Saber Marionette J

Template:Nihongo is a Japanese anime television series produced by Studio Junio.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> aired on TV Tokyo from October 1, 1996, to March 25, 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is the first installment of the Saber Marionette franchise. The show was localized in North America by Ocean Productions and into six other languages by various companies.

In between production, Saber Marionette J spun off into other media. A manga serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Dragon Age magazine ran from October 1996 to November 1999,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was collected into five volumes. A concurrent radio drama was broadcast and the show's original soundtrack was published by Kings Records.<ref name="sabersite"/> The show was also the basis for a PlayStation fighting game called Saber Marionette J: Battle Sabers, developed and published by Tom Create.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Plot

Otaru Mamiya is an 18-year-old day laborer living on his own in the fictional city state of Japoness. Employed as a fish peddler and running a morning's catch, he is hit by a car driven by Mitsurugi Hanagata, an acquaintance, spoiling his merchandise and sparking a fight the two agree to take elsewhere.

Traveling to a gully outside of the town, the boys continue their quarrel on a bridge where a skilled Otaru makes quick work of his opponent. In an unfortunate turn of events however, Otaru, balancing himself on a fence post which breaks off, is dumped into the river below where he is helplessly washed away.

Moments later, having drifted ashore in a small pond, Otaru finds himself at a rural athenaeum, the Japoness Pioneer Museum. He curiously explores the decrepit building, falling through a trapdoor and into a secret underground basement where he finds and awakens an encapsulated marionette. She introduces herself as Lime, embracing the dumbfounded boy with a laugh and revealing an unprecedented ability to express emotion.

Setting

The prologue of Saber Marionette J is set sometime into the 22nd century,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> when Earth's population has grown to such a magnitude that humanity cannot feasibly continue without colonizing space. The initial stages of the project make a promising effort of moving civilization into orbit, however it is during travel to a planet name Terra II that a transport vessel, the Mesopotamia, experiences a catastrophic fate, destroying all but a lone escape pod of people who plunge to the surface below. Of the handful of survivors however, only six males survive the crash, a ratio that both cripples their manpower and leaves them unable to reproduce.

Marooned and without communication, the men turn to genetic engineering as a method to produce clones of themselves, enough to populate the planet and sustain habitation. The effort is critically fruitful, and over a course of three centuries, each of the survivors and their successors establish individual settlements in the form of six city-states.

In spite of the remarkable success however, notwithstanding even advancements in technology, Terra II remains uninhabited by women. An effort to substitute this absence is made with the manufacture of feminine androids name marionettes; creations that, while they serve their purpose, operate without sapience, emotion, or free will.

Themes

Saber Marionette J contains several groups of notable themes, mainly in the names of characters and locations. The focal heroines, Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry, are named after fruits, while their counterparts, Tiger, Luchs,Template:Ref label and Panther are named after animals, specifically of the family Felidae (using the German words and pronunciations for tiger, lynx, and panther due to their Galtland origins). Ieyasu Tokugawa, the fictional shogun of Japoness, derives his name and appearance from Tokugawa Ieyasu, while Gerhardt von Faust, führer of Galtland, is an allusion of Adolf Hitler whose name may be derived from Faust, a character of German folklore.

The city-states established by the male survivors are also based on the political and developmental histories and periods of countries. Japoness is a reminiscence of feudal Japan,<ref name="desudes">Template:Cite web</ref> Galtland portrays the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany,<ref name="desudes"/> Peterburg is structured after Soviet Russia,<ref name="razorclawx">Template:Cite web</ref> New Texas is representative of the modern United States,<ref name="razorclawx"/> Xi'an paints the image of Imperial China<ref name="razorclawx"/> and Romana takes after the Roman Empire. The letters that affix the titles of the franchise have also been explained to represent the city-state in which a particular series is set in.<ref name="razorclawx"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Saber Marionette R, for example, takes place in Romana while Saber Marionette J, occurs in Japoness.

Besides the show's botanic, animal and historic references, as well as its generally comedic overtones, Saber Marionette J briefly explores deeper motifs as well. One such motif, outspoken by Mitsurugi, is the discriminatory notion that marionettes are of no importance to humans beyond their menial labor, and should be disenfranchised to the affection or privileges of people. This idea becomes more recurrent later in the series when Otaru finds himself growing closer to the girls and questions himself for it. Another visited theme is the exploration of life, its senescence, and death. These truths have a major impact on the girls' developmental identity as they come to terms with themselves and humans.

Characters

Saber Marionette J follows the life and adventures of Template:Nihongo, an obstinate young man, who through mishap and predestination, goes from a nondescript street vendor to a national hero and sensation. During the onset of the series, Otaru comes into the inadvertent acquisition of three marionettes; Template:Nihongo, a wildly effervescent girl with a knack for mischief; Template:Nihongo, the gentle and soft-spoken mind with gifted culinary skills; and Template:Nihongo, a bold and voluptuous woman with vigor matched only by her libido. Warranted by their unique ability to show mood and temperament, it is explained that each of the girls possess a heart-like technology, known as a maiden circuit, that empowers them with emotion. Template:Nihongo, the effeminate gay acquaintance who has a crush on Otaru and whose reckless driving more or less sets the premise of the show, also bands together with the group on their travels and as their neighbor when his mansion is burned down.

The show's focal antagonists and their endeavors are fronted by Template:Nihongo, the megalomaniac dictator of Gartlant who campaigns to conquer his neighboring sovereigns in order to control all of Terra II. Like Otaru, Faust is supported by his own trio of marionettes, collectively known as the Saber Dolls, who are structurally villainous counterparts to Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry: Template:Nihongo, the tenacious and emotionally subservient leader; Template:Nihongo, an intelligent and accomplished strategist; and Template:Nihongo, a loud and vicious blonde. In a complementing fashion, each of these girls also possess maiden circuits.

