Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 194 - Phoenix 2772: Love's Cosmozone a.k.a. Space Firebird
Hosts: D'Arcy, Heidi, Jeremy, Mike, Rebecca, Zuey
This is about test tube babies raised to be pilots, the chicken in the sky, and Black Jack nailing you right in the balls.
Click [HERE] to bribe an alien with caustic soda.
Video and pics after the cut.
There are several alternate Japanese posters for this film.
This poster contains an awfully stiff looking Godoh and Olga. Olga doesn't even seem like she fits into the background at all. Odd.
Here's the Japanese VHS cover, with an often-recycled shot of Godoh.
Here's the Japanese laserdisc. Looks pretty but makes it look like the movie is entirely about the bird!
Here's the Japanese DVD. I do not really like the new contemporary drawing. It looks like they were trying to make it appear as though the movie is about a kinky sexbot in some lame romantic comedy like Chobits.
Here's the Japanese soundtrack.
Here's a VCD release I got in Chinatown. I'm pretty sure it's legitimate as it has the Toho and Tezuka copyrights and is entirely in Japanese, but I suppose I could be wrong. When you play the video it has a copyright warning and the Toho logo and everything.
Here's the Australian DVD by Madman. This is most definitely the best release for English speakers, though you'll have to import it and use a region free DVD player if you live in the US.
Here's a UK release with the Space Firebird name. I suspect this is the equivalent of the Celebrity Just For Kids release and is cut? I dunno. As you can guess from the crappy picture quality, I swiped this from some English website.
Here's a UK release with the Phoenix 2772 name. I suspect this is the equivalent of the Best Film & Video release and is uncut, but still badly dubbed. As with the other UK picture, I swiped it from an English website.
This is a later UK re-release.
Here's a Spanish DVD release under the name Space Firebird Hi no Tori 2772: The Child of Space. I think it's interesting that Spain's DVD has Space Firebird in English and Hi no Tori in Japanese, but it's never written in Spanish. It has both Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.
Here's a couple of Italian DVDs. The title is written in both Japanese and Italian.
Here's the original US VHS release, as Space Firebird. This is the badly cut version from Celebrity's Just For Kids series of videos.
I actually like the graphic design of this a LOT better than the Japanese VHS or the Best Film & Video release. Too bad the video tape inside is cut to ribbons, has a terrible dub, and has crappy quality thanks to being recorded in EP mode. Here's the back of the box.
Wait a second. What is that image from Macross: Do You Remember Love? doing on the back of this video?!
Here's a close up:
It's true that all of these anime movies that Celebrity released in their Just For Kids line (and were later re-released uncut by Best Film & Video) were licensed by Toho and Macross: Do You Remember Love? is no exception, but that's a pretty weird mistake.
Anyway, here's the Best Film & Video VHS release.
While it is uncut, it's still got the same awful Hong Kong dub from Omni Productions, and it's still a EP quality tape, but this way you do miss out on the incredibly amateurish introduction from the producer's lisping child, Noel Bloom Junior.
But don't worry! I was thinking about you! I ripped the VHS tape of Celebrity's Just For Kids Sampler Collection. The Sampler Tape is an hour long tape with trailers for tons of Just For Kids videos, including a bunch of anime movies (Defenders of the Vortex a.k.a. Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy, Vengeance of the Space Pirate a.k.a. the Captain Harlock movie Arcadia of My Youth, Techno Police 21C, and so on) and various crappy American cartoons (BraveStarr, Foofur, Seabert, Filmation's Ghostbusters, and others.) I love that they had the balls to sell an hour of trailers as a tape. I actually rented this from a video rental store around 2005! Can you believe this has not disintegrated completely? I must preserve you, 1980s filth!
Also, while it's true that Noel Boom Junior is an evil alien here to suck out our brains, don't feel pity for him. That bastard has a Takatoku Valkyrie, a Gakken Mospeada, and a Godaikin Tetsujin 28 sitting right there! I want to go back in time, drive to L.A., and volunteer my own services in place of this brat.
I just clipped out the intro, outro, and the Space Firebird section and uploaded it for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
Now, for some related merchandise!
Here's the original Japanese tankoban containing the Space chapter of Phoenix that this movie is loosely based on.
This is Viz's original American release of the same manga under the title Phoenix: A Tale of the Future. This was an oversized volume and released before any of the other volumes of Phoenix, as a test run. Apparently it was successful, because Viz thankfully brought out ALL of the manga in English in the US.
This is Viz's later smaller re-release. This fits in with the other Phoenix volumes and is thusly renamed Phoenix Volume 2: Space. Other than the change in size, they have the same content.
Here's one of those lame books where they make a comic using cels from a movie.
Now here's a bunch of miscellaneous magazines, books, et cetera:
You guys, I really love this movie. You should go see it.
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Comments
16 comments postedConsidering myself as a long time animation fan, I have to sadly admit I only have a passing knowledge of Tezuka's works; but I have been interested in this film and I am glad to hear from you guys that's a good starting point in regards to getting into his work. So thanks for the show, it's good to expose these forgotten epics.
As a side note, that UK box art with the 12 rating I believe is a later VHS reissue by a small company called Western Connection which released Grey: Digital Target here; I know I'm sad. :P
Keep it up guys.
Glad you enjoyed the little spotlight we cast on Phoenix 2772! Hope you get the movie and enjoy it! Thanks for explaining what that other UK picture is! I've updated the post.
