Author: Syracuse/Anitama Cover Source: Tiger Face Man
<h5>[This week's Toei special animation chronology].</h5>
<h4>Chapter 16: Kamen Rider's Spiritual Prequel Judo Straight Line and Tiger Mask Man</h4>
At the end of the 1960s, a new wave of television in Japan was swept up, and the sports root trend, often referred to as the body root trend. It is hard to say that the origin should be regarded as the manga industry, but television replaced movies in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the biggest entertainment method for the people, and the heyday of the body root trend was also achieved through television programs. The trend was a temporary trend at that time, two or three years ago, but after the trend, such works have been fully formed and stabilized, forming a kind of work field that continues to the present. Root nature, roughly meaning perseverance, will, spirit, this kind of work in the setting, plot, performance, etc., generally meet the three characteristics.
The first is that the subject matter has a competitive element. In the early days, it was a story related to some kind of sports competition, but this was also a matter of the formation of the field, which was narrow. So far it has long been extended to not necessarily a certain kind of sports, in short, the point is that there is competition, that is, there is a certain element of winning and losing. Sports competitions are, other competitions can also be, than cooking can be, love multi-way singing and dancing it is needless to say. The culture department can penetrate thoroughly, and the direct fight is even more, the hero saves the earth, the super Saiyan universe is the strongest, and the straw hat enters the new world.
The second is that the protagonist has lost first and then won, even if this is a routine, it is to let the audience unfold tirelessly. The protagonist fails, then grows through hard work and training, skill and mental aspects, and finally reverses to win the opponent. This process, which now seems to be taken for granted, was established and developed into a system in the late sixties in the midst of this wave of body roots. Growing through hard work and training is a major point, "special training" is a symbolic existence, with special training can even develop "must kill skills". And when using the must-kill skill, it is best to shout out a name with a special brush fashion value, like the era drama martial arts movie.
The third is hot blood, to be precise, the presence of spiritualism is very large. To put it simply and crudely, for example, when you can't win a fight, you will win a battle with a high spirit or anger. Too theoretical and scientific plot explanation is not needed, spiritual motivation is an important promoter of plot development, you are too reasonable and logical but not good. The performance method of the previous must-kill technique is also to exaggerate the absurdity of surreality, so the audience will be attracted. Chinese the enlightenment of body root works, it was the Toei TV series "Volleyball Girl" introduced in the 1980s, to ask anyone you know who is over forty years old, there is no one who does not know this drama.
This last one is the one with the greatest diffusion, which has long been outside the sports competition category and is almost ubiquitous in today's fictional works. The perspective of the popularizer will tell you that there is a slogan called "friendship, hard work, victory", and the researcher's perspective will give you a conclusion, which is the complete evolution of the body root trend in the following year.
Going back to the story of the previous one, "Judo Straight Line", is Toei's masterpiece of TV drama in the late 1960s, and its super popularity with a maximum rating of 30.7% has become a pillar of the trend. Let's briefly review the history of this TV Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation (TBS) program "Takeda Time", the era drama action film "Hidden Swordsman" series from October 1962, has gained super popularity for three consecutive quarters. The Otter series began in January 1966 and continued to air Round Valley Studios' "Stranger Things" in the autumn of 1968 after the end of "Ottersewen".
Then, in the spring of 1969, Tokyo Broadcasting Television's producers of "Otsevin" and "Strange Wars", Yoji Hashimoto, together with Toei's producer Hirayama, and Katsura Ikami, the scripter of "Hidden Swordsman", to some extent, produced "Demon Martial Arts Tent" with a kind of ambition of "hidden swordsman again". This became the direct prototype of the later "Kamen Rider", but the "Demon Martial Arts Tent" itself fell off a cliff and died tragically, and in the first quarter of the year, the emergency filling the pit was "Judo Straight Line".
The lead scripter of "Judo Straight Line", Hashimoto Producer Mori Sasaki, previously wrote "Ultraman", "Ultraseven", "Strange Wars". In fact, Hashimoto was not so determined to cut down the "Demon Martial Arts Tent" at the beginning, after all, it was really the next step to use the sword on the guillotine, and at first he was indeed full of fantasies and planned to remedy it through route changes. So Sasaki was originally a scripter who was scheduled to participate in the second quarter of "Demon Martial Arts Account", because he was a die-hard fan of "Hidden Swordsman", and Sasaki was very excited after learning this news, and also considered a lot of ideas for "Demon Martial Arts Account".
