Hi I'm Dranzerstorm
You may remember me as a regular contestant on the caption battle contest.
Welcome to Retro Retrospective, my world dedicated to the old guard of the Otaku world; expect some reviews of the old & obscure, and in-depth geeky knowledge with the occasional top ten and I now have a logo.
Little info about me
Well I'm British and I'm in to all things animated and nostalgia.
I've grown up with every cartoon going and have watched hundreds of anime.
Oh and to answer a question I was asked once, no I don't wear glasses in real life, I would wear Loke's sunglasses though.
This is a review for Samurai Pizza Cats but to explain the title, that is the Japanese title for the show and this review is for that version and not the gag dub to avoid confusion. With that disclaimer done, here is my review on Kyatto Ninden Teyandee.
We begin the series in Edoropolis, a modern day city mixed with feudal Japan populated by robot animals. This town is led by Shogun Iei Iei Tokugawa whose pretty much lost all his screws in terms of mindset, his Prime Minister Korn is plotting to overthrow him with aid from a family of ninja crows led by Gennari & managed by Karamaru; they do so with various plots often involving a large robot Oppressing the people and using the Shogun as a scapegoat, or trying to uncover other things like weapons or large sums of money, anyway to overthrow the Shogun.
The Chief of the Palace Guard Wanko, decides to form a team of Ninjas to combat the evils of Lord Korn; they are the Nyankees who work under disguise as Pizza Delivery men at a popular restaurant called Pizza Cat which explains where that comes from in the first place.
The team of three consists of Yattaro who plays the typical hero lead and is usually the one to finish the battle with his final attack, Pururun the only female who to be honest is typical female lead material and Skashee the hopeless romantic that makes an ideal third character, to be honest not much changes in 23 years, we still get teams like that and one only has to look at Pokemon's regular lineups over the years to see.
The restaurant is managed by Otama who takes in all the communications and launches the Nyankees by means of a clock tower gun. Couple of other characters are Omitsu a kind sheep girl who sprays out missiles when she's upset, the rescue squad consisting of four other ninja cats with special equipment specific to certain situations, the spoilt Princess Usako, the mother & son who appear once an episode and state the obvious and the Narrator who always speaks with the same Tatsunoko catchphrase "Allow me to Explain"
The series is basically a robot of the week affair; the plot happens and the Nyankees sort it out and ending in the same way each time with only a couple of more important plots breaking the chain. There's some slapstick in places and the retro music stops the combat from getting repetitive. But there is one thing about this show which makes it so strange is that it was even dubbed at all.
This show is very, very Japanese and even translated into subtitles it's blatantly obvious that this show would be lost on an American Audience, especially when the Ninja Turtles were taking most of the Cartoon viewing at the time. The fact that Saban barely received any of the translation notes was a bit of accidental genius as the team then decided it was best to play it as a gag show to get around the fact that a) they had nothing to translate with and b) the weirdness could easily be shown as a gag series, the title Samurai Pizza Cats refers to the name of the restaurant crossed with the misconception that the characters were Samurai mainly due to their weapons consisting of Kitana, a flute & an umbrella with a sword inside it.
As a gag series in the states it surprisingly worked mainly because the Ninja Turtles made the Animal fighting shows popular and the 90s had so many different ones that Samurai Pizza Cats fit right in but how does the original hold up?
Well I'm not one for over done formulas this day and age but there is enough in the series to entertain everyone and if you can get past the heavy Japanese barrier it's very enjoyable.
Final Verdict: It's an easy show to watch if your an anime veteran but may be lost on a newbie especially when the original is packed to the brim with Japanese jokes, plots and themes. I recommend the sub for veterans who want to see what the original was really like and I recommend the gag dub for newbies and nostalgia fans who enjoy bonkers cartoons.
Ever since the creation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984, there have been challengers to the crown ever since in every attempt to try and win with the very same formula they created, here are the ten most shameless attempts. The rules are any animation counts, anthropomorphic animal shows only and they must follow the same formula as TMNT; I'll also be listing the year of each entry, So lets begin.
Honorable Mention: Butt Ugly Martians - 2001
This one only missed the list because of the animal rule but is still a shameless ripoff nonetheless. It's a CGI cartoon about aliens who fight with power suits, despite the title, I can't really call the martians butt ugly, the attempt was to capitalize on the popular space trend that came briefly with the new millennium hype but came far too late for it to eat up any popularity.
10. Road Rovers - 1996
A group of dogs transformed into anthro canine superheroes to fight evil, it's kind of a Justice League for dogs as each canine is a world leader's pet. The team is one big 90s cliche and doesn't evolve beyond that.
