Princess Knight LP

Discussion in 'Tomita' started by marshman, Dec 1, 2005.

  1. marshman

    marshman New Member

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    Anyone come across one of these before? Its a Japanese vinyl LP on the Columbia label of what appears to be an episode of the Princess Knight cartoon. The gatefold sleeve has extra pages with colour stills, the copy is entirely in Japanese but Tomita's name is there in Japanese. It starts with a very Disneyish choir singing with orchestra and trumpets and a female singer. It then goes into Japanese narration and character voices, very little music other than in the background. It finally finishes with an upbeat song with many voices and full orchestra. Not exactly easy listening unless you like anime and understand Japanese! No synthesisers as, despite the apparent issue date of 1978, this must have been originally recorded pre Electric Samurai and Snowflakes. Anyone provide any more details or information?
    Marshman
     
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  2. Cloud

    Cloud Administrator
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    I can't recall this one - who is the anime by?

    Just picked up a copy of Electric Samurai on eBay last week - didn't realise it was pre-Snowflakes too...

    Must update the site, actually I was thinking about using some wiki or CMS software so that people could discuss / comment on pages...
     
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  3. KimbaWLion

    KimbaWLion New Member

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    The show was made in 1967. It was dubbed into an English version, don't know if Tomita's music was kept for that version. It must not have received much exposure, because it is almost unknown outside of Japan.

    The Tezuka company web site has some basic info on the show:
    http://en.tezuka.co.jp/anime/sakuhin/ts/ts008.html
    And this is a fan site:
    http://goldland.web.infoseek.co.jp/Princess.htm
    But I didn't see much on the music at the second site.
     
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  4. ndkent

    ndkent Moderator

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    Actually what happened with the show was it was bought and dubbed into english by an American partnership who disolved their partnership before they sold it to TV amidst lots of legal issues between the two parties. Apparently that didn't stop them from trying to sell it, they just sort of did so in intentionally obscure and little markets so the other partner would have maximum trouble trying to sue the other in court. Anyway that's what I heard and the fact is the show did air syndicated in places like Australia and Canada I think. Perhaps connected was at the time the U.S. animation scene was being "attacked" from several angles. U.S. animators feeling work was being lost to foreign product. U.S. stations trying to get programming at lower prices and parents for apparently the first time banding together about the content of children's programming . I have no idea if the animation turmoil of the time had a real effect but Princess Knight certainly has gender issues that when described might very well make conservative types upset (though the Japanese tend to be delighted). So money was spent on it and it had some value but the 1960s peak of Japanese animation shown in the U.S. had passed.

    The series remains a classic in Japan ("Ribon no Kishi" - prince with ribbons) and sometimes it gets called as "Princess Saphire" after the character name I think or "Choppy & the Princess".

    I'm sure the plot is on some websites but a quick recap would be that a king of a tiny kingdom has to produce a male heir to the throne or else I think the devious Duke takes over. The king winds up with only a baby daughter who they decide to secretly raise as a prince. The story follows the now young adult prince who has all sorts of gender issues and various plots going on to expose she's not a prince.

    I think I have some episodes in english burried somewhere. I'd have to find them to verify who did the music on the dubbed version.

    Anyway as to the LP. In the days up until cheap home video hundreds of animation soundtracks were released on record with the voices and plot intact. There were even some CDs. I've heard them called "dorama" (drama) albums. I have no idea how many they made for the show. It's certainly collectable but I have no idea how rare it is. The LP in question was almost definitely recorded in the late 60s and contains sound from the TV show. It is common in Japan to place the date of a reissue on a reissue rather than the original date, though you might find the Showa (Emperor's reign) date somewhere.

    An out of print CD of mono music tracks came out in 1998 on Toshiba (I noticed Tomita's name was nowhere on the outside of the CD but he's credited inside). I think in 2000 there was a boxed set slated for release but Tomita's lawyers stopped the release because I believe he felt the material meant only for a 1960s TV series would be artistically inferior if it was presented as his album and additionally they did not seek his premission to release it in the first place.
     
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  5. marshman

    marshman New Member

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    I've since found a website giving a good update on the history of the Princess Knight series detailing coverage outside Japan (www.alphalink.com.au/~roglen/princess.htm). No mention of the music however.
     
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