However, Hashimoto saw that "Demon Martial Arts Tent" was hopeless, but still decided to cut another piece to fill the pit, and as a result, Sasaki became the script writer of "Judo Straight Line". Sasaki was dumbfounded, because... He didn't know anything about judo! If nothing else, the rules alone are not in the heart! After swollen mo to do, urgently eat fast food junk food make-up lessons, rely on a few local stall brochures to burst the liver to take a brief overview of the basic judo, immediately began to catch up with the script. "Judo Straight Line" was made up in such a hurry at the beginning, because this film was originally only used to fill in the pit temporarily, and there was an original work anyway. Now it's storytelling, and we really don't advocate such a fast-food attitude.
This situation of Sasaki is not unique, and the production staff sent by Toei Tokyo Productions at the production site basically do not understand judo. The beheading of "Demon Martial Arts Tent" was pronounced in mid-April, and after the story of the twists and turns told last time to get the original title to "Judo Straight Line", it was May. It had to start broadcasting in mid-June, the time was too urgent, and it was not possible to start shooting immediately after getting the imaging rights of the original work. Everything is difficult at the beginning, and the first biggest problem is to choose an actor.
The original is a shonen manga, the protagonist is named Naoya Ichijo, and the setting is a junior high school student. Where to find such a child star, junior high school students, to have acting skills, but also to know even a little judo. It is not okay to find a few, because it is more normal to be small fresh meat at this age, and judo is only soft and not Tao. In the end, the Propaganda Department favored a person who could save the country, although he was twenty-one years old, but he was quite short, and that face could also be called a child's face, and it seemed that he could forcibly dress up as a junior high school student. This is a newcomer actor who recently starred in the 1968 Toei movie "Aaaah Yu Keshu", named Sakuragi Kenichi.
Hashimoto and Hiraiyama two producers looked at it, alas, there was no way to do this, and the rest was that the exclusive sponsor Takeda Pharmaceutical Industry had to pass the pass. Takeda's head office in Kansai, Hashimoto and Hirayama also had to fly from Tokyo to Osaka, just to take a photo of Sakuragi. Takeda's propaganda section chief looked at it and was very upset, what the hell is such an old junior high school student? Hirayama said that in addition to him can not find anyone else suitable, the other side said that for the time being, believe you again, ask this child to come personally, I will meet a real person to try.
The meeting place was in the square in front of Tennoji Station in Osaka, and hirayama had called Sakuragi the night before to ask him to meet at 10 o'clock the next morning. However, I came over in the clothes of junior high school students, put on my hat and clogs and shoes, and dressed up as junior high school students in the style of the Meiji years. Twenty-one-year-old Sakuragi followed the instructions and pretended to be tender, and the next day she really appeared in the square like this, hirayama said how you see this style, it is almost an actor in the official shooting! This thing really passed, and by the way, the protagonist Naoya's nemesis role, the actor used Sasaki Tsuyoshi, which was later Kamen Rider II = Kazumi Hayato.
After the actor decides, the next thing is the performance problem, if it is animation, then the things that cannot be physically done by the human body can come anyway, but this is a TV series. The original already had all kinds of exaggerated and absurd judo skills, and scripter Sasaki Mori also added some of the action scenes he considered for "Demon Martial Arts Tent" to this. For example, what is called "Heaven and Earth Vortex", just look at the name can not imagine what kind of action, all kinds of strange judo must kill. Since the second quarter, Hashimoto producers have also added another scripter, Shozo Uehara, who, like Sasaki, has also participated in the first Otter series and "Strange Wars" all the way.
In the end, the script of the whole drama of "Judo Straight Line" was mainly written by Sasaki and Uehara in turn. Uehara's career as a scripter was the most common to Toei, and this was the first time Uehara participated in Toei's works, and he became acquainted with Toei's Hirayama producers through Judo Straight Line. Uehara was not yet a veteran driver after his debut for less than five years, and when he encountered difficulties, Hirayama and Hashimoto compared him to the protagonist Naoya, patted him on the shoulder and said come on Naoya! In his later years, Uehara recalled that in the year and a half of his participation in "Judo Straight Line", he completely solidified the scripting skills, and also expanded his horizons to see more of this line.
