Well, it was bound to happen - Toei does it around February every year, and this will be the ninth time in succession.
I'm talking up the Precure anime, which I'll admit to having watched every Sunday morning with my daughter Cocoa for over two years now (her excuse is she's just turned six; I'm not sure what mine happens to be).
Every February Toei, the anime production house behind the series, revamps the cast and crew and reimagines the series.
In 2010 the best series screened - HeartCatch Precure, which was, in fact, my choice of anime series of the year for 2010 (something difficult to swallow since it's a shojo girls' show aimed at little kids) - and this year Suite Precure♪ has struggled to hang onto the coattails of its predecessor but isn't doing so badly now that characters Beat and Muse have jumped into the fray.
Anyway, the new line-up has just been announced, along with the customary annual name-change.
2012 will see Smile Precure! (スマイルプリキュア) hit the screens, replacing Suite Precure♪. The character designs do look cute, while still not in the same league as Yoshihiko Umakoshi's designs for HeartCatch Precure.
Well, as with all things Precure, only time will tell. And what else do I want to do every Sunday morning anyway?
OK, I'll admit it - I'm hooked watching this anime series every Sunday morning from 8:30, and not only because it's my 4-year-old daughter's preferred eye candy.
HeartCatch PreCure! (ハートキャッチプリキュア!) is an infectious, disarming and super cute series that lacks the annoyance value of, say, Pokémon.
Having kicked off on TV Asahi (Channel 10) in Tokyo back in February this year, HeartCatch is the seventh version of the long-running girls' concept created by the 'mysterious' Izumi Todo - actually none other than an alias for the creative types at Toei Animation - and to my mind its definitely the best interpretation to date.
It all started up with our shy, upright heroine Tsubomi (Cure Blossom), swathed in pink, then she was joined by trusty neighbour and fashion-minded sidekick Erika (the all-blue Cure Marine). Today, five months into the series, the third heroine emerged with the gold enshrouded, androgynous Itsuki (Cure Sunshine).
For a young girls' romp, there's a surprising sense of patience in the development of the story-telling arc, there're surreal kaiju-style monsters every week, the villains ham it up, our heroes have a sense of humour, and the character designs are way cool.
While it's obviously aimed at the purchasing powers of the parents of the target demographic, there's something for everyone - even the more critical expat foreigners and their open-minded kids.
Here're the closing credits - the CG animation really doesn't do the show itself justice, but the infectious theme song by Mayu Kudou is being heard right now everywhere over here from kindergartens to keitai ring-tones.
Legend has it that back in the 7th century AD two brothers taking a fishing jaunt on the Sumida River managed to hook a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy - and no amount of lobbing the object back into the murky waters would relieve them of the burden.
So, Sensoji Temple - dedicated to that persistent goddess - was built nearby, in an area now known as Asakusa, right here in the heart of what’s now Tokyo.
A millennium on after its foundation, a rabbit-warren of streets just north of Asakusa - named Yoshiwara - developed into a licensed brothel area, whose denizens ranged from higher class courtesans to el cheapo prostitutes; by the latter half of the 19th century, the grounds of Asakusa Park were given over to a Kabuki theatre, jugglers, geisha houses, circus acts, photography booths, dancers, comic storytellers, performing monkeys, bars, restaurants, and archery stalls where sellers of sexual favours were reputed to have offered a rather wide variety of services.
While constantly the victim of nuisance customers like fire and earthquake, most of this disappeared in the conflagration of World War 2. So, while it rates as this city’s oldest temple area, the buildings themselves are amongst Tokyo’s newest places since WW2 bombing destroyed all the original stuff.
Just a few minutes’ walk from Asakusa Subway Station, the imposing Kaminarimon (Thunder Gate), houses two effigies of the gods of thunder and wind—although this gate is in fact a replica built in 1960, as its predecessor was destroyed in an air-raid.
