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Hyper light drifter townspeople sprite sheet series#
Hyper light drifter townspeople sprite sheet tv#

Hyper light drifter townspeople sprite sheet series#

This finally led to me obtaining a complete VHS collection of the series towards the end of 2021: not only did I now have every episode in at least slightly better quality than the low-resolution uploads that had been on YouTube for years, but I now had the credits (which were always missing from most of these earlier uploads) for all of these episodes.

In due time, I found out that New Moomin was the series on which future industry legends Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko made their official debuts as animators, and that it was in fact a final meeting ground for many, many interesting ex-Mushi names who were already coming into their own and putting out quality work here before going on to make names for themselves elsewhere-of course, two other artists involved who played major roles in Group TAC’s 1970s anthologies were Hiromitsu Morita, the series’ main character designer and animation director, and Masakazu Higuchi, one of the series’ most talented animators who also made his debut as an episode director here. That sealed it: I had to learn more about this obscure series. For that matter, this was one of the few episodes where credits were available online at the time: Okishima not only wrote the episode but directed it, and the animators were the unsung Toshiyasu Okada and Kazuhide Fujiwara, both of whom later worked on MNMB or its equally creative spin-offs Manga Ijin Monogatari and Manga Kodomo Bunko. I then sought out the episode that Rintarō recommended, Pappa’s Old Shoes, which was episode 35 of the 1972 series known as New Moomin naturally, I enjoyed it and quickly realized that, in its bucolic, wondrous atmosphere, this was indeed a predecessor of sorts to Manga Nippon Mukashibanashi.

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In this interview, Rintarō mentioned that it was on the later Mushi-produced episodes of the 1969-70 Moomin series that Isao Okishima, who I had long known as the head writer of Group TAC’s Manga Nippon Mukashibanashi, made his animation screenwriting debut after a career working in pink films, of all things moreover, Okishima provided a unique perspective on family and domestic life that made the series stand out amongst its peers in children’s TV anime.

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I first became interested in New Moomin thanks to an article about Rintarō’s early years, derived from the PLUS MADHOUSE 04 book that featured a career-spanning interview with him. Largely forgotten today, it was one of the very last series to be produced by Mushi Production, the seminal studio established by Osamu Tezuka in 1962, and was chief-directed by the great Rintarō, later known for his spectacular animated epics like Galaxy Express 999, Harmagedon, The Dagger of Kamui, and Metropolis. New Moomin was the second TV anime to be based loosely on Finnish author Tove Jansson’s famous children’s books and comics about Moomintroll, his family and friends, and the strange world of Moominvalley.

Last year marked the 50th anniversary of a rather little-known series in Japanese animation history.