Akira Toriyama Super Database: The New Dr. Slump TV Series


Index



Nov. 26: Episodes 1 and 2:

The premiere of the new Dr. Slump TV series is quite a hodgepodge. The character designs and voices are all new, but the stories are based loosely on the old manga. The animation is fantastic at times, but then it reverts to the clunky, flat slapstick images of the original TV series. Many of the jokes still work even now, but Arale's voice is way too soft and cutesy for the type of role she's supposed to be playing and the lines she delivers. Taken piece-by-piece, the New Dr. Slump is filled with flaws. But, as a whole, it's one of the best anime on Japanese TV this year.

Nov. 26, 1997
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Arare tanjou
The Birth of Arale
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The episodes are 15 minutes each. The first one, "Arale Tanjou" (The Birth of Arale), is a retelling of the first manga story, where Senbee tries to create a beautiful female robot companion. But, a lightning storm scrambles the computer program Senbee is using for his automated "robot making" machine. The result is a small, short-sighted girl that is very strong, and ill-mannered. Senbee goes out to buy clothing for Arale, while Arale decides to run around the town and destroy virtually every building she can find. Some of the animation in this episode is just fantastic, and it's a wild start to what promises to be a wild ride.


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Gakkou e ikou
Go to School
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The second episode is "Gakkou e ikou" (Go to School), in which Senbee takes Arale to school. He passes her off as his little sister, and becomes infatuated with Arale's new teacher: Midori Yamabuki. Arale's classmate, Akane, realizes that Arale is really strong, and decides to be Arale's "manager". Akane charges $10 to all of the school's sports clubs for the chance to have Arale try out for each sport. Unfortunately for Akane, Arale gets bored with all of the activities and decides to not enter any of the clubs. However, Akane decides to be friends with the "girl", and offers to slap hands as a sign of approval (bad move, because Arale's "slap" sends Akane flying out past the horizon.) Good stuff, Maynard.





 Dec. 3, 1997
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Taimusurippa!
Time Slipper!
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This episode is a radically reworked version of the original manga story. This time, Senbee wants to go back to pre-historic times, to catch a dinosaur. He decides to bring Akane, Tarou, and Peskee along with him, for the maiden voyage of his "Time Slipper" time machine. The Slipper materializes inside the mouth of a dinosaur, and the group spends time trying to recover the slipper pad from the dinosaur. Arale succeeds in subduing the dinosaur, and is given a space capsule in return. But, the slipper pad gets destroyed. Fortunately, the dinosaur had eaten Senbee's hair, and Time-kun uses Senbee's bald spot as a replacement slipper pad. The group returns to the present, and the capsule opens up to reveal a small child that had been sleeping inside it.


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Fushigina Akachan
The Weird Baby
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The small child causes chaos in the Norimaki house, and Senbee is forced to go to a store to buy baby food. But, the child eats furniture and other material instead. Tarou, Akane, and Peskee drop by to give Senbee a hard time, and they keep calling him "Papa". The child also proves to have wings, and be virtually indestructable. The group believes that the child is some kind of angel (it's certainly not a dinosaur.) Finally, Arale decides to call it "Ga-chan", because of the "Ga ga ga" noises it makes while eating. (Instead of the original reason, which was a combination of the names of the monsters "Godzilla" and "Gamera".)

This is actually a fairly weak episode, but it gives Akane and Tarou time to flesh out their characters, and let the audience become more comfortable with the new character designs.





 Dec. 10, 1997
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Arare ni nai mono...
The Thing Arale Doesn't Have...
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Arale comes home from school, commenting that based on observations of the other female students, she doesn't have a vagina. (Being a robot, this is no big deal.) But, since the other girls have one, she wants one as well. Unfortunately, because of censorship of porno magazines in Japan, Senbee has never been able to see one for himself, and therefore can't make the necessary changes to his robot. For this reason, Senbee creates special glasses that see through inanimate objects. He goes outside to test the glasses. Eventually, he sees Yamabuki sensei approaching, and runs out to greet the (apparently) naked woman. The glasses don't show the car that Yamabuki is driving, and Senbee gets run down.


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Deka Chibi Kou Sen Juu
The Big/Little Ray Gun
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Senbee works hard in his lab to create his "Deka/Chibi gun. After testing it out on a fly, and on Arale, Senbee describes the many uses that the gun can be put to (including shrinking one's groceries to make them easy to carry in one's pocket.) Senbee goes shopping, then discovers that he's taken the hairdrier by accident. Arale discovers the gun, and makes a bunch of grasshoppers super-big, so that she, Tarou, Akane, and Peskee can ride around on them. Senbee comes home to find a gigantic Arale sitting around, digging holes in the hillsides. He scolds her for the havoc she'd caused. At bedtime, Arale claims to have returned all of the creatures and objects back to normal shape, but she seems to have forgetten about the moon -- which is now 100 times bigger than the Earth.




 Dec. 17, 1997
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Honmono Mashin
The Real Thing Making Machine
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Arale starts out apparently coming down with a cold, but really she just needs a little fine tuning. Afterwards, Senbee tries to impress her and Ga-chan with his latest invention: The Honmono Machine. He puts a picture of batter-fried shrimp and rice (Tempura Don) in a modified rice cooker, along with some hot water. The cooker plays some dance music, then viola -- real cooked food. Later, Arale decides to put a copy of Dragon Ball, volume #42, into the cooker. Senbee then enters the room to find himself in the middle of the battle between Gokuu and True Majin Buu (very funny). The battle heats up, and then the house explodes. (The episode includes a mix of jokes from the first couple of manga chapters, that weren't originally a part of this particular story.)


