Here’s another great find from Dougo13’s collection of rare anime tapes. Big thanks to him, and also thanks to Austin for helping identify and researching this series.
Manga Furusato Mukashi Banashi (which roughly translates to something like “Cartoons of Ancient Folklore”) was a fairly short running series that, like Manga Nihon Emaki (see post here) featured classic Japanese tales. To quote Austin: “Each aired episode would be comprised of two stories: a story belonging to a prefecture in east Japan, and another story belonging to a prefecture in west Japan.”
Not all of the episodes produced were aired, and this varied by areas of Japan. Tokyo Channel 12 (today’s TV Tokyo) only showed 18 of the 26 produced episodes, but apparently other episodes aired in Kansai and other regions.
Here’s a pack of 8 stories that were shown with English subtitles on Hawaiian television. Because of the difficulty of finding information on the original airdates (which may not have even been consistent by region) I’ve numbered these episodes based on the production order, apart from one that I was unable to identify. I’ve also listed what prefecture each story comes from, again with one exception where I was unable to find that information. These episodes would have been released a lot sooner if it wasn’t so hard to find information about this show.
Very Nifty!
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Wow! Another great rarity uncovered and preserved with all of the quality that your work is known for. Thanks to both of you for not letting this fall through the cracks of obscure anime history.
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Really interesting find you got here. Great work, and thanks a lot for sharing!
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I didn’t see this until just now, so this information is coming a bit late.
“The Keepsake Cedar Tree” (かたみの杉の木) is from Toyama Prefecture, per the description of https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01G53E57O and also the narration at the beginning of the episode itself.
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Thanks again, Austin. I’ve amended the file name on the Mega DDL.
Let me know if you ever figure out the production number of The Kappa’s Vengeance. I checked all of those DVD cases and I just can’t seem to find that one.
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Do you mean these DVDs? The Kappa’s Vengeance (カッパのしかえし) appears in the last disc of the box set for the West Japan stories.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B000M5KV6Q
But there’s no numbering information in the description or the cover image as far as I can see. Do you have a link to somewhere you sourced the production numbers from? That might give me a better lead, or idea of how to better search for information on this obscurity.
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