Viewtiful Joe (anime)
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese
anime
series based on the video game series of the same name
.
The series follows a similar plot of the games, but there are many differences. The series, comprising fifty-one episodes, was shown every Saturday on the Japan
ese television station
TV Tokyo
from October 2, 2004 until September 24, 2005. The show was licensed by anime distributor Geneon Entertainment, with its first twenty-six episodes airing in United States
on Kids' WB
. It was taken off the air when Kids' WB block transferred to The CW
. Viewtiful Joe was later licensed for distribution in other parts of the world by MGM Television
. The anime debuted in the United Kingdom on Jetix
on July 2, 2007. Viewtiful Joe premiered on Cartoon Network Brazil
on July 3, 2006 and reruned in country's RedeTV! on HD at November 27, 2006. It aired in Mexico starting on July 4, 2006. On June 23, 2008, the show began airing on Cartoon Network in other parts of Latin America. In 2009, Viewtiful Joe became available on Crunchyroll
's streaming service for its users outside Asia.
lover Joe and his girlfriend Silvia enjoy a seemingly normal trip to the movies to see an action flick
starring Joe's idol, Captain Blue, when suddenly the leader of the evil Jadow force reaches out of the screen and takes Silvia into the movie. Joe is forced to follow her by Captain Blue's mecha
, Six Majin (renamed "Machine Six" in the English anime, and "Six Machine" in the Spanish dub), and meets Captain Blue in the flesh who grants Joe the power to become an action movie hero in his own right called Viewtiful Joe.
. The producer for the video game franchise, Atsushi Inaba
, and his team gave Group TAC its character designs for the video games, as well as original character designs for the animated series.
The English version of the anime features voice acting by Jeff Nimoy
, Philece Sampler
, Lia Sargent
, and Wendee Lee
, among others. Bob Papenbrook
, under the name John Smallberries, voiced Captain Blue for the show's first twenty-one English dubbed episodes. Papenbrook died on March 17, 2006 due to complications from a chronic lung condition, making Viewtiful Joe his final piece of work. He was replaced by Paul St. Peter
for the remainder of the dub.
The U.S. broadcast began with the fifth episode, with the first three episodes not being shown until a month later. The show's pilot
was localized in the United States by phuuz entertainment
. A few censoring
edits were made to the English dubbed version of Viewtiful Joe. In Brazil and Latin America, the show was aired completely uncut. In the English version, the name of Joe's flying machine, Six Machine was renamed in the English dub to Machine Six. There is speculation that it was renamed because its original name sounded close to the phrase "sex machine". Also, Six Majin was renamed to Robo-Six. Joe's middle finger
was edited out in his henshin transformation sequence. Silvia's super hero alter ego is renamed from "Sexy Silvia" (which was also used in the games) to "Go-Go Silvia". Sprocket's jumpsuit is always zipped up completely, though it was originally unzipped (showing large amounts of cleavage) and one of her signature moves was to zip it up. This move was eliminated in the dub by cutting out the scenes, resulting in Sprocket having much less screen time than in the original.
Episodes of the series have been released on both DVD
and UMD
. In North America, Geneon partnered with Kids Foot Locker
to promote the show by including DVDs with purchases at the shoe retailer.
SaGa released two CD single
s of their vocal songs in Viewtiful Joe. The first one was released on March 30, 2005 and features both the Japanese and English versions of "Brighter Side" and "And You", as well as a DVD containing one music clip and the opening and ending Viewtiful Joe cinematics with the respective songs. The second single was released on August 31, 2005 and features both language versions of the songs "Spirit Awake" and "Wonder", as well as a DVD music clip of the former. In North America, a CD soundtrack was packaged with the first DVD volume.
-style panels of the show's storyline shown with screenshots.
demographic.