9. Wild West COWboys of Moo Mesa - 1992
By divine powers of a convenient meteor, a bunch of cattle in late 19th century west become anthro cows and start playing the Wild West, apart from the fact that it plays on every cow related word possible, it was decent enough to watch and was early enough to still be fashionable for the period.
8. Loonatics Unleashed - 2005
I've mentioned this one before and I don't think highly of it, it's the only one on this list to have multiple animals rather than just one, but despite having a Looney Tunes label there are no Looney Tunes to be found, a misguided attempt by Warner Bros to try the pseudo anime craze and realizing that you need more than just the art style to succeed.
7. Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go - 2004
A very ambitious project about a team of cyborg monkeys and their human friend fighting the evil Skeleton King. It was a lot better than a number of other attempts and the villain truly looks frightening but the series is ruined by the fact that it has the Worlds Worst designed Robot ever, seriously they had the Japanese on board for this one and that's the best robot they can come up with.
6. Battletoads - 1992
This is the only direct challenger the Ninja Turtles ever got, better known for their ridiculously hard video games but largely outclassed in every field within the genre with the exception of maybe a better villain, okay not much better but at least they tried something different with that one.
5. Mighty Ducks - 1996
Disney formed an ice hockey team in 1993 and tried to make a cartoon out of it's mascot which is about an intergalactic team of ducks who just happen to play Ice Hockey. Funny thing is that the real life team didn't win the Stanley Cup until after Disney sold it. Disney are normally good with ducks but not this time around.
4. Biker Mice From Mars - 1993 & 2006
The only Ninja Turtle clone who managed a remake and the only series to be reasonably popular and the only series to keep it's original voice cast in it's remake. But still shameless nonetheless, these days the Biker Mice are slash fiction worthy.
3. Street Sharks - 1994
This series didn't even try to be subtle, it's whole intent was to make a franchise that could compete with the Ninja Turtles but with not much to go on other than sharp teeth it never really caught on.
2. Samurai Pizza Cats - 1990
To be fair, the popularity this series had wasn't their fault. In Japan it was a straight up animal anime about Samurai Cats, a few gags here and there but nothing that passes for a spoof. When it was dubbed however, there was lack of proper translations, and what they had to work with was far less than anticipated so they played it as a Ninja Turtles spoof with writing similar to the Animaniacs and ended up becoming more popular as a spoof than the original going as far as the original creators admitting it worked better as a spoof.
1. Kung-Fu Dino Posse - 2009
But we British have done it again, we actually successfully made something so shameless to the Ninja Turtles that it's hard to believe it even exists. There were more Dinosaur related shows like this one such as Extreme Dinosaurs & Dinosaucers but this series is the ultimate in shameless entertainment, if you wish for me to place this one in the cartoon vault if only to know what the hell this series is, then please comment.
Abridged series have been part of the fan culture of anime for a number of years now having turned poor quality dubbing into a joke, but a number of series have been dubbed in such a way that it turns from something fairly straight into a gag comedy.
Arguably the most well known gag dub is the Samurai Pizza Cats, the story goes that the original script and audio were not sent to the dubbing team at Saban, so instead of trying to work out what was going on they decided to turn it into a spoof comedy which worked so well that the creators of the original considered it better, but there are others.
ADVFilms & Funimation were notorious for reworking a number of shows into gag fests, either as DVD extras or as part of the show, most notably and more recently, Hetalia Axis Powers; it was obvious that the group wanted to put as much gags as possible so they got heavy with the accents and the stereotype jokes but the winner is the narrator for her sharp-tongue humor.
But when we British do dubs, we certainly go the extra mile; I've already mentioned Catgirl Nuku Nuku in a previous post but we have more.
Super rare dub "The Enemy's The Pirates" (the rarest in the world) was packed to the brim with gags especially with wise cracking characters such as space cat Apulo, sounding like a cross between Mother Brain from Captain N the Games Master and comedian Chris Rock. Ultimate Teacher another anime film differed between American & British dubs with the British one having more gags, Ultimate Teacher of course is the one series deemed un-reviewable by Bennett the Sage from the thatguywiththeglasses team.
But the winner and most obscure was BBC's take on Urusei Yatsura, as part of a cultural weekend celebrating Japan the BBC attempted to dub Urusei Yatsura but the way it was edited and scripted it became more like an abridged series. It was even called Lum the Invader Girl instead of it's Japanese title Urusei Yatsura. In fact see for yourself.
For those unfamiliar with the rarer titles in this feature, I will do my best to explain them in the comments if asked. Until next time.
