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2008-12-01

Wolf Boy Ken and Hustle Punch

I was reading through the archives of Ben Ettinger's Anipages (our most valued resource for anime history), and re-discovered this excellent post on two classic television series. Wolf Boy Ken (1963-65, 86 episodes) and Hustle Punch (1965-66, 26 episodes) were Toei Doga's television series, and featured all of our favorite Toei players of the '60s - Yasuo Otsuka, Yasuji Mori, Reiko Okuyama, Yoichi Kotabe, Akemi Ota, Hayao Miyazaki, and Isao Takahata.

Wolf Boy Ken, in particular, holds a special distinction as Takahata's directoral debut. He had already worked as Assistant Director on a couple features (including the 1963 classic Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon), and this series saw him in the director's chair for the first time. He was certainly impressive enough for the studio to give him the honor of directing the next Toei Doga feature film in 1965 - which became Horus, Prince of the Sun.

Anyway, Ben Ettinger goes into great detail on all the major players for these two shows, explaining their significance and his own fond memories. A DVD of selected episodes was released in Japan a few years ago, and I told myself long ago to get myself a copy. There were several DVDs of Toei's '60s television shows, but I honestly don't know if they're still in print. I'll have to look into that the next time I plan to pick up some new discs.

Again, be sure to read the Anipages essay.

1 comment:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Being reminded of spotting a 16mm copy of an episode of "Ken The Wolf Boy" off eBay years back but lost out on getting it sadly. Apparently an English version was made back then and had Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Cap'n Crunch, etc.) doing the voiceovers in it.

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