For many years now, there’s been a TV series that I would love to see released on physical media in the West and that’s Thunderbolt Fantasy. Besides the fact that it’s a Japanese-Taiwanese coproduction, perhaps the aspect that will stand out the most to people is that it’s created using glove puppetry. This is augmented by several elements such as CGI but this visual style has always stood out to me as being wonderfully stylish and distinct. While the puppetry used in the show is Taiwanese, specifically that of Pili International Multimedia, it made me wonder about the history of Japanese puppet animation which I’ve found to be quite fascinating!
It’s worth noting first that Japan has a history of puppet theatre, Bunraku, which has been popular since the late 17th century. During the early era of Japanese television, around the time when the royal wedding of Prince Akihito and Michiko caused a surge in the ownership of televisions, several notable puppet series were produced such as Chirorin Village and the Walnut Tree that found success in the brand new market of TV.
However, it was the release of Gerry Anderson’s series such as Captain Scarlet, UFO and, of course, Thunderbirds in Japan that really drove interest in developing puppet television. This led to a spur of Japanese puppet series with some particularly noteworthy titles being Aerial City 008, Spaceship Silica and Galaxy Boy Troop with this last title being created by Osamu Tezuka himself. Tragically, these shows are now considered to be lost save for a few episodes.
Interestingly, Go Nagai, the mangaka behind Devilman, Cutie Honey and the seminal Mazinger Z, created a puppet series called X-Bomber in the 80s which was inspired by both Gerry Anderson series’ and Star Wars. It proved unpopular in Japan but proved to be a surprise success in the West where it was renamed Star Fleet and received praise for its complex themes and serialised storytelling.
While nowhere near as frequent as anime series, we have continued to see Japanese puppet series released throughout the years with, besides Thunderbolt Fantasy, the most notable being adaptations of The Three Musketeers and Sherlock Holmes which aired in 2009 and 2014 respectively and were created by noted director Koki Mitani. However, most of these series are specifically aimed at children, something that Thunderbolt Fantasy doesn’t share in common.
I’ve found looking at the history of Japanese puppet animation to be fascinating and I can only hope that we get to see Thunderbolt Fantasy as well as some other series released here one day. Let me know your thoughts on Japanese puppet animation, whether you’ve seen any and, if you have, what you thought of them, other notable Japanese puppet series that I might’ve missed and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!