmes began to fade, an unprecedented anime boom began, led by Space Battleship Yamato, which replaced them. The Dark Lord Vampire Dracula was one of the works broadcast during this boom.
Key station: TV Asahi Production: Toei Doga Broadcasting date: 19 August 1980 Broadcast time: Tuesdays, 19:00-20:54 Format: 94 mins, 1 complete episode
Synopsis. The Black Mass ceremony is being held at a church in Boston when Dracula suddenly bursts in and steals away his daughter Domini, who was to be sacrificed to the Devil. Dracula takes Domini back to his lair and tries to suck her living blood, but he is unable to do so because he has fallen in love with her. Dracula's human heart is restored and he marries Domini and gives her a son, Jenas. Rupesky, a priest of the Black Mass, is furious that Domini has married Dracula and attacks them. However, the bullet from Lupeski's gun pierces the young Jenas' chest, and Jenas dies without warning. Dracula, enraged by the murder of his own child, reverted to his maniacal nature and attacked the people of Boston night after night. Quincy, an elderly man whose father had once been killed by Dracula, forms the Vampire Hunters with master fist-fighter Frank and crossbowman Rachel, and is bent on revenge. Meanwhile, a miracle occurs when Domini is grieving at Jenas's grave and is about to take his own life. In a golden light, the earthly coffin rose into the sky and a noble young man descended from the sky and became one with Jenas. Jenas became an adult and came back to life. However, Jenas was given a mission by the gods to defeat Dracula. Domini weeps at this ironic fate, but it does not stop the father-son duel between Dracula and Jenas. An epic battle unfolds between Dracula, the Dark Lord, and Jenas, the messenger of God, as well as the vampire hunters who hate Dracula, and even Dracula's daughter Liras and Satan the Great from Hell...
(ZZ’s comments: And this is the original opening for the anime movie when it was presented. Try finding the anime anywhere, all you can get are English titles that say Dracula and the Toei Animation thing but the opening and end credits are either from Harmony Gold or just downright EMPTY/creditless. None of that cool stuff sadly.)
From the OP credits
Planning: Mimei Koizumi (TV Asahi), Yoshifumi Hatano, Takeyuki Suzuki Based on: Marvel Comics The Tomb Of Dracula Creative consultant: Jean Perk Screenplay: Tadaaki Yamazaki Music: Yokoyama Seiji Performed by: Transylvanian Baroque Ensemble (Columbia Records) Art direction: Hidenobu Hata Character Design/ Animation Director: Hiroshi Wagatsuma Direction: Minoru Okazaki Production: TV Asahi, Toei
From the ED credits
Production Manager: Yoshiro Sugawara Voice Cast
Dracula: Kenji Utsumi
Dolores/Domini: Hiroko Suzuki
Janus: Kazuyuki Sokabe
Quincy: Yasuo Hisamatsu
Rachel: Mami Koyama
Frank: Keiichi Noda
Satan the Great: Hidekatsu Shibata
Layla/Lilith: Reiko Katsura
ZZ’s comments - Fun fact: Her name pronunciation in the JP audio is Lyras so she’s STILL called Lilith in the Japanese dub. Someone in HG must have misheard her name and called her Layla.
Lupeski: Junpei Takiguchi
Narrator: Ryo Ishihara
Drawing: Yasuhiko Suzuki, Fukuo Yamamoto, Sadayoshi Tominaga, Junzo Ono, Yoshimasa Iiyama, Yasuyuki Tada, Kou Iino, Tsunenaka Nozaki, Jiro Tsuno Video checker: Takahiro Tana. Video: Hiromi Seino, Miyuki Ikeda, Mieko Saiki, Noriko Honma, Tomoko Minami, Junichiro Saito, Yayoi Suzuki, Tomiko Takamiko, Yasuko Saito, Kyoko Sato, Yuzo Toyoshima, Kumiko Mogi Backgrounds: Kenji Matsumoto, Yoshiharu Ishigaki, Toshiro Nozaki, Kuniko Matsumoto, Tomoko Eritate, Takao Sawada, Tomoko Arikawa, Yumiko Yamazaki. Zerograph: Akiko Mogi Trace: Mineko Maeda. Colouring: Tatsuo Takahashi Special effects: Masayuki Nakajima Finishing inspections: Tsuyoshi Tsukada Art direction: Takeshi Torimoto Finishing touches: Toyohiko Hiraga Recording: Yumiko Takezawa Assistant Director: Akinori Nagaoka Production Manager: Kazuichi Tsurumi Photography: Hisao Shirai Editing: Tanaka Osamu Sound recording: Hiromi Kanbara Sound effects: Ishida Sound Developer: Toei Chemical Co. Reference: The Devil's Book, translated by Hibiki Hinatsu (Tairiku Shobo, published by Tairiku Shobo).