Reviews of Viewtiful Joe by various media outlets mostly agreed that the show is faithful to the video games on which it is based, but complained of its animation framerates and English localization. Matt Casamassina
of IGN
praised the Viewtiful Joe for staying true to its source material. He states, "[...] the episodes never stray too far from the original subject matter. As a result, anybody who played the Joe titles will have a sense of dējā vu as they watch these toons. Viewers who know the franchise's history will find no contradictions in these episodes - merely more back story, most of it entertaining." Despite his appreciation for its artwork, Casamassina was displeased with the show's lack of animation. This was concurred upon by Zac Bertschy of the Anime News Network
(ANN), who was also very critical of the show's English dub, giving the first DVD volume an overall "F". Specifically, he found that the localization's attempt to be hip
with a nearly constant use of slang in order to cater to younger audiences resulted in a "insultingly bad dub". Carlo Santos, also of ANN, had a similar opinion, and gave the second DVD volume an overall "D". He found fault not only in the voice acting, but the script writing as well. "Joe's vocabulary is all, like, totally, DUDE every time he opens his mouth, and when he's not hamming it up with unconvincing slang, he's spouting lines that are supposed to sound witty but aren't." Santos also noted the series as being too repetitive, but enjoyed the anime's character design, coloring, and visual style taken from the games. Buzz McClain of Video Business
asserted that the show is "clearly influenced by the animation style of Hayao Miyazaki
", and that its use of narrative is much more linear and easy to follow than other anime.
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series based on the video game series of the same name
Viewtiful Joe
is a video game developed by Capcom's Production Studio 4 for the Nintendo GameCube. It was originally released in 2003 as a part of the Capcom Five under director Hideki Kamiya and producer Atsushi Inaba. Viewtiful Joe was later ported to the Sony PlayStation 2 by the same design team under the...
.
The series follows a similar plot of the games, but there are many differences. The series, comprising fifty-one episodes, was shown every Saturday on the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
TV Tokyo
TV Tokyo
is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...
from October 2, 2004 until September 24, 2005. The show was licensed by anime distributor Geneon Entertainment, with its first twenty-six episodes airing in United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on Kids' WB
Kids' WB
Kids' WB! was Warner Bros. American childrens programing division brand for The WB Television Network. In September 2006, the block moved to The CW Television Network. The CW is the result of The WB's merger with UPN in 2006...
. It was taken off the air when Kids' WB block transferred to The CW
The CW Television Network
The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
. Viewtiful Joe was later licensed for distribution in other parts of the world by MGM Television
MGM Television
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television is an American television production/distribution launched in 1955 and a subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc....
. The anime debuted in the United Kingdom on Jetix
Jetix
Jetix was a worldwide children's television programming brand owned by The Walt Disney Company. The Jetix brand was used for blocks and channels featuring action-related and adventure-related live-action and animated programming. It was also what Disney eventually turned Fox Kids into...
on July 2, 2007. Viewtiful Joe premiered on Cartoon Network Brazil
Cartoon Network (Latin America)
Cartoon Network Latin America and Brazil is a cable television channel and is an edition of the Time Warner-owned Cartoon Network for the Latin American region and the Caribbean...
on July 3, 2006 and reruned in country's RedeTV! on HD at November 27, 2006. It aired in Mexico starting on July 4, 2006. On June 23, 2008, the show began airing on Cartoon Network in other parts of Latin America. In 2009, Viewtiful Joe became available on Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, drama, music, electronic entertainment, and auto racing content...
's streaming service for its users outside Asia.
Plot
Following the games' storyline, movieFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
lover Joe and his girlfriend Silvia enjoy a seemingly normal trip to the movies to see an action flick
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
starring Joe's idol, Captain Blue, when suddenly the leader of the evil Jadow force reaches out of the screen and takes Silvia into the movie. Joe is forced to follow her by Captain Blue's mecha
Mecha
A mech , is a science fiction term for a large walking bipedal tank or robot, including ones on treads and animal shapes.-Characteristics:...
, Six Majin (renamed "Machine Six" in the English anime, and "Six Machine" in the Spanish dub), and meets Captain Blue in the flesh who grants Joe the power to become an action movie hero in his own right called Viewtiful Joe.