Visitors must pass under its improbably huge paper lantern, then negotiate the historic, forever-crowded Nakamise shopping arcade (a maze of stalls that’s over 200 meters long, full of faux Japanese historical odds and ends, yukata robes, fans, regional snacks, and plastic samurai swords), then pass by a five-storied pagoda (itself a 1973 reconstruction) and under the Hanzomon Gate, before even reaching Sensoji - which is usually awash in incense, used for purification, and guaranteed to induce a cough or two.
Even Sensoji Temple is itself a replica, constructed in 1958. Like the Kaminarimon and much of the rest of Tokyo, it was flattened in the Allied blanket bombing in 1945.
Still, you can’t complain about the location, and if some of the spice and sizzle of previous centuries has disappeared, you can still spot the occasional geisha.
There's also Kappabashi-dori (かっぱ橋), best reached from Tawaramachi Station on the Ginza Line. This is Tokyo’s restaurant wholesale district, and sells that insanely detailed plastic food you see displayed in Japanese eateries, metal spatulas, deep fryers, cool restaurant food banners, and an intense array of crockery.
And just nearby, on the banks of the Sumida itself - where that goddess statue came from—is the commercial HQ for a famed Japanese company that for some is itself deified.
Called the Asahi Building (not to be confused with the TV Asahi premises in Roppongi Hills) the place has what looks like a golden piece of crap atop, and is mecca for anyone who’s dabbled with Japanese beer or brushed up against the silver-shrouded contents of Asahi Super Dry - without doubt Japan's most famous international amber fluid.
The latest Doraemon movie hit cinema screens across Japan yesterday (Saturday 6th March) to much hoo-har on TV.
Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King (映画ドラえもん のび太の人魚大海戦, Eiga Doraemon Nobita no Ningyo Daikaisen) will quite possibly it'll surge straight to the number one spot in box office receipts in the very first weekend or two it plays here, if previous Doraemon outings are any indication.
This isn’t some recent-hit sensation and in fact the title has a history to roll up and perish for – or at least swoon over in gob-smacked new ways - in terms of anime. It's actually the 30th feature film in the series.
Doraemon (ドラえもん) started out in manga form in the 1960s, fashioned by Fujiko Fujio – a collaborative smoke screen coined by its real creators, Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko.
It did the big switch to TV in 1973, promptly fizzled, then was revamped by TV Asahi six years later - with character designs by Eiichi Nakamura (of Panda! Go, Panda!notoriety).
When you add in the two dozen odd theatrical movies, you're forced to realize that the franchise continues to be a sizzling property in this country over three decades later.
Doraemon hasn’t surrendered its grip on Japanese TVs or the Japanese everyman’s psyche; I swear that every person in this place can draw his happy face and and every third salaryman or office lady uses one of the series’ theme tunes for their keitai (cell-phone) ring-tones.
There’re Doraemon clocks, pop-up toasters, slot machines, turntables, beer-dispensers, ice-blocks, chocolates, drinks, and every other (in)conceivable merchandising possibility.
It's also the country’s second-longest-running animated TV show after Sazae-san.
When I interviewed the TV series’ producer Daisuke 'Dan' Yoshikawa at TV Asahi a couple of years ago, he was at a loss to explain the somewhat miraculous ongoing popularity of the animated mechanoid feline.
“Various elements – combined - made Doraemon a successful property,” he theorized. “But I think that it’s the storyline that makes it so special.”
So what’s that story about?
Our titular character is a blue, dysfunctional mechanical cat from the future (of course) that boasts a magical, four-dimensional pouch the envy of any self-prepossessing marsupial. He’s been sent back in time to sort out Nobita, a good-for-nothing schoolboy ancestor of the people who built him, sans ears, but usually instead complete mayhem breaks out – including subtle, ingenious anime references to Hollywood cinema classics like West Side Story and The Three Musketeers.