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Ori no Kumasan
Ori's Bear (?)
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Arale discovers Peskee looking over a wall at a caged bear in someone's yard. The owner of the house intends to skin the bear to make a halloween costume. So, Arale creates a stuffed bear (which pleases Senbee, because he thinks that his robot is acting like a human child now) to leave in the cage when she frees the real bear. Back at the Senbee household, Senbee decides that the bear has gotten weak from lack of exercise. He coaches the bear back to health, and they all take the bear out to the mountains to return to the wild. Unfortunately, some hunters that were looking for boar shoot and kill the bear. This makes Arale very angry, and she throws the hunters all the way to Africa, where they are about to be eaten by hungry lions. Senbee then uses Arale's body to turn the bear into a cyborg. All ends well, except that the bear is now terrified of its own strength, as it tears trees in half with just a touch.

The Next Episodes:


Jan. 14, 1997
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Kyuushoku Banzai!
Lunch is Great!
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Arare sora o tobu!!
Arale Flies in the Air!!
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Kyuushoku Banzai!
Lunch is Great!
Arare sora o tobu!!
Arale Flies in the Air!!




Dr. Slump Voice Actors

Credits:

Kouzou Morishita: Producer
Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru: Character Designer
Shigeyasu Yamauchi: Series Director
Jirou Yoshimura: Computer Art Director
The currently advertised Dr. Slump TV voices are:



More voice actor information can be found at Hitoshi Doi's Seiyuu Page.


The opening and ending theme songs are by Funta. Funta is a male/female pop duo, featuring U-ko and Hide. The opening piece is "Kao deka - i" (Big Face), and the closing theme is "Hanage ga chotto Tobidashite iru" (The Nose Hairs Are Flying Around a Bit).



Dr. Slump: Hoyoyo Special

As a tie-in to the start of the new Dr. Slump TV series, Jump publications has released a special 360-page reprint of selected Dr. Slump short stories. "Hoyoyo Special" is printed on the same paper, and in the same format as the regular weekly Shonen Jump "phonebooks". Cost is 350 yen.

Hoyoyo Special has a lot of new background info, as well as a collection of illustrations at the beginning of the book. There are interviews with the director and producer, and lots of other good stuff. There's even a description of how the anime was made, using a Mac paintbox system.


The stories include:

Arale Tanjou! Arrival of Arale!
Ashita ni Mukate! Turn Towards Tomorrow!
Sensei ga kuru yo! The Teacher is Coming!
Chikuu SOS! SOS, Earth!
Arale Dai Henshin Arale's Big Transformation
Kyoufu no Yoiko-ko Formidable Good Child
Osanpo Ga-chan Ga-chan Goes for a Stroll
Waku Waku Taimu Sutoppu Highly Anticipated Time Stop
Pafu Pafu Senbee Breathless Senbee
Omakase Akiko-san Trust It To Akiko-san
Honjitsu wa Makoto ni Oyorokobi DAY Today is Truly an Auspicious Day
Arale-chan no nakushita mono Arale-chan's Lost Object
Uki-uki Hai Sukuuru! High School Joyfulness!
Norimaki-san ikka to Tsun-san ikka Norimaki's Family and Tsun's Family
Boribari Boribari (Not Translatable)
Nagare Boshi negai Boshi Wishing on a Shooting Star
Chou-nouryoku-sha wa Dare? Who's the One With ESP Power?
Chokushin! Taabo-kun Go Straight Ahead, Turbo-kun!
Ai wa Mirai de Tashikamete... To Ascertain Love in the Future...
Mashirito kara no Okurimono A Present From Mashirito
N-cha! 10-nen-go no Pengin Mura Hi! Penguin Village, 10 Years After

Dr. Slump: Manga in V-Jump

Starting with the December issue of V-Jump, the New Dr. Slump manga returned to print. It looks like the monthly stories might be a tie-in to the TV series. In any case, the new manga designs are the same as for the new anime. The storylines are by Takao Koyama, who has been the writer for Cashman, and the earlier V-Jump Dr. Slump manga. The artist is now Tadayoshi Yamamuro.

Dec. '97 V-Jump: Arare wa Yoiko (Arale is a Good Child)
In the new manga, Senbee is again single, and lusting after Yamabuki-sensei. Arale-chan is already running around, but Senbee is still proud of his creation, since Arale supposedly acts so "human". In the first story, Senbee and Arale go to school on the day where the children are to show off their skills to their parents (Senbee claims to be Arale's older brother.) At the end of the story, Senbee gives Yamabuki a ride in his car, only to have Arale smash into them because she wants to show off the unchi (turd) that she'd found.





 Jan. '98 V-Jump: Ga-chan ga Hoshii (I Want a Ga-chan)
Arale takes Ga-chan to school, and we are told that Arale and Senbee had gone back in time (off-camera), and Arale had beaten up a dinosaur. The dinosaur had given her a space capsule that contained Ga-chan. Yamabuki Sensei sees Ga-chan and decides that she wants one as well. Senbee will do anything to get Yamabuki to like him, so he takes her back in time to get another capsule. They meet a caveman that looks like Senbee, and the others keep thinking that the caveman is the real Senbee. Finally, Arale gets to fight the dinosaur again, but punches it into orbit. The caveman turns out to have found a capsule himself, and he gives it to Yamabuki as a present. But, this capsule contains an ugly demon that eats up Yamabuki's apartment building.





 This Section of the Akira Toriyama Super Database is maintained by Curtis H. Hoffmann.


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