Characters
- Joe: The hero, a fanboyFan (person)A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...
of movies who gets to live his dream as Viewtiful Joe while he saves Silvia from the Shadow. He assumes his superhero outfit via the catchphrase "Henshin-a-Go-Go, Baby!!" He is often distracted by cheeseburgers and doesn't take a lot of things seriously. - Silvia: The heroine, she was abducted by the Shadow for their evil plan to succeed. After Shadow's defeat, Silvia obtained a V-Watch from Captain Blue so she can team up with Joe as Sexy Silvia (in the English anime dub Go-Go Silvia) instead of being the "damsel-in-distress".
- Junior: Another self-proclaimed hero worshipper like Joe, only younger. He lived in Blue Town, which was named after Captain Blue, serving as its protector Captain Blue Jr. Despite his jealousy for Joe being Blue's successor, Junior decided to become Joe's sidekick and offered his knowledge of Movieland as a helping hand. As the series progresses into the Gedow arc, Junior received the V-Yoyos from Captain Blue, assuming his new superhero outfit via the phrase "Henshin-a-Yo-Yo, Baby!!"
- Captain Blue: Joe's idol and mentor. He gave Joe the V-Watch which enables him to use his VFX powers. In season two, he was transformed into the "Captain Blue Device" by the Black Emperor, which shadow uses to create monsters. The Black Emperor gave him the scar on his face.
- Alastor: An agent of Jadow that uses the nicknameNicknameA nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
s "The Midnight Thunder Boy" and "Blade Master." Though he was helping Jadow, Alastor doesn't care about their goals, but instead seeking out the ultimate battle, and can be considered an antihero to an extent. He considers himself Joe's rival, despite questioning Joe's methods. Alastor has the habit of watching over Joe during his adventures through Movieland and the two tend to act more like friends rather than enemies, becoming a perfect example of text-book frenemies. He was also the one who gave Joe the inspiration for his hero name. During Fire Leo's fight with Joe, Alastor restrained Fire Leo as they both fell into the void that surrounds Jadow headquarters, but Alastor promised to survive so he and Joe can finally settle their rivalry. Following the event Alastor lost his demonic powers and could only restore them by a solar eclipse. During the time his power was lost, he appears in his normal form giving the heroes advice and sometimes help in fights. His power is restored to him during a solar eclipse. - "Almighty Leader": The leader of Jadow, the antagonistic organization of the anime's first season. When Joe managed to get into Jadow headquarters, he found Silvia, only to see her abducted by the evil leader. Once Joe got to the stadium, "Almighty Leader" was revealed to be none other than Captain Blue, who attempted to break Joe's spirit and thus devastated Joe mentally before destroying him physically. But the words of those Joe had befriended in his adventures enabled Joe's confidence to return and fight Blue back. Piloting the King Blue giant robot, Blue was defeated by Joe in Six Majin.
- Coordinator Sprocket: Coordinator of Shadow and second in command of the organization. She is one of the few characters who is actually from the real world, being brought to Movieland by the same incident as Jefferson Buik. She is annoyed with the antics and incompetence of Charles, Hulk, and Bruce. When Shadow was no more, she along with Charles, Hulk, and Bruce joined up with Shadow.
- The Black Emperor: Leader of the Gedow, the invading alien organization of the anime's second season whose goal is to use their various monsters and foot soldiers to corrupt a movie and alter the ending, causing the film to radiate with darkness. Pilots a battle machine. The Black Emperor is a superhero named Jet Black, Joe's father, owner of the Movie Studio and Captain Blue's best friend. He turned evil by the Black V-Watch and the Black Film. He was freed from the black film corruption by Joe and Silvia. He is described as being the one who gave Captain Blue his scar.
Anime
Viewtiful Joe was produced by animation company Group TACGroup TAC
Group TAC was a Japanese animation and computer graphics studio located in Shibuya, Tokyo, and founded in 1968. They have worked on movies, videos, TV shows, and commercials, and have contributed to all stages of the process, including planning, production, sound effects, and so on...