Cast

Saber Marionette J cast

Role	Japanese	English<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
		Ocean Productions
Narrator	Shigeru Chiba	2-4	Richard Newman
		5	Don Brown
		7-18	Paul Dobson
Otaru Mamiya	Yuka Imai	Brad Swaile
Lime	Megumi Hayashibara	Maggie Blue O'Hara
Cherry	Yuri Shiratori	3-13	Erin Fitzgerald
		14-25	Nicole Oliver
Bloodberry	Akiko Hiramatsu	Saffron Henderson
Mitsurugi Hanagata	Takehito Koyasu	Sam Vincent
Gerhard von Faust	Hikaru Midorikawa	Paul Dobson
Tiger	Urara Takano	Venus Terzo
Luchs	Yūko Mizutani	2-9	Erin Fitzgerald
		10-25	Colleen Wheeler
Ieyasu Tokugawa	Kenichi Ogata	Don Brown
Hikozaemon	Shigeru Chiba	Paul Dobson
Soemon Obiichi	Nobuo Tobita	Richard Newman
Baiko	Ai Orikasa	Nicole Oliver
Tamasaburou	Maria Kawamura	Ellen Kennedy
Lorelei	Yuri Amano	Ellen Kennedy
Panther	Kikuko Inoue	Samantha Ferris
Gennai Shiraga	Chō	French Tickner
Yumeji Hanagata	Urara Takano	Ellen Kennedy
General Goettel	Kenyu Horiuchi	Richard Newman
Dr. Hesse	Tomohiro Nishimura	Paul Dobson

Localization

Saber Marionette J was reproduced into seven languages through a joint cooperation of different companies. Bandai Entertainment announced on October 12, 2000<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> that it would be publishing the series on DVD, itself dubbed into English by Ocean Productions. Bandai went on to announce that the series would be released in a chronological fashion, succeeded by Saber Marionette J to X.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Scheduled for release in February 2001, in addition to the standard Japanese and English dubs, Bandai announced around August 7, 2000 that the DVD releases would also contain Spanish;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> dubbed by Alebrije Entertainment, broadcast by Animax Latin America and Locomotion<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> where it was also known by the name Chica Marioneta J.

Anime House, a company situated in Cologne, released the series in German;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while Beez, the European off-shot of Bandai Visual, handled distribution in France.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Media

Manga

A few months before the release of the anime,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a manga iteration of Saber Marionette J began to circulate in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Dragon Age written by series creator Satoru Akahori and illustrated by Yumisuke Kotoyoshi. The series ran from October 1996 to November 1999, being collected in five volumes by the company from January 1997 to December 1999.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Besides its native release, Editora JBC, a Tokyo-based Portuguese publisher, announced on March 8, 2010 that it has secured the rights to the series.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In a similar fashion to the animated series, the Saber Marionette J manga was localized into other languages. Notably, Tokyopop<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> announced in 2003 that it had acquired the publishing rights to the series<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and that the first volume would be released in July of that year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Madman Entertainment, an Australian publisher, additionally published the manga in Oceania from May 19, 2004 to March 5, 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Editorial Ivrea, an Argentina-based publishing company, published the series in Spanish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Light novels

A total of 14 light novels were made about the series, written by Satoru Akahori and illustrated by Tsukasa Kotobuki.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The books were printed by Fujimi Shobo between April 1995<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and July 1, 1999.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Audio CDs

The complete soundtrack of Saber Marionette J was reproduced for distribution when the anime was still in production. The initial release, titled "Japones ginei shisyu sonoichi" (Japones Recitation Poem Collection 1)", was made on December 21, 1996 and contained 17 tracks by King Records. A sequel release, containing 24 tracks, was made on April 9, 1997.<ref name="sabersite">Template:Cite web</ref>

Two audio dramas were made of the series. The first, released direct to commercial disc, was published from January 24 to May 22, 1995 as a four-disc set by King Records under their StarChild label, each containing 4 tracks with additional bonuses. These tracks would later be broadcast on October 21.<ref name="sabersiteaudio">Template:Cite web</ref> The second audio drama was aired on TBS on Thursdays<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was based on the aforementioned novels. Broadcasts were made from April 27 to July 3, 1997.<ref name="sabersiteaudio"/>

Game

Tom Create, a small Tokyo game developer, produced a fighting game of the series titled Template:Nihongo, published by Bandai Visual on March 28, 1997 for the PlayStation. Featuring Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, the Saber Dolls, and a new marionette name Apple, the player is able to fight against a CPU or, with another controller, a second player. At the beginning of each round, player's are also allowed to choose two special abilities to buff their characters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The game featured an alternate version of the anime opening and was released in a limited and regular edition, the former bundled with figurines and special edition portraits of the characters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reception

Saber Marionette J was met with mostly positive reception. THEM Anime Reviews gave the series a 5 out of 5 stars, calling it "Top-notch animation, involving story and memorable characters make this one of the greats. If there was a flaw to be found here, it was too small to notice."<ref name="THEM">Template:Cite web</ref> Industry aggregator Mania.com editor Chris Beveridge rated each of the three North American releases a B,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> averaging a predictable story, an overall solid release,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but that "Saber Marionette J was decent if unexceptional in total."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On Anime News Network, the show retains a median "Good" rating, averaging a 7 out of 10; the first VHS was also given a B+.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Less favorable reviews criticized the cliche plot, character voices and less than crisp artwork.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Latin America the show turned a cult classic because of its airing on Locomotion and later Animax Latin America.

Footnotes

a. Template:Note label Luchs name is derived from the German spelling and pronunciation for lynx.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Further reading

• Template:Cite web

External links

• Template:Anime News Network