Winter 1971 Anime

Ashita no Joe tells the tale of a wandering orphan named Joe Yabuki. He falls into one of Tokyo's slums and gets into a fight with a local gang and his street fighting skills gets him the attention of a washed up alcoholic boxing trainer. Until he sticks up for Joe when the gang comes back to finish Joe, Joe decides to live with the trainer. Despite the trainer's generosity, Joe is still committing money making scams and lands him in prison. While serving time, he meets another boxer named Rikiishi Tooru who gets Joe interested in boxing. Upon release, Joe then pursues a boxing career.

[Source: Anime News Network]

Tiger Mask (whose real name was Naoto Date) was a feared heel wrestler in America who was extremely vicious in the ring. However, he became a face after returning to Japan when a young boy said that he wanted to be a villain like Tiger Mask when he grew up. The boy resided in an orphanage, the same one that Tiger Mask grew up in during his childhood. Feeling that he did not want the boy to idolize a villain, Tiger was inspired to be a heroic wrestler.

The main antagonist in the manga and anime was Tiger's Cave, a mysterious organization that trained young people to be villainous heel wrestlers on the condition that they gave half of their earnings to the organization. Tiger Mask was once a member of Tiger's Cave under the name "Yellow Devil", but no longer wanted anything to do with them, instead donating his money to the orphanage. This infuriated the leader of the organization and he sent numerous assassins, including other professional wrestlers, to punish him.

[Source: Wikipedia]

Kozue is a highschool girl and enthusiastic volleyball player. Her dream is to play in the Japanese national volleyball team. During the series she makes it from the school district league up to the Japanese volleyball finals, step by step till the international volleyball championship. But the faster and higher Kozue climbs the career ladder up, the more she gets confronted with the dark side of success: too high expectations, self-conceit and envy are progressing towards serious problems.

[Source: Anime News Network]

The story is about Hyuma Hoshi, a promising young baseball pitcher who dreams of becoming a top star like his father Ittetsu Hoshi in the professional Japanese league. His father was once a 3rd baseman until he was injured in World War II and was forced to retire. The boy would join the ever popular Giants team, and soon he realized the difficulty of managing the high expectations. From the grueling training to battling the rival Mitsuru Hanagata on the Hanshin Tigers, he would have to take out his best pitching magic to step up to the challenge.

[Source: Wikipedia]

The main character is a mother named Sazae-san. She lives in a house with her husband, her kids and her parents. The show is the ultimate family program and tends to follow traditional themes. Think of this show as the Japanese equivalent to "The Partridge Family" and you'll get a good feel for this show's atmosphere. Don't expect to see things like violence, swearing, kung-fu action or magical girls. The plots are more like "Today, Sazae-san goes to the new mall and gets lost". Such "boring" plotlines and the simplistic art are often a turn-off to non-Japanese audiences, but most Japanese find the show incredibly good. As a result, it continues to be one of the top ratings grabbers on TV and is one of the few anime that is considered "acceptable" by adults.

[Source: AniDB]

At Shinsei high school, soccer is almost a combat sport and new team coach Teppei Matsuki is a fully paid up sadist who will push his team as hard as necessary to win. Headstrong school bad boy Shingo Tamai and his friend Ohira are determined not to be bullied into joining Matsuki's team; instead they set up a squad of their own, and at first play just for fun and struggle to keep up with Matsuki's team.

As their skills progress, they play other teams and get stronger and craftier, until they face the crack Asakase high school squad and its star player Misugi Yan in the schools' final. In a tangle of subplots involving old rivalries and injuries, and a mixed-race player seeking his identity and his lost mother (who turns out to be in jail), Shingo develops his skills as a center forward and looks forward to playing a visiting Brazilian squad. He is seriously injured in a game, but his talent, which even the legendary Brazilian Pele recognizes, is equaled by his determination. With the help of a friend of his old rival Matsuki, he recovers to help the team to victory.

Definitely melodrama rather than a sports series proper, this is the first in the line of Japanese soccer soaps that stretches to Captain Tsubasa and beyond. Based on a manga by Ikki Kajiwara and Kosei Sonoda.

[Source: The Anime Ecyclopedia]

Mako is a young siren and daughter to the King of the Sea. In a stormy day she rescues the young sport Akira from a wrecked ship, but ends up falling in love with him. So, with help from the Witch of the Sea, she's transformed into a human, and becomes a highschool student who helps everyone with her strong sense of love and justice and her magical pendant, the "Tear of the Mermaid."

[Source: Anime News Network]

After his homeland is destroyed by a large swarm of wasps, Hutch, the Honeybee ventures into the world. He goes to search for his mother, the queen bee, from whom he was separated during the disaster. Through his wandering, Hutch grows to be strong and brave as he observes the lives and deaths of numerous other insects.

[Source: Tatsunoko Production]

※ NOTE: Theatrical Premiere

Okamoto Tadanari short film.

Adaptations of numerous stories written by Hans Christian Andersen.

An arrogant karate master named Tadashi Sawamura enters the kickboxing ring to prove his superiority, only to be beaten into a coma by a practictioner of the new art. After recovering, his trainer Endo convinced Sawamura to study kickboxing in order to regain his honor. The series is loosely based on the real-life exploits of champion kickboxer Tadashi Sawamura.

[Source: Anime News Network]

The story of a dim country boy who dreams of making it to the high school baseball championships in Koshien. Each 10 minutes episode ran from Monday to Saturday.

[Source: AniDB]

A comedy about a country boy that travels to the city to study judo. He ends up meeting the daughter of a prominent dojo and her judo skilled cat. Each episode features 2 stories.

[Source: AniDB]

Norakuro is a black dog enlisted in the "Mokenrentai" (Fierce Dog Brigade), an Imperial army of dogs fighting in a war against the enemy Monkey Army.

Norakuro is a stray black-and-white dog in an army of white dogs who blundered his way while being a Private Second-Class.

This series was relatively faithful to the comics. One big change, however, was the addition of the army nurse Miko, whom Norakuro had a crush on. For this series, Norakuro was voiced by Nobuyo Ooyama, who would later become noted for voicing Doraemon.

[Source: Cartoon Research]

A goofy comedy series with various stories featuring the same set of characters.

[Source: AniDB]

Based on a 1966 manga by Sazae-san creator Hasegawa Machiko.

This is another slice-of-everyday-life tale, centered around a spiteful old woman who causes trouble for neighbours with her constant bumbling and grumbling.

[Source: Anime News Network]