Cat-Eyed Boy (Ep 9-12)

Once again, Orphan is releasing more Cat-Eyed Boy for Halloween; in this case, episodes 9-12. This brings the project almost to the halfway point (there are 24 episodes). These episodes don't differ materially from the previous ones, except for the monster of the week. Cat-Eyed Boy is continuing his lonely journey to find his mother. He meets a kind woman or girl who befriends him and offers him comfort, reminding him of his mother; or a kind boy working hard to preserve his family, reminding him of himself. Then, the monster appears. Cat-Eyed Boy must fight and defeat the creature. But his triumph is short-lived, as he has to hit the road and continue his search.

Several developments make me hopeful that Orphan will be able to finish this project in my lifetime. First, Perevodildo, indefatigable foe of Orphan's untranslated backlog, stepped in and translated episodes 11 to 24. Second, Orphan's media maven found a way to flatten the warped discs in the Cat-Eyed Boy laserdisc box set. (It involves a T-shirt press; don't ask.) The warped discs are now readable, and the team should have usable raws for all the episodes soon. Better still, a DVD box set is coming out next year. Unfortunately, it's 39,600 yen; time to pass the hat.

Two reminders. First, Cat-Eyed Boy is done with gekimation, hand-manipulated paper cutouts paired with simple live-action special effects. Second, the episodes are from the laserdisc box set and are very primitive, with lots of grain, jittery images, noisy soundtrack, and film burn at scene changes. With those caveats, the episodes in this release are:

• Episode 9 - The Dark Priest. Cat-Eyed Boy saves a boy, Tamotsu, who was bitten by a viper while out gathering roots to feed his family. His village is suffering from floods and famine, brought on by the Dark Priest, a malevolent spirit masquerading as a monk. He prophesies that Cat-Eyed Boy is responsible for the village's misfortune. The mesmerized villagers capture Cat-Eyed Boy and bring him to the Priest's cavern. The Priest reveals that he is actually the descendant of the Dark Chancellor, whom Cat-Eyed Boy's father killed, and he intends to kill Cat-Eyed Boy in revenge.
  
  
  
  
  
• Episode 10 - The Mountain Widow's Blood Curse. Cat-Eyed Boy meets a kindly woman who makes charcoal for a village. She recognizes him as her son, and he enjoys a heartfelt reunion. But meanwhile, animals are being snatched from the village and slaughtered. Cat-Eyed Boy's "mom" is actually a shape-shifting demon, pretending to be his mother to enjoy the novel experience of family life.
  
  
  
  
  
• Episode 11 - Weedling, the Monster of the Lake. Cat-Eyed Boy inadvertently eats the sacred fruit of the golden peach tree. In retaliation, the guardian god kidnaps a local boy, Tsuneo, and maroons him on Green Island to drown. In order to be forgiven, Cat-Eyed Boy must rescue Tsuneo, but the evil Weedling, a swamp monster, stands in the way.
  
  
  
  
  
• Episode 12 -The Trembletail. Cat-Eyed Boy tries to save a sick and starving grandfather, who has beendigging a tunnel through Mount Kojin to allow faster access from his village to doctors in the city. This arouses the wrath of the Trembletail, who uses earthquakes and other disasters to scare the villagers and keep them away from his lair.

The credits, so carefully translated, only have room for six or seven voice actors. Two are always Junko Hori (Cat-Eyed Boy) and Katsuhiko Ikeda (Narrator). The others in episode 9:

• Shojiro Kihara (The Dark Priest) played Captain Hawk in Manxmouse, an Orphan release.
• Toshitaka Someya (Tamotsu) does not appear in anime databases.
• Keiko Yokozawa (Hidemi) starred as Sheeta in Castle in the Sky and played the title roles in the Dorami-chan franchise and Esper Mami, Misuzu in Lady Lady!!, and May Lynn Jones in Plastic Little, an Orphan release.
• Eiichi Onoda (Mayor) appeared in Teppei and Space Runaway Ideon.
• Michiro Okada (Gosaku) played Shozo in Kuroi Ame ni Utarete, an Orphan release, and the Chief in the You're Under Arrest franchise. He appeared in other Cat-Eyed Boy episodes

In episode 10:

• Reiko Kimura (Woman (Mountain Widow)) appeared in other Cat-Eyed Boy episodes.
• Yuji Shikamata (Shigeo) appeared in Raccoon Rascal and SPT Layzner.
• Shin Aomori (Monk) played Kingo Tanaka in Shibuya Honky Tonk, Solomon in Tezuka Osamu's Tales of the Old Testament, Kurokawa in Meisou-ou Border, and Wailing Man in Cat-Eyed Boy episode 5, all Orphan releases. He played Basque Grand in both versions of Full Metal Alchemist and Gonzo in the currently airing Oi! Tonbo. He appeared in Perrine, Oishinbo, Sousei no Aquarion, the Dragon Ball franchise, and numerous other roles in a career that has spanned almost 50 years.
• Kiyoko Shibata (Nobu) appeared in The Rose of Versailles and Reideen the Brave.

In episode 11:

• Joji Yanami (Weedling) played the wine-loving Big Bird in Grimm Douwa: Kin no Tori, Ozora Ibari in Stop!! Hibari-kun!,  Akahatsu (Red Shirt) in Bocchan, Lump in Ginga Tansa 2100-nen: Border Planet, Murphy in Maris the Choujo, and the cart vendor in Akuma Tou no Prince: Mitsume ga Tooru, all Orphan releases. He narrated most of the Dragon Ball Z properties. He played Ittan Momen in several of the GeGeGe no Kitaro series and movies and Chuta Ban in all the Kyojin no Hoshi TV series.
• Kyouko Kano (Michiko, Tsuneo's Mother) also appeared in Yatterman.
• Yuji Shikamata (Tsuneo) also appeared in episode 10.
• Michiro Okada (Voice of Buddha) also appeared in episode 9.

In episode 12:

• Ritsuo Sawa (Trembletail) played Magoroku in Kage (Shadow) and Tom in White Fang, both Orphan releases.
• Michiro Okada (Tsunesaku (Father)) also appeared in episodes 9 and 11.
• Midori Kanbe (Kumi (Mother)) has no other anime credits.
• Yoshinori Endo (Yasuo (Son)) also appeared in Kino no Tabi.

Once again, Skr was the driving force behind this release. For episode 9 and 10, he translated, timed, edited, typeset the credits, and encoded the show. For episodes 11 and 12, he checked Perevodildo's translation as well as edited, typeset, and encoded. I did a little actual typesetting and additional editing. Nemesis and Skr QCed.

So for the fifth Halloween in a row, Orphan is pleased to bring you more Cat-Eyed Boy. You can get these episodes from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. Apparently, Orphan is not the only fans of this series: there's a modern cover of the full opening song, with original homage animation, available on YouTube. The original OP and ED are available as a 7" vinyl 45RPM record on Japanese auction sites, at exorbitant cost.