However, in the actual production scene of this film, the biggest core is the production director Uchida Yusaku. His father, Uchida Tomon, was a well-known supervisor in the Japanese film and television industry in the 1920s, and his brother Kazusaku Uchida was also a supervisor of film and television works. Uchida himself began as an assistant supervisor, but then did not become a supervisor, and became a producer, from production to production director to production director. In 1969, when Judo Straight Line was made, Uchida was the new head of the management department of toei Oizumi Photography, and then he became a key figure in the history of this set.
Faced with a variety of strange judo skills, Uchida used the Ono Kenkai to take charge of the action scenes of "Judo Straight Line", because they had just taken on a Toei era drama "The Legend of the Japanese Swordsman" that had been broadcast this spring. Every day, ono Kenyou will rack their brains to think about how to play the action scenes, and the action skills that the human body cannot physically achieve. That is to say, "Judo Straight Line" has basically changed from a modern drama with a judo theme to a martial arts film with special photographic techniques. If the characters inside are still wearing masks, there is no doubt that they will be unanimously called special shots by contemporary Otomo.
Kamen Rider began airing in the first week of April 1971, and Judo Straight Line was also broadcast in the first week of April 1971, followed by the Kamen Rider action scene by the Ohno Kenkai. The supervising lineup of "Judo Straight Line" is almost all acquaintances of the Toei special shots mentioned in the past series, and this time it will no longer count each person's name one by one, only a few mentions. We have said before that, led by Kamen Rider, Toei superhero Showa period oversees the Four Heavenly Kings, Origata, Koichi Takemoto, Minoru Yamada, and Katsuhiko Taguchi. All of the above, except for Takemoto, participated in "Judo Straight Line", but Takemoto participated in "The Legend of the Japanese Swordsman".
However, in the past, these supervisions were introduced like the above, of course, only for the reader to understand quickly and quickly, but in fact, according to the historical flow of restoration, they followed the previous works to participate in the "Judo Line". The key reason for participating in Kamen Rider is precisely in this "Judo Straight Line". There are two other people in the lineup worth mentioning, the new recruits who have not been mentioned before, one is to supervise Okunaka, and the other is to supervise Nagai Takashi.
Ao Zhong was also the supervisor of Toei TV series, but he did not have much to do with children's films. However, the on-site staff who saw "Judo Straight Line" almost didn't understand judo, and he couldn't stand it anymore and said that he wanted to go to it, because when he was a student, the club activity was in the judo department, or the captain. People are so enthusiastic because he and Pingshan are both UTokyo alumni and are from the same college and department. So the Okunaka supervisor and the Uehara Shozo script were first realized in "Judo Straight Line", and there will be many more times after this combination, including "Volleyball Women" ten years later, and the main lineup will look like this. Akishi just debuted in the television industry this year, was introduced to the "Judo Straight Line" live assistant supervisor, like this at dinner time each episode broadcast for half an hour, this is his first time to participate.
The two also participated in Kamen Rider after participating in "Judo Straight Line", and Nagaishi was a famous superhero supervisor in the Heisei era. And the catalyst for all this, including the above-mentioned old people and newcomers and ono Kenkai and other lineups appeared in "Kamen Rider", in addition to the Hirayama producer factor, the core key is the production director Uchida Yusaku. At that time, the production of "Kamen Rider" did not use Toei's two major photography sites, Toei Oizumi Photography and Toei Kyoto Photography, but opened a third location, Toei Ikuta Photography. Ikuda Photography was re-established for the production of Kamen Rider, and the original director was Uchida, so now our storytelling process has come to the door of the Kamen Rider series.
Under the extremely urgent schedule, in the end, "Judo Straight Line" still did not catch up. Seeing that the first premiere date that has been scheduled is getting closer and closer, the first integrated product that can be used for broadcasting cannot be taken out. Three years ago, the predecessors of this show actually had a similar dilemma, that is, "Ultraman". As a result, a temporary stage play "Ultraman Eve Festival" was urgently released, and the video was broadcast in the time period of the show to make up for a week, so "Judo Straight Line" also used the same eve festival trick.