. The producer for the video game franchise, Atsushi Inaba
Atsushi Inaba
is a Japanese video game producer for Platinum Games. He is also the former CEO and producer of the Capcom subsidiary Clover Studio, best known as the creative force behind Viewtiful Joe, Ōkami and God Hand.-Career:...
, and his team gave Group TAC its character designs for the video games, as well as original character designs for the animated series.
The English version of the anime features voice acting by Jeff Nimoy
Jeff Nimoy
-Biography:Jeff Nimoy wrote, directed, and served as story editor for the English translation of the anime Digimon: Digital Monsters . He also served as an Executive Producer and writer on numerous other Fox Kids shows...
, Philece Sampler
Philece Sampler
Philece P. Sampler is an American voice actress and television actress, whose credits include various characters in anime. She also goes by the aliases of Sue Beth Arden, Victoria Pryne, and Debra Cunningham...
, Lia Sargent
Lia Sargent
Lia Sargent is an American voice actress. She is known for extensive anime and video game voice work and has also done ADR directing and script writing for Animaze.. iNC...
, and Wendee Lee
Wendee Lee
Wendee Lee is an American voice actress. While she has done voice work for many video games as well as several episodes in the Power Rangers franchise, she is particularly prolific in the dubbing of anime. As of April 2009, with 223 credits to her name, she has more credits in this medium than any...
, among others. Bob Papenbrook
Bob Papenbrook
Robert DeWayne "Bob" Papenbrook was an American voice actor. Fellow voice actors often nicknamed him "Pappy". He was very well known in the worlds of anime and video game voice-overs for his voice acting of "gruff" characters...
, under the name John Smallberries, voiced Captain Blue for the show's first twenty-one English dubbed episodes. Papenbrook died on March 17, 2006 due to complications from a chronic lung condition, making Viewtiful Joe his final piece of work. He was replaced by Paul St. Peter
Paul St. Peter
Paul Schmidl Peter , better known as Paul St. Peter, is an American voice actor. He also uses the names George C. Cole, George Z. Cole and Francis C. Cole...
for the remainder of the dub.
The U.S. broadcast began with the fifth episode, with the first three episodes not being shown until a month later. The show's pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
was localized in the United States by phuuz entertainment
Unbound Creative, Inc.
Unbound Creative, Inc. is a company based in Universal City, California that develops content for various forms of media, including television, theaters, the internet, mobile devices, and video games. The president of the company is former Warner Bros. Animation executive Ken Duer...
. A few censoring
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
edits were made to the English dubbed version of Viewtiful Joe. In Brazil and Latin America, the show was aired completely uncut. In the English version, the name of Joe's flying machine, Six Machine was renamed in the English dub to Machine Six. There is speculation that it was renamed because its original name sounded close to the phrase "sex machine". Also, Six Majin was renamed to Robo-Six. Joe's middle finger
Finger (gesture)
In Western culture, the finger , also known as the middle finger, is an obscene hand gesture, often meaning the phrases "fuck off" , "fuck you" or "up yours"...
was edited out in his henshin transformation sequence. Silvia's super hero alter ego is renamed from "Sexy Silvia" (which was also used in the games) to "Go-Go Silvia". Sprocket's jumpsuit is always zipped up completely, though it was originally unzipped (showing large amounts of cleavage) and one of her signature moves was to zip it up. This move was eliminated in the dub by cutting out the scenes, resulting in Sprocket having much less screen time than in the original.
Episodes of the series have been released on both DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and UMD
Universal Media Disc
The Universal Media Disc is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform...
. In North America, Geneon partnered with Kids Foot Locker
Foot Locker
Foot Locker, Inc. is an American sportswear and footwear retailer, with its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operating in approximately 20 countries worldwide. Formerly known as Venator Group, Inc., it is the successor corporation to the F.W. Woolworth Company , and many of...
to promote the show by including DVDs with purchases at the shoe retailer.