Additional voice appearances (as published in Anime NOW) Young A: Kazuyuki Sogabe Master: Hidekatsu Shibata Silver: Reiko Katsura Wyler, Young C: Kimitsugu Toya Boyfriend, Young B: Shoji Sato Carly, Maisa, Woman A: Seiko Nakano Anton, Woman B: Satomi Mashima Togo, Announcer: Yasuro Tanaka
Gene Pelc, who is credited in the OP, is also mentioned in American Comics Poster Library (1978, Tokuma Shoten) and American Comics Compendium (2005, Shobunsha). In the commentary book for the Spider-Man DVD-BOX (Toei Video) released in 2005, an interview with Susumu Yoshikawa and Toru Hirayama describes in detail how he contributed as a bridge between Toei and Marvel.
[Excerpt from an interview with Susumu Yoshikawa] In the late 1970s, Ryotoku Watanabe, then head of Toei's television business, was aiming to find new and different routes for discovering characters apart from the Ishinomori characters that had been available until then. At that time, Jean Perk, general manager of Marvel Japan, happened to be promoting the Japanese versions of Marvel characters such as Spider-Man here and there. However, Toei was not a publishing company and wanted film rights to Marvel characters. Pelc said "If that's what you're talking about, let's sign a contract with Toei-san for the visual rights to the characters" and signed a three-year exclusive contract for Marvel characters.
[Excerpts from an interview with Toru Hirayama] Contracts with overseas companies are very difficult when it comes to rights, and if you make even the slightest change to a character's design, you get complaints, but Pelc did not make any detailed orders at all. The success of Spider-Man is largely due to Pelc.
The fact that the copyrights for Kobunsha's Marvel Comics series were taken via Toei is probably due to the fact that Mr Pelc sold them together at the time of this 'three-year contract'. By the way, there is an "urban legend" that Marvel was furious when they found out later that Spider-Man was going to have a robot. However, I believe this to be a mistake, as Mr Pelc intervened, understood and agreed to all the Toei side's settings. (Incidentally, the great Stan Lee also liked the presence of the robot, along with the spider action.)
However, a story that could be mistaken for this is described in the American Comics Compendium. It's about a writer at Marvel who heard about a planned story for Shogun Warrior when he was adapting a character from Toei into a comic book. 'What the hell is that! It's like there's no story. One robot fights another robot. It's just a repeat of that." He was so upset that he stopped listening to the story halfway through. Perhaps the exchange at that time was switched to 'Spider-Man'.
(*) In an interview with Susumu Yoshikawa, Yoshifumi Hatano (then producer at Toei Motion Picture), who is credited as the planner, is also mentioned. He was a fluent English speaker and interpreted for the original author Stan Lee when he visited Japan, and also took the lead in negotiations with Marvel. He was also mentioned in the article as "a fluent English speaker".
A feature article in "Ji-Anime" stated that "For the theme song, we will immediately use Satoko Yamano (her real name), who recently won the "To the Earth..." contest, for both the opening and ending songs. Both the opening and ending songs were instrumental and had no lyrics. However, in the middle of the ending song, there is a vocalisation "la la la la~". It is thought that Ms Yamano may have been in charge of this vocalisation (no credit given). Her debut as Satoko Yamano was in the theme song for the 1980 1 Sept. (Students' School), which started on 1 September 1980, so this song, which was broadcast on 19 August, was an earlier debut.
The animation was also broadcast in 1983 on Harmony Gold cable television in the USA. In Italy, it seems to have recently been released on DVD, and a video is available on YouTube. In Japan, however, it has only been re-broadcast once and has not been released on DVD or even on video. It would be a shame if this film were to remain buried for those who are interested in Marvel, anime and Dracula. We hope it will be made available on DVD.‘
--------------------End of Translation
So there ya go, there’s pretty good background of what was going on in the production of the very first animated Marvel movie. And wow, Spiderman did contribute a lot they were expanding on that. Though some parts of this anime movie will remind you a lot of Golion which is no mistake considering this and Golion were running at the same time. The villains in Golion were vampires so they might have had an idea for that at some point.
You can watch both the English and Japanese dubs here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0KWWLAReVQ&ab_channel=BVGamesCenter Japanese dub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1x_9Tv9QZ8&t=3899s Harmony Gold Eng dub
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太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険 (Taiyō no ōji - Horusu no daibouken) [1968]
Animation art from anime series, UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER (1975).