At the end of June, when it finally started broadcasting, the popularity boiled over within half a year, and the signing party of the lead actor Kenichi Sakuragi was held in the first month of the New Year. Fans killed from all over the country were crowded together, far beyond the expectations of TV stations and advertising agencies, almost thinking that they were going to cause an accident. Shortly after the broadcast of Judo Straight Line, Tokyo Broadcasting Television and Toei also planned another TV series tailored for Sakuragi, "Criminal Jun", which began broadcasting in the autumn of 1971 and spanned four years.
The producer of "Criminal Jun" Tokyo Broadcasting Television is Yoji Hashimoto, the producer of Toei is Hirayama Andei and Saito Raisho, as well as the main script Sasaki Mori, the main supervisor Okunaka Mitsuo, etc., all of which are the same as in "Judo Straight Line". The supervision also added the above-mentioned only one who missed the above-mentioned Hiroichi Takemoto who did not participate in "Judo Straight Line", and the script was also added to Ichikawa Moriichi, Hideka Nagasaka, and Seimitsu Taguchi who were active in the second phase of the Otter series due to Hashimoto's connections. Nagasaka also met Hirayama because of the series, and then participated in "Cyborg Mechanic" and "Kamen Rider X" in Toei, but the TV series "Criminal Jun" itself is no longer in the scope of this serial storytelling.
At the same time as the launch of Judo Straight Line, another manga written by Kajihara Kajihara, the wrestling-themed Tiger-Faced Man, was attracted by Ken Toei, the director of the Toei Animation Planning Office, next door. Yuga was the producer of Toei Animation's original TV show "Wolf Boy Ken", and succeeded Daisaku Shirakawa as the planning director of Toei Animation, and the representative work of the following year was "Demon God Z". Yuga had a hunch that "Tiger Mask Man" would definitely gain great popularity, so he decisively went directly to Kajihara's house and asked him for permission to animate this.
At that time, Watanabe Ryotoku had just pestered Kajihara to painstakingly win "Judo Straight Line", so this time Kajihara simply agreed. Tiger Face Man and Kajihara's masterpiece Giant Star were also manga serialized in Kodansha, so Yuki chose Yomiuri Television, which was already producing an animated version of Giant Star, and began broadcasting in October 1969. The producer of the scene is Yu Saito, the original producer of Toei Animation and Kodansha Manga's masterpiece "Giggling Kitaro", and the lyrics of the theme song are also written by Saito Phi Mako.
The music composer was Shunsuke Kikuchi in the later series of Kamen Rider, General Tyrannosa, Doraemon, Aralei, Dragon Ball, etc., including the aforementioned Criminal Jun. But the decisive trigger for this series of musical responsibilities was "Tiger Face Man", which was the first popular tv children's film in which Kikuchi was responsible for music. Saito told Kikuchi that there is a general rule for theme songs so far, and the musical types of opening songs and ending songs are the same. For example, the theme song of a juvenile comic like this is the feeling of being very energetic and spiritual at the beginning of the film, this time we venture to play something else, the opening song can be this style, and the ending uses a narrative song with a sense of sadness.
"Tiger Face Man" also achieved super popularity, the highest rating rushed to 31.9%, the whole film for two consecutive years. It became the most popular animation for commercialization in the late 1960s and early 1970s, providing an example for the upcoming full commercialization of virtual characters in the 1970s. When Kamen Rider officially began planning in 1970, he consciously analyzed and referred to the popular "Tiger Mask Man" at that time. You look at the setting skeleton, the male protagonist is called Date Naoto, and the female protagonist is called Ruriko. Naoto is a vicious wrestler trained by Tiger's Den, an organ that seeks to dominate the industry, and is a tiger-faced man when he wears a mask. However, the Tiger-Faced Men betrayed the Order, and tiger's den kept sending assassins to obliterate the Tiger-Faced People. The big cadre of the conductor is called Mr. X, the Grand Chief of the Tiger's Den, is a mysterious figure who usually only hears his voice and does not see his face.
<h5>Tiger Face Man title and ending:</h5>
This article is for publication by Anitama only, and no unit or individual may publish part or all of this article in any form.
Official website: http://www.anitama.cn
Official Weibo: @AnimeTamashii
WeChat public number: Anitama0815
Cooperation email: [email protected]
Original: m.anitama.cn/article/20f3ab751dadea35?utm_source=toutiao