CDs
The Japanese version of Viewtiful Joe features music composed by Takehiko Gokita and Yuusuke Hayashi. The show features two opening themes by the band SaGa. The song "Brighter Side" is used for the first thirty-eight episodes and the song "Spirit Awake" is used for the remaining episodes. "Brighter Side" is also used in the English version of the show. The Japanese version also features the ending theme "And You" by SaGa for the first thirty-eight episodes, and "Tougenkyou" (also known as Shangri-La Village) by Amasia Landscape for the remainder. A thirty-six track CD was released by Geneon on February 7, 2006 and contains the anime's music, as well as the bonus track "Viewtiful World".SaGa released two CD single
CD single
A CD single is a music single in the form of a standard size Compact Disc, not to be confused with the 3-inch CD single, which uses a smaller form factor. The format was introduced in the mid-1980s, but did not gain its place in the market until the early 1990s...
s of their vocal songs in Viewtiful Joe. The first one was released on March 30, 2005 and features both the Japanese and English versions of "Brighter Side" and "And You", as well as a DVD containing one music clip and the opening and ending Viewtiful Joe cinematics with the respective songs. The second single was released on August 31, 2005 and features both language versions of the songs "Spirit Awake" and "Wonder", as well as a DVD music clip of the former. In North America, a CD soundtrack was packaged with the first DVD volume.
Film books
Two film books for the anime were released by Capcom in early 2005. The books consist of mangaManga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
-style panels of the show's storyline shown with screenshots.
Reception
Geneon's press release of the first North American DVD and UMD release of Viewtiful Joe in early 2006 showed that the anime was the top-ranked show in its timeslot for the ages 2–11 Nielsen ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
demographic.
Reviews of Viewtiful Joe by various media outlets mostly agreed that the show is faithful to the video games on which it is based, but complained of its animation framerates and English localization. Matt Casamassina
Matt Casamassina
Matt Casamassina is a video game journalist who worked for IGN until April 23, 2010. In his time at the site, he was the author of many reviews and previews of Nintendo games. He resides in Los Angeles, California, is married and has two daughters, Zoe and Fiona Jade, and a son named Rocco Archer...
of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
praised the Viewtiful Joe for staying true to its source material. He states, "[...] the episodes never stray too far from the original subject matter. As a result, anybody who played the Joe titles will have a sense of dējā vu as they watch these toons. Viewers who know the franchise's history will find no contradictions in these episodes - merely more back story, most of it entertaining." Despite his appreciation for its artwork, Casamassina was displeased with the show's lack of animation. This was concurred upon by Zac Bertschy of the Anime News Network
Anime News Network
Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...
(ANN), who was also very critical of the show's English dub, giving the first DVD volume an overall "F". Specifically, he found that the localization's attempt to be hip
Hip (slang)
Hip is a slang term meaning fashionably current and in the know. Hip is the opposite of square or prude.Hip, like cool, does not refer to one specific quality. What is considered hip is continuously changing. The term hip is said to have originated in African American Vernacular English in the...
with a nearly constant use of slang in order to cater to younger audiences resulted in a "insultingly bad dub". Carlo Santos, also of ANN, had a similar opinion, and gave the second DVD volume an overall "D". He found fault not only in the voice acting, but the script writing as well. "Joe's vocabulary is all, like, totally, DUDE every time he opens his mouth, and when he's not hamming it up with unconvincing slang, he's spouting lines that are supposed to sound witty but aren't." Santos also noted the series as being too repetitive, but enjoyed the anime's character design, coloring, and visual style taken from the games. Buzz McClain of Video Business
Video Business
Video Business was a trade publication and web site owned by Reed Business Information serving the information needs of retailers, distributors, content suppliers, and other professionals related to the electronic entertainment industry....
asserted that the show is "clearly influenced by the animation style of Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
", and that its use of narrative is much more linear and easy to follow than other anime.