Impressed me there was that many releases of the film at all (besides the one or two tapes we've got here). I actually uploaded the entire "Sample Collection" on YouTube myself (sans several cartoons owned by Classic Media), but yeah, it was kinda funny how these films came over at all under that "Just For Kids" branding that weren't really for kids to begin with, but the editing certainly didn't help them anymore than the "Electronic Babysitter" format they were intended as.
That soundtrack cover is totally ripped off from a Journey album.
****
I almost would have liked to see the Sorayama-style robot (entirely silver) for Olga, because that would have brought home the fact that she's not human, which is an important aspect of the story. Since the anime presents her with human-colored skin it's too easy to just think of her as a person with some kind of fancy sci-fi armor.
I've no doubt she's colored the way she is because she's robo-mom. Her job is to be a surrogate for a human mother and raise a child, after all. I don't think all gray would've worked as well for that purpose. It does look cool, though!
Just a quick question.
Will you guys cover any other anime from the Celebrity's Just for Kids line such as Techno Police, Macron 1, Space Warriors, etc in the future? I would say Macross: Clash of the Bionoids but you guys did a Macross: DYRL episode looooong ago and the dub has been mentioned several times on this podcast.
This looks like something I would pick up on VHS at a random flea market for like a dollar, just to add to the other Just for Kids VHS tapes I have already. To be for warned, Techno Police is pretty baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, at least speaking for the Just for Kids VHS tape.
We actually have done a few others from Celebrity's Just For Kids line. We did Space Warriors: The Battle for Earth Station S/1. It's actually called Space Warriors Baldios: The Movie.
We also did Dallos a.k.a. Battle for Moon Station Dallos, an early Mamoru Oshii effort. This is evil Oshii, not good Oshii. This was the origin of my obsession with Oshii and features me swearing profusely at him.
We actually recorded a podcast for Techno Police 21C years ago, but ended up losing the recording. It was heartbreaking. Of course there's also our DYRL podcast, as you brought up, and I think maybe we've done more but I can't remember. I definitely intend to do more!
At least a Techno Police podcast exist(ed) at one point. Is there any chance of another recording of that down the road? Last time i checked (bout 5 years ago) Techno Police was going for like 30 bucks online, same with Clash of the Bionoids. I did a podcast recently with some guys (These guys:http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/search/label/Kool%20Kids%20Klub) about Five Star Stories and only 1/4 got recorded, I dont think were gonna give that anime another go anytime soon.
Well now that I know theres a Space Warrior podcast, I might just have to break the seal of that unopened tape and give it a try.
I remember seeing the Dallos podcast long ago but I havent had a chance to see the anime yet, even though its been sitting in my Zune for like... ever. Of course you have the option to look at a Macron 1 podcast... one day.
"This movie was made in 1980, which was, like, the beginning of the 80s..."
Oh sure, I could take quotes from you out of context and make you look stupid, too. You know what I was talking about -- it's surprising that something made in 1980 was so very EIGHTIES. Most popular entertainment from that time period doesn't look like the '80s, it still looks like the '70s. The '70s didn't really wear off until like 1983 or 1984. You see this in film, fashion, music... I was suggesting that either Phoenix 2772 strongly influenced '80s anime, or it was just ahead of its time.
Half the time you could quote is in context and make us look stupid.
That's rather quite fascinating if you had to look back around this point in time. Certainly I can see 1984 being the breaking point with films like Macross: DYRL ushering in that look of where anime was heading in the 1980's. I can see how between 1980 to '84, the industry was certainly beginning to shed it's 70's threads for something a little different.
A friend once told me Japanese anime fans don't really care about this film anymore as we foreigners do. Seems kinda sad to me but at the same time, but I'm sure that's just the way it is.
Aside from Disney, Tezuka was also influenced by the work of the Fleischer Studios such as Betty Boop and Popeye if you were trying to remember them during the podcast.
I definitely think that the Fleischer studio was a big influence on Tezuka too, especially stuff like Somewhere in Dreamland and, as you say, Betty Boop, both of which have that big eyed thing long before there was big eyed anime. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsB0mwBmDWE That said, we kept bringing up Disney because this movie specifically has some VERY Disney elements. We were definitely poking fun, but Pincho REALLY looks like Bambi: http://tezukaosamu.net/images/upload_images/character/0000993CHT.jpg http://www.disneyclips.com/imagesnewb5/imageslwrakr01/clipbambibutter.gif
There's also the fact that there's musical numbers, just like in Disney movies. Only two of them, but they seem pretty out of place in this weird little movie.
I'm pretty sure we've mentioned Fleischer as an influence on Tezuka in previous podcasts, possibly the Kimba podcast?
Great podcast. I never would have watched this if it weren't for this review.
The work camp mining musical number was really odd and out of place and totally reminded me of fantasia. Bizarre.
And at the end when Gordo's talking about he and Ulga being best friends, he's talking about friends with benefits, right?
Hearing about the "Skinner Box" reminded me of that one episode of The Simpsons from back in the early 90's where Dr. Marvin Monroe wanted to buy a baby to put in one, all for the purpose of being an a--hole to the kid for the 30 years that he or she will have to be in there for.
Apart from the DVD covers shown above, I found this link to some Polish release I'm not sure if it's legit or not, but they call it "Space Firebird" over there (the screengrabs took like total VHS grabs to me).
http://kino.idg.pl/film/262-Space.Firebird.html