Super Jetter! 未来から少年スーパージェッター

I know, I know - I'm ready for the quip:

Who?

In case you're one of the unlucky many in the dark (actually, this should read about 99.999% of the global population if my calculations are correct) and/or you don't happen to cotton on to the name straight off the bat, Super Jetter is the story of a 30th century crime-fighter who jetted about in a time-skipping vessel called Ryusei-go (Shooting Star).

It played along the same lines – while it's been somewhat overshadowed by - contemporary 1960s anime peer Prince Planet, aka Planet Boy Popi (遊星少年パピイ) over here in Japan.

You can't even begin to compare it with Osamu Tezuka's iconic Astro Boy.

But I really do dig this series and it was commemorated in Japan just a few years back with the release of the CR Super Jetter pachinko machine; there are also some wayward otaku aficionados over here who do remember the man and his spiffy flying car.

One of these is Osamu Kobayashi.

He was the director of the anime fashionista series Paradise Kiss for Madhouse Studios and previously directed Gad Guard, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad and End of the World; more recently he was a guest director on Gurren Lagann - and way back worked on the 1993 anime reinterpretation of Yukito Kishiro’s manga Gunnm... better known internationally as Battle Angel Alita, the on-again/off-again live-action love project for director James Cameron.


Super Jetter, according to Kobayashi, was his favourite anime when he was a kid, and the reason for his own abiding affection for the 45-year-old show?

“Because I liked the central character, and the science fiction mind-set was interesting,” he quite simply declares.

It's the simplicity that works for Super Jetter as well. Sadly Osamu Ichikawa, the man who did the voice of Jetter, passed away just last year.

Mandarake stores

Starting out in 1987 in the otaku paradise that is Nakano Broadway, in West Tokyo, manga and anime merchandisers Mandarake have conquered the rest of Japan and these days have stores across this metropolis – in Shibuya, Akihabara and Ikebukuro – as well as in other essential cities like Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, and Sapporo.

While they’re up against stiff competition in the manga and anime market from the likes of the Animate chain, Mandarake also specializes in second-hand and old school, priceless, and sometimes obscure paraphernalia, not just from Japan, but from around the rest of the world – which accounts for the fact that a manga comic book signed by Osamu Tezuka in 1977 (retailing for ¥200,000 and protected behind glass) was, a couple of years back, sitting right nearby a lonesome Grand Moff Tarkin doll (based on the devious Death Star commander played by Hammer Films regular Peter Cushing) from Star Wars: Episode IV that same year... collecting dust in a bargain bin and selling for just ¥200.

Man, I wished I'd picked that baby up (the Grand Moff, I mean) - but as it is I did end up with a buy from Mandarake's bargain shelves that stumped me at the time, and still does: An Australian O.D.F. soldier I had no idea about that was released in the 1996 G.I. Joe Classic Collection. It was reduced from ¥6,900 to just ¥600, with a bigger layer of dust than that of the aforementioned Star Wars villain.

As Jessie, the Yodeling Cowgirl is wont to say, he was mint in the box, never been opened; if Australian militia types really did dress like this furrowed-brow chappie, our country would be an international uniform designers' laughing stock.

The spiel on the box of this fellow Aussie is likewise hilarious.


"Founded in 1982 after the invasion of the Falkland Islands," it claims, "the Australian Operational Deployment Force (O.D.F.) is highly skilled in quick reactions, often deploying to a location ready for action without any prior notice, regional force surveillance units to understand any situations they face. Wearing the traditional uniform of plain khakis, slouch hat and boots, and armed with an FN FAL 7.62, a Russack, personal equipment belt, pouches and a canteen and holder, the G.I. Joe Australian O.D.F. is ready for action."

I'm fairly certain most of my 21 million compatriots haven't heard about these elusive individuals nor their debonair exploits either, though there's actually some guff about the real-life Operational Deployment Force here... Far less convoluted in their intention and founded two years before the Falklands.

Also available from these incredible stores are lovely tin toys from the 1950s, original animation cels from just about every series you can think of, cosplay outfits, CDs, DVDs, art-books, giant robots the size of you or me and even a wee bit bigger, and anything else obsessive-compulsive-collector related.

Essential one-stop shopping for any anime or manga aficionado, plus other people besides.