I enjoy a lot of vintage anime. Whether it's classics like "Sailor Moon" or lesser known ones like "Minky Momo" and "Ghost Sweeper Mikami", they rank up with some of the best modern anime (at least in my opinion).
Despite that, it tears me up inside that a lot of vintage anime from the 60s to the 80s still have yet to be translated. Three examples of this immediately come to my mind:
Lady Lady!! & Hello! Lady Lynn!
An adaptation of the 1987 manga series,
"Lady!", it tells of the events of a motherless 5 year old child adjusting to society. It spawned two seasons with a total of 57 episodes and ran from 1987 to 1989.
While the manga has been fully translated into English, the same can't be said for both seasons of the anime, unfortunately. Try as I might, I couldn't find ANY English subs for the anime.
Just a couple days ago, I managed to come across the French dub,
"Gwendoline", but most other versions appear to be partially lost or COMPLETELY lost. Maybe some day that will change, but the possibilities are slim to none.
Hana no Ko Lunlun
This one is another series by Toei and was released in 1979; nearly a decade before "Lady!!" It follows a tomboyish girl named Lunlun who, with the help of cat and dog named Cateau & Nouveau respectively, must travel all over Europe to find the Flower of Seven Colors (Not a flower that blooms in seven
different colors. No, no, no. A flower that literally has every color of the rainbow on it). Along their journey, they'll encounter the fiendish Togenishia and a doofy tanooki named Yabooki. There's also a photographer named Serge who is Lunlun's love interest.
Lunlun gains access to a magical flower pin from the King of the Flower Planet. If she were to reflect a flower using the pin's mirror, she'll gain access to different outfits that would prove useful for various situations (kinda like Usagi's transformation pen from early Sailor Moon episodes). In the first episode, Lunlun dons a suit of armor to rescue a child from burned building. A helluva way to start a magical girl anime lol.
This series ran for 50 episodes and was dubbed into multiple languages. Now, hold on, I know what you're thinking,
"But Scotty, isn't this post supposed to be about anime that has yet to be translated?" Well, allow me to explain:
In terms of available
English localizations, all we currently have are the first 10 episodes of the original Japanese version with subtitles and a couple dubbed versions by
Harmony Gold and
ZIV that stitch multiple episodes together to try and pass it off as a "movie".
(And yes, it's the origin of both that famous
"Release the Bees" clip.)
The ZIV dub also has this opening
theme by Hal Winn & Mark Gibbons. Upon hearing it, you discover that... it's kind of a bop (Seriously, I downloaded it via 3rd party YouTube downloader lol.)
Anyway, while this show didn't see much success here in America, it was popular in Europe and Latin America. After I finished the 10th episode of the original JP version, I looked at the
French dub as that had all 50 episodes with English subtitles. It's actually pretty good. For starters, it also has a
BANGER opening theme by the late Claude Lombard (a Belgian singer who was known for doing opening theme songs for French dubbed cartoons and anime ‐ Including
"Gwendoline" (Lady!)).
As was common with most dubs at the time, the French dub changed some of the character's names. Lunlun is now Lydie, Togenishia is Sabrina, Yabooki is called Boris, Cateau and Nouveau are now Cathy and Cador, and Serge is Florent. I'm sure other language dubs modified character names as well, but I haven't seen those yet.
While I DO enjoy the French dub, I still hope that the remaining 40 episodes of the JP version will get translated some day. I don't care who picks it up; Crunchyroll, HIDIVE, fansubbers, etc. As long as the entire JP version is fully translated, then I will be an even happier camper.
Anmitsu-hime
The manga ran from 1949 to 1955. In 1986, a retelling of the manga with artwork by Izumi Takemoto would surface around the same time as the anime.
It tells of the aforementioned princess frequently escaping the castle to go on her own little adventures.
If you've ever played
"Alex Kidd in High-Tech" world for Sega Master System, you might recall it taking place inside a very... Japanese style castle. Well, that's because it is actually a reskinned version of
"Anmitsu-hime" for the Sega Mark III. Sadly, no translation exists for that, either.
I hope that both the anime and the Master System game will receive an English translation some day. Odds are slim, but hey, a man can dream.
