Kaitei 3-man Mile

Toei Douga pioneered the feature-length theatrical cartoon in Japan, starting with 1958's Hakujaden. Orphan has released several Toei features:

• Saiyuuki (1960)
• Wan Wan Chuushingura (1963)
• Taiyou no Ouji: Horus no Daibouken (1968)

Orphan and M74 are pleased to release the first English-subtitled version of another one, 1970's Kaitei 3-man Mile (30,000 Miles Under the Sea, or, for a literary pun, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea). 

Kaitei 3-man Mile is an all-ages shounen adventure fantasy. Young Isamu and his pet cheetah (named Cheeta, natch) are playing soccer on a volcanic island when they encounter a mysterious girl named Angel. Their playful bickering is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a monster, a Flame Dragon. Isamu saves Angel, so she invites him to visit her home. They travel to the bottom of the ocean in Angel's craft, the Seathrough. Once home, Angel informs Isamu that in addition to the surface world, there is an Underground Kingdom, ruled by King Magma VII, and an Underwater Kingdom, ruled by her father. Yes, Angel is a princess, and one with a taste for adventure to boot.

While attempting to return Isamu home in the Seathrough, Angel is captured by the Underground Kingdom's Magma VII. He uses her as a hostage to keep the Underwater Kingdom neutral while he wages war on the surface with his Flame Dragons. Isamu, aided by Cheeta and the Seathrough's comic crew members, Octopus and Tuttle (Turtle?), must rescue Angel and team up with her to stop Magma VII's evil plans. Do they succeed? Is this a G-rated kids' movie?

Because it was made more than 50 years ago, the voice cast consists of stalwarts from an earlier era:

• Nozawa Masako (Isamu) is a legend. She played the title roles in The Adventures of Gamba, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry no Bouken, Billy Inu nan demo Shoukai, and Hey! Bumboo. She was Enma-kun in the original Dororon Enma-kun, Son Goku in the original Dragonball, and Kitarou in the 1968 and 1971 versions of GeGeGe no Kitarou, as well as Hakaba Kitarou. Even though her first role was in 1965, she is still active, appearing as Obaba in Ping Pong the Animation, Madame Curie in Marie & Gali, and of course, Medama Oyaji in the most recent version of GeGeGe no Kitarou. She played the title roles in Manxmouse and The Green Cat, Lek in Cool Cool Bye, and Costar in 15 Shounen Hyouruuki, all Orphan releases. She won a lifetime achievement award in 1997.
• Kobato Kurumi (Angel) played the lead in the Attack No. 1 franchise before leaving anime work to teach at a university.
• Naya Gorou (King Magma VII) played Koichi Zenigata in Lupin III, Juzo Okita in Space Battleship Yamato, Shocker in Kamen Rider, Yupa in Nausicaa, Schott in Hashire! Shiroi Ookami, Weedon Scott in White Fang, and Yamaarashi in Botchan; the last three are Orphan releases. His deep voice provided the narration in Shinzou Ningen Casshern, Vampire Miyu, Golden Boy, the original Dororo, and other shows.
• Kitegawa Kunihiko/Yonehiko (Underwater King) played Konaki Jiji in the first Gegege no Kitarou, the chairman in the Kinnikuman franchise, Poseidon in Umi no Triton, Jacob in Tezuka Osamu's Tales from the Old Testament, and Zhang Song in the third Sangokushi movie. The last two are Orphan releases.
• Umino Katsuo (Octopus) also appeared in Wan Wan Chuushingura, an Orphan release.
• Hitomi Akira (Tuttle) was a stage actor.

The director, Tamiya Takeshi, mostly did planning and production.

This project has a long history, with its origins now lost to (my) memory. M74 got the ball rolling back in 2017, encoding the DVD and doing an initial translation from another European language. I did an initial edit, and Sunachan agreed to check the translation. It proved to be her last project for Orphan, and it wasn't clear how much she had done.

In early 2021, I took a look at the state of the script. I found that Sunachan had actually finished her translation check. I updated the editing and typesetting, and Uchuu and VigorousJammer QCed. At the same time, Skr captured a high-definition broadcast of a "4K remaster" of the film. Although rather bit-starved, the remastered version had better color balance than the DVD, as well as more detail. bananadoyouwanna agreed to encode the web stream, downscaled to 720p because of the bit rate. Yogicat retimed the script to the new raw, and I tweaked the editing and typesetting yet again. Nemesis checked the finished script. Because M74 did the original translation, timing, and SD encode this is a joint Orphan-M74 release.

Kaitei 3-man Mile is mid-tier Toei Douga - better than Saiyuuki but not a masterpiece like Horus: Prince of the Sun. There's a Disney-like abundance of sidekicks (Cheeta for Isamu, Octopus and Tuttle for Angel), a few non-intrusive songs, lots of comedy, and lots of action. (The Flame Dragon attack is probably too intense for younger children.) Some of the sequences without dialog, like Isamu's soccer practice with Cheeta and the underwater ballet at an undersea banquet, are really well done, both visually and kinetically. The movie goes by quickly, partly because it's less than an hour long. And the ending is unexpected - not modern ironical, but not formulaic either. You can get Kaitei 3-man Mile from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.