The saga also has some serious psychological eccentricities: For starters, aside from regular panic attacks, our motorized feline suffers from an ongoing musophobia that stems back to the future – to a time in the 22nd century, when his ears were consumed by a robotic mouse.
Hapless schoolboy Nobita is not only a lousy athlete and an abysmal scholar but lazy, cowardly, and selfish to boot.
Despite Nobita’s faults, Yoshikawa believed that he’s “just like all of us! People can relate to Nobita, and his story captures a feeling everyone shares. Not all of us get 0% on tests, but we can understand that feeling.”
It’s Doraemon himself, however, who is the undoubted star of the series.
“People love that adorable, cat-like robot,” Yoshikawa confirmed.
While the TV show focus on Nobita’s bizarre everyday family life and neighbours, the movies go for a more exotic, adventurous edge but they’ve been a tad rear-visionist in recent years: Nobita’s Great Adventure Into The Underworld (2007), for instance, may have been the 27th Dora-chan feature unfurled by distributor TOHO (of Godzilla notoriety; they do on average one Doraemon flick per year) but it’s in fact a rebake of the sixth in the series - released way back in 1984.
While he’s easy to sketch, he has a trademark profile and he’s a downright cute and often hilarious character, another reason for Doraemon’s popularity had for years been the quirky vocal effort of Nobuyo Oyama who did his voice all the way from 1979 until 2005.
After such a long haul, that year a bunch of the series’ seiyuu including Oyama and Noriko Ohara (Nobita from 1979 as well as the voice of Nobita’s mum in the 1973 original series) quite understandably bowed out of the series as both people were hitting the age of 70, and made way for new blood.
The transition annoyed some long-time fans of the series but overall passed relatively painlessly for TV Asahi and the show’s producers.
“The main characters are the same,” Yoshikawa said.
Besides, voice changes and exotic locations are not the big issue here, not anywhere as appealing as Doraemon and Nobita themselves, their time traveling exploits and outrageous futuristic devices, their essentially whacked-out neighbourhood buddies and an insane overriding story arc.
These have made Doraemon a hit also in China and South Korea, yet he remains a largely unknown entity in the English-speaking world – a happenstance that I truly believe to be bordering on unforgivable ignorance.
Just look at the evidence: Our fave feline was voted “cool” by 19 votes to 10 (three people opted out ‘cos they didn’t know who Doraemon was) in a two-month poll at the highly esteemed tzelun.com website – just check out: http://tzelun.com/blog/2007/03/05/it%E2%80%99s-official-doraemon-is-cool/
By the way, we are kidding you. Really. It’s not quite as esteemed as all that.
You can't complain about the location - on the banks of the Sumida River, a short walk from Sensoji, Tokyo's biggest temple district, and the hugely popular Asakusa tourist area; you may even see a geisha or two, if you're exceptionally provident.
And the product is virtually a trademark - if you've ever dabbled with Japanese beer, you would've brushed up against (or at least guzzled a few drops of) the silver-shrouded contents of Asahi Super Dry, without doubt Japan's most famous international amber fluid.
Almost as famous is the commercial HQ for the Asahi company itself.
Known quite simply as the Asahi Building (not to be confused with the TV Asahi building in Roppongi Hills), it was completed in 1989 at the height of Japan's excessive bubble economy to replace Asahi's old offices. Some of the building's harsher critics have suggested that French designer Philippe Starck had had one Super Dry too many when he finished the design for the monolith, which is constructed from super-expensive black granite and capped by his trademark gilded flame, an icon apparently weighing in at 300 tons.
And confusion reigns supreme in this city as to what the symbol really represents - is it a firework that reflects the nearby Sumida River's annual hanabi (fireworks) festivities? Is it an overturned post-modern glass of beer? Is it a golden radish or turnip? Or is it - as popularly espoused around the traps of Tokyo - just a humongous blob of excrement that'd do Godzilla proud?
Others see it in a warmer light - the windows are tinted yellow, apart from the top few floors, where the windows appear white... mmm... beer...
