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The most macho badass hardcore brutal anime ever was adapted into a stage musical.

Purple

Purple

(She/Her)

Yeah, that's right. Freakin' Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, reimagined as a bunch of people in dog-ear headbands singing at each other.


For anyone who isn't following me/thinks I'm joking with that title incidentally, no for real, make the time, find some good fan subs, the '80s anime series this is based on is about a dog assembling an army of other dogs from all over the country to fight this kaiju bear thing and it's downright life-changingly emotionally charged high bodycount drama.

And now it looks a lot like Cats.
 
Peklo

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Ginga is one of the few things that counterintuitively makes me feel or acknowledge some semblance of nostalgic patriotism in a way homegrown stuff doesn't because if you were around in Finland from the late '80s on, you probably have awareness of this violent dog drama--it was just picked up on and embraced on a level of cultural adoption like few things ever have been around here, and continues to be popular today from what I can tell. It predated the notions of "anime" or "manga" being objects of exoticized interest for their own sake, and now remains in a space outside of that in just being this thing that's been around for a long time and become a genre and institution unto itself. I'm only cursorily aware of it in person, but I love regional obsessions and attachment like it wherever they occur.
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I thought for sure this was in reference to Berzerk or Fist of the North Star. Shows what I know!

Anyway, one of the characters from this anime was Kesagake, based on the brown bear that tore a Japanese village a new asshole at the turn of the (last) century. The Sankebetsu Brown Bear incident is one of the worst wild animal rampages in recorded history, rivaled only by the Sloth Bear of Mysore in India.
 
Purple

Purple

(She/Her)
When I first saw the show, my assumption was that it was an allegorical story about the author's experiences in a major war, with the dogs representing soldiers from all over the country and the bear... America? That one amazing Korean admiral? Something like that?

But no the dogs aren't representative of anything but actual dogs. Read an article about groups of wild dogs out in the wilderness and just got a-speculatin'. Didn't know the GIANT DEMON BEAR was based on a true story though and... yeah never in a million years would have guessed it was. It's just entirely too preposterously hardcore.
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
WisteriaHysteria

WisteriaHysteria

There is a long history of packs of wild dogs roaming the Japanese countryside and praying upon travelers. They used to be prolific and a menace and would murder people and stalk the streets at night. Reading historical accounts about it back in college is crazy stuff. We think of dogs as lovable man's best friends, but these were basically hyper aggressive wolves. Most Japanese people are aware of these kinds of historical accounts and folklore, so I assume that's a big thing that informs this.
 
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