| Samurai Pizza Cats | |
Saban's Samurai Pizza Cats logo. |
|
| キャッ党 忍伝 てやんでえ (Kyatto Ninden Teyandee[1]) |
|
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy, Mecha |
| TV anime | |
| Directed by | Kunitoshi Okajima[2] |
| Studio | Tatsunoko Productions, Sotsu Agency |
| Licensed by | Saban (Expired in 2002) |
| Network | TV Tokyo |
| English network | YTV ITV/BBC Syndication |
| Original run | February 1, 1990 – February 12, 1991 |
| Episodes | 54 |
Samurai Pizza Cats, known as Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee (キャッ党 忍伝 てやんでえ Kyatto Ninden Teyandee) in Japan, is an anime series produced by Tatsunoko Productions and Sotsu Agency.[3] The series was aired from February 1, 1990 to February 12, 1991, totaling up to 54 episodes
The anime was introduced to western audiences in 1991 by Saban. The stars of the show are three anthropomorphic cats who protect the city of Little Tokyo from crime while making a living running a pizzeria.[4]
Contents |
In both the Japanese and English versions, the plot of most episodes follows a villain of the week formula with a strong continuity in the form of two part episodes and references to previous episodes.
In the Japanese version, the series takes place in "Edoropolis" (from Edo period and Metropolis), which is populated by "animaloids" (animal androids). In the English dub, the setting of the show is “Little Tokyo”,[5] a city that is an amalgamation of Japanese culture (its feudal system mixed with 1990s culture) populated by cybernetic anthropomorphic animals.
At the head of government is Shogun Tokugawa (Emperor Fred), an insane figurehead. The actual leadership comes from his daughter, Usahime Tokugawa (Princess “Vi” Violet) and a council headed by Ko'on-no-Kami (Seymour Cheese)who in the original Japanese version was a Fox but in the Saban version was for some unknown reason was a rat, an ambitious prime minister who constantly plots to usurp the Emperor’s position with the help of Gennarisai (Jerry Atric), his trusted advisor and Karamaru (Bad Bird), the leader of an army of ninja crows.
Part of the Council is Wankoo-No-Kami (Al Dente), Commander of the Palace Guard, who constantly uncovers the prime minister’s plots but can never claim treason because of plausible deniability. Instead he calls the Secret Ninja Team, Nyankī (Samurai Pizza Cats) (Nyankī, a portmanteau of nyaa ("meow") and Yankee), a superhero trio who moonlight as staff at a local pizzeria, to uncover and interrupt Koon's plans that usually come in the form of robots and elaborate schemes.
See List of Samurai Pizza Cats characters
The theme song for the English dub naturally differs from the original, a common practice for dubbing at the time. In keeping with the parodic nature of the show, the lyrics of the new theme song make a number of references to American pop culture. For example, the lyrics "they've got more fur than any turtle ever had" imply that the Samurai Pizza Cats are better than the similarly themed cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while the lyrics "they're stronger than old cheese, tougher than dirt" refer to an advertising slogan once used for the industrial cleaner Ajax. The theme song also contains the line "As soon as someone finds the script, we might begin the show", which can be interpreted as a reference to the lack of transcripts.
Michael Airington under the name of Googie Gomez, one of the show's writers, also sang the theme song. According to Andy Thomas, Airington had a few drinks before the recording session for the song started, and as a result, accidentally repeated some of the lyrics (i.e., "this cat gets down down with a love hang over"). Airington recorded this doing his Paul Lynde voice.
Both the opening and ending songs were composed by Etsuko Yamakawa, Takeshi Ike and Anju Mana and sung by Reina Yazawa. Ami Itabashi, the singer of the ending song of Robotech OVA, sang the insert songs.
Samurai Pizza Cats has been broadcast in Australia and New Zealand, as well as various countries in Africa, Eurasia and the Americas, most notably the United Kingdom, India, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Chile, Peru, Panama, Hong Kong, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Kenya, South Africa, Sweden, Armenia, and the United States, from 1991 onwards.
Of the 54 episodes that were originally produced in Japan, 52 were translated into English. The two untranslated episodes were clip shows that did little to further the series' plot. A few episodes got banned in America due to censorship. 40 episodes were shown in America.
The series has a video release in Japan, though it only spans up to 20 episodes. Being enumerated as these causes has lost the master tapes from which the broadcasting station in the United States was being lent by Japan for broadcasting. A French language version is also available. An English DVD appeared on Amazon.com back in 2004, containing five episodes of the series.[6] A three-DVD release claiming to be the first box set appeared on Amazon.com in 2007.[7]
In 1991, Tecmo published a video game based on the original Japanese version, Kyattou Ninden Teyandee,[8] for the Famicom. It was released as a Japanese-only release, but was bootlegged outside Japan under the title Ninja Cat. Players take the role of the three main cats and otasuke (Rescue Team) members, of whom can be switched to at any time and have their own special abilities to progress through the game. The game features most of the characters in the series as well as an additional villain, a mysterious scientist named Dr. Purple (Dr. パープ) who shows up later on in the game and "appears" to team up with Ko'on-no-kami (the Big Cheese). Also noted, the creators (of the KNT) stated that that the new villain Dr. Purple (Dr. パープ) was going to appear in the KNT series and meant to replace Ko'on-no-Kami (Seymour Cheese) as the new villain. However, it never happened since the show only ran for one season and was cancelled soon after.
A standalone, handheld LSI game (similar to Nintendo's Game&Watch was also made.)
All manner of toys and model kits were released in both Japan and Europe, the latter usually being reboxed versions of the prior.
Aside from two official books and a number of doujinshi that was also made in the early nineties. However, the manga does not follow the TV series story. In this story, Ko'on-no-kami never left Edoropolis after the comet incident (final episode). Instead he remains at Edoropolis and plots another scheme. Yattaro is still in love with Omitsu, instead of Pururun. The creators stated that in tv show Ko'on-no-kami left Edoropolis for good showing no interest of returning to Edoropolis, but in the manga he never left. As a result, the manga is mostly a "what if" story, or a parallel story. The creators stated that the manga is a "what if" story.
However, all of the doujinshi and the books were only available in Japan and also the doujinshi and the books contain adult contents.