#267: The Ribon Double Bill (2001)

 

Good Morning Call (2001)/ Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001)

Director(s): Masatsugu Arakawa (Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001))

Screenplay(s): Fumihiko Shimo (Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001))

Based on the manga by Yue Takasuka (Good Morning Call)/ Arina Tanemura (Time Stranger Kyoko)

Voice Cast:

Good Morning Call:

Eiji Moriyama as Hisashi Uehara; Yuka Tokumitsu as Nao Yoshikawa; Chiaki Shiino as Rumiko Ooizumi; Maki Saitou as Marina Konno; Masami Kikuchi as Kenji Asai; Masami Suzuki as Haruhi; Mayumi Honda as Nanako; Michiko Neya as Yuri Uehara; Ryo Naitou as Jun Abe

Time Stranger Kyoko:

Jun Uemoto as King; Rumi Shishido as Chocola; Taiten Kusunoki as Widoshiku; Eiji Takemoto as Subordinate B; Junko Takeuchi as Subordinate C; Keiko Toda as Akino Jiro; Makio Inoue as Toshito Kutajima; Mitsuo Iwata as Shinichi Hasegawa; Ryo Horikawa as Ranmaru Mori; Shigenori Yamazaki as Subordinate A; Takeshi Aono as Hokubei

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

So much animation exists in the Japanese industry that you can dig up real obscurities, helped considered when they are being preserved online, factoring in the independent work, ephemeral work and animation done as one-offs and/or promotional content for manga. For today, the following two pieces are based on manga published in Ribon, a manga founded in 1955 for the shōjo market for young women and adolescent women, with the following two incredibly diverse and representing two different sides of the coin from the monthly magazine in terms of genre. The first, Good Morning Call, is a one-off nineteen minute story adapting the work of Yue Takasuka. This manga, interestingly, was able to return after its first arch, published between 1997 to 2002, to both have a sequel manga, but also a wider potential audience with a 2016 television series adaptation, one followed by a 2017 sequel series have been both available through Netflix, allowing for people unaware of the source to see this story in a form.

Alongside free promotion of a PSOne controller at one point, the male lead Hisashi constantly dying in that scene in an RPG to a frost dragon, this was as much a work clearly made for the fans near the end of the first manga's final chapters in 2001. It would have been a chance to see this story of a female teen Nao onscreen, finding herself living with Hisashi in an apartment due to circumstances, becoming a couple as the story proper begins. Nao is convinced to help a male friend practice his hair dressing skills on her, having forgotten the actual date of Hisashi's birthday by ten days, becoming what would feel like a single episode in a whole series we never got as she tries to get an apology for her blunder. It is a very fluffy romantic comedy where the jokes lead to the characters, especially Nao, being comically distorted (especially in diminutive "chibi" forms) for cute reactions, including reacting to good clothes and the realisation of how much an item costs. It is a very silly and light hearted toned work, with some ultra cartoonish content, such as a few female characters, such as the elderly landlady, who are insanely short next to the rest of the cast. The composer also has imported guitar solos from the nineties, varying between a 32 bit era video game score to even flamenco guitar that feels New Age.

The short's length sadly means you cannot really gauge where this could have gone, especially with the other adaptation Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave It to Chocola. It is based on a manga by prolific author Arina Tanemura, which was a fantasy sci-fi set in the 30th century. Its titular character Kyoko, the daughter of the King of the entire Earth here, is placed to the side, her story in the manga more explicitly a fantasy tale with heavier stakes, whilst this is entirely about the character of Chocola, a tiny cat girl android who had this eleven minute short all for herself. Still feeling a mere snippet to a longer work, this however shows the premise of the world, where after their anniversary dinner of their meeting, seemingly missed by the King, Chocola leaves the castle to find a new life. The world set up is an interesting mass of western fantasy tropes but said to be in the far flung future, where Chocola is seen rescued from a landfill of discarded androids by Earth's king, and yet has horse drawn carts to be attacked by thieves. It is a very silly work too in its own whimsical way, introducing clear characters from the source, the Smasher bandits the most prominent who have a member named Cream Soda. Chocola attempts to help them out, though she is not to be trusted as a cook unless, needing chocolate to power up, you want everything including curry to have chocolate as a main ingredient.

There is not much to say beyond this, though Time Traveller Kyoko has the more vibrant looking world whilst Good Morning Call is set in the ordinary world and would have to rely on the characters, if you were able to live with them for a while like in the manga, to carry the emotional weight. The transition to live action television for Good Morning Call makes sense with hindsight, even if I could have seen and hopefully enjoyed a version with its comedic animated slapstick, whilst Kyoko including its barely seen lead has a world seen in a glimpse to help its favour. There are many obscurer titles in danger of being lost, and whilst feeling like fragments of series which never came, it would be a shame to not see these titles preserved too. Quality wise, I preferred Time Stranger Kyoko, but the pair together are rewarding as historical titles.