Hashire! Shiroi Ookami

Orphan hasn't done a critter feature in a while, so we're quite chuffed to present the first English-subtitled version of the 1990 movie Hashire! Shiroi Ookami (Run! White Wolf). This is based on the 1970 children's book Flight of the White Wolf by wildlife author Mel Ellis... and therein lies a tale (or a tail).

Flight of the White Wolf had been adapted, quite inaccurately, by Disney in 1976. In 1990, Toho made an anime version called Hashire! Shiroi Ookami. It reflected the book fairly faithfully, although it was condensed for time. Then, in 1991, Disney made a live action version of Jack London's White Fang, which was quite successful. To cash in on the new movie, a Canadian licensing firm brought out a cheapie dub of Hashire!, titled it White Fang, and claimed that it was "based on characters from the classic Jack London" novel." In fact, the only connection between the dubbed anime and Jack London's White Fang was a title card and a change of character names. You can read the whole sordid story in these reviews from Anime Bargain Bin. So this release is the first accurate representation of Hashire! Shiroi Ookami in English.

The story is set in the middle of the last century, in an area in southern Wisconsin known as Kettle Moraine. The Clagg family - father Cal, mother Emily, and son Russ - are dog trainers. They have been nurturing an orphaned wolf cub whom they name Gray. Russ has become particularly close with the wolf. One day, Gray is confronted by an aggressive boxer dog, kills it, and escapes. The outraged owner (and local mayor) Mr. Schott demands that Gray be put down as a menace to the community. Russ refuses to go along and hatches a plan to take Gray all the way up the state to Nicolet National Forest, where wild wolves still run free. With his parent's reluctant consent, and with only partial cooperation from the increasingly wild Gray, Russ sets out on a 300km northward trek, scrounging food, dodging trucks, traps, and hunters, and trying to keep his increasingly recalcitrant wolf in line, in an attempt to deliver Gray to a safer wilderness habitat.

The movie is highly visual. The dialog is sparse, and quite a bit of it is Russ calling out "Gray" to get the wolf's attention. 

The background music is all excerpts from Dvorak's Serenade for Strings. The movie is also wide-screen. This is a problem because the only source is VHS; it was never even released on laserdisc, let alone on a digital medium. The anime was made in Open Matte. The dub is full frame and looks better (to me). Unfortunately, haphazard cuts in the dub make it impossible to fit the Japanese audio track to that video.

Because the movie is basically a two-hander between Russ and a (non-speaking) wolf, the named voice cast is small:

• Toriumi Katsumi (Russ) played the male leads Wakamatsu in Miyuki and Ryou in Call Me Tonight, and he appeared as Shigeru in Yume Kakeru Kougen and Ishmael in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament. The last three are Orphan releases.
• Naya Gorou (Mr. Schott) played Koichi Zenigata in Lupin III, Juzo Okita in Space Battleship Yamato, Shocker in Kamen Rider, Yupa in Nausicaa, King Magma VII in Kaitei 3-man Mile, Weedon Scott in White Fang (the real one), and Yamaarashi in Botchan; the last two are Orphan releases. His deep voice provided the narration in Shinzou Ningen Casshern, Vampire Miyu, Golden Boy, the original Dororo, and other shows.
• Arikawa Hiroshi (Cal, Russ' father) is best known for dubbing the voice of Gandalf in the Japanese releases of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He also played the main character, Kawaji, in Bakumatsu no Spasibo.
• Munakata Tomoko (Emily, Russ' mother) played maternal figures in Bremen 4, Yamatarou Comes Back, and Zetsuai 1989, all Orphan releases.
  

The director, Maeda Tsuneo, did chief animation direction on Eleven Hungry Cats, the first Nine OVA, and the Touch movies, and he directed the Tama-chan TV series.

Iri translated and did the initial timing. (He also translated Orphan's release of the real White Fang anime as well as Wan Wan Chuushingura, among other critter flicks.) Yogicat fine timed. I edited and typeset. Nemesis and Uchuu QCed. Intrepid encoded from an "All in Wonder" uncompressed capture of a Japanese VHS tape. The tape is worn, and there are both video and audio defects. The original image is 640 x 384 (5:3, the Japanese standard for widescreen back then):

The encode is upscaled to preserve a 480p vertical dimension. I don't necessarily agree with upscaling a VHS tape, but I don't make the encodes.

So follow along with Russ and Gray as they navigate the wilds of rural Wisconsin seeking a safe haven for a wolf. You can get Hashire! Shiroi Ookami from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.