by A mysteriously drawn episode with all the Tokiwa-so members gathering together?
In recent anime circles, “drawing failure” tends to be perceived as unfavorable. However, even drawing failure was a charm in many older works, especially in the masterpieces of the Showa era.
For example, although it is rarely seen these days, it was not uncommon for the atmosphere of the drawing to change drastically depending on the episode. One of them is the anime “Fist of the North Star,” which has been broadcast since 1984. Sometimes, the main character “Kenshiro” has thick eyebrows or is drawn in a style similar to “The Rose of Versailles,” and the anime “Fist of the North Star” is known for its constantly changing atmosphere of the drawing.
In the 49th episode, “The Greatest Battle in History: Raoh vs. Ken! You’re the One Who’s Going to Die!”, in which Kenshiro and “Raoh” face off against each other, Ichiro Itano, famous for the Itano Circus, was the animation director, and Nobuteru Yuki was the original artist. Kenshiro, who was drawn as handsome as a character in “Super Dimension Fortress Macross,” is still discussed among fans. “Astro Boy,” the first long-running TV anime series in Japan, also has a legendary episode of animation failure.
This is episode 34, “The Swamp of Midoro,” which is said to have been the only episode in the black-and-white Astro Boy era to have been produced by “Studio Zero” at the request of the original author, Osamu Tezuka. Studio Zero was an animation studio established by manga artists from Tokiwa-so, and the animators for this episode were a luxurious team of Fujiko Fujio (Hiroshi Fujimoto, Motoo Abiko), Shotaro Ishinomori, Jiro Tsunoda, and Shinichi Suzuki.
However, Studio Zero had only been established then, and even the most famous manga artists were complete amateurs in animation production. Without the know-how to unify the style, each artist drew “Atom” from their head, which led to the unusual phenomenon of Atom’s face being different in each scene. Moreover, the individual personalities of each legend are reflected in Atom’s drawings, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is now a treasured video. For this reason, “Midoro ga Numa no Maki” has gained cult popularity among fans despite being a so-called animation collapse episode. When discussing animation, we must not forget “Chargeman Ken!”.
This legendary low-budget anime was broadcast in 1974 and became popular again in the 2000s. Compared to other anime, the budget is low, so there is less background music and sound effects, and it is common to reuse cel drawings and forcibly extend them.
Many drawings could be called accidents, and in episode 31, “Crisis! 1 Second Before Explosion,” a staff member’s hand and notes were caught on the screen. This would never be tolerated in other works, but “Chargeman Ken!” has been praised as “the ultimate metafiction” and “a fusion of anime and live action.”
There are also depictions where characters seem to have been forgotten to be painted, and the title that should have been “Destroy the Ken Fake!” is “Destroy the Ken Fake!” the more you watch, the more you find yourself criticizing it. In recent years, the world has become very strict about anime quality, but if you watch “Chargeman Ken!”, you might start to think it’s cute.
