Rumik World


Rumik World is a collection of four short movies written by Rumiko Takahashi, the person who brought us Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura.

Unfortunately, all the short movies presented below are out of print and no longer available. This is mostly a shame, as Mermaid Forest was particularly good.






Fire Tripper


JPEG image Type: short movie
Genre: Fantasy, science fiction, time travel
Dub/Sub: Subtitled
Length: 50 minutes
Copyright date: 1992
Animation quality: 7
Rating:
                    V----V
          G-----------PG----------PG13-----------R------NC17
Why: V, al, n
General overall quality: 7
Distributed by:U.S. Manga Corps

It is the civil war period in Japan, about 500 years ago.

A young 16 year old boy named Shukumaru cries out as Suzu, his younger sister, literally disappears microseconds before a fiery beam is about to hit her.

Today, a small girl is found alone near a bridge by a childless couple. They name her Suzuko and adopt her.

Ten years pass and the girl grows up. She is now 17. One day she passes a play ground where her neighbor, a young boy named Shu who is 6 years old, is showing off his appendix scar to all of his friends. Suzuko walks him home. One the way they pass three large natural gas tanks. They are leaking and explode.

Suzuko and Shu are propelled into the past about 500 years, the civil war era in Japan. Suzuko meets a boy of 16 named Shukumaru.

Shu does not seem to be with her. The only thing that exists of his is the shirt he was wearing the day of the explosion.

Suzuko is taken to Shukumaru's village that is about to be attacked and burned.

During the attack, Suzuko protects Shukumaru from being hit by a fiery beam. Both of them are propelled to today, a couple of hours before the explosion of the gas tanks. While in the present, Shukumaru shows Suzuko is appendix scar.

They both reach the decision to return to the past by riding the gas explosion, once again.

A paradox time travel story......







GIF image

The Laughing Target


JPEG image Type: short movie
Genre: Horror, fantasy
Dub/Sub: Subtitled
Length: 50 minutes
Copyright date: 1992
Animation quality: 7
Rating:
                    V----V
          G-----------PG----------PG13-----------R------NC17
Why: v, mo, n
General overall quality: 7
Distributed by:U.S. Manga Corps

How long should a childhood promise last?? For Yuzuru, it would seem that the answer is forever. For you see, 10 years ago Yuzuru was betrothed to his cousin Azusa. Now that Azusa comes to live with Yuzuru's family and she expects him to keep the vow.

Doesn't sound bad, you say?? Azusa is very pretty, you think.... Too bad something supernatural and evil seems to be hidden within the shy Azusa.

Despite being one of the strangest movies I have ever seen, I enjoyed The Laughing Target. It has a very H.P. Lovecraft feel to it.























GIF image

Maris - The Chojo


JPEG image Type: short movie
Genre: Science Fiction, comedy
Dub/Sub: Subtitled
Length: 50 minutes
Copyright date: 1992
Animation quality: 7
Rating:
                 V----V
          G-----------PG----------PG13-----------R------NC17
Why: n, mt, v
General overall quality: 7
Distributed by:U.S. Manga Corps

The only true comedy in the Rumik World series.

Maris is from the planet Thanatos, which exploded. She, like all from her planet, is six times as strong as a human from Earth. Generally, this would not be a bad thing, except that the rest of the galaxy is not set up from people who are six times as strong as everyone else.

Maris is forever breaking things, and therefore is forever poor trying to pay off the repair bills. To help lessen the number of things broken, Maris wears unsightly body restraints, if things were not bad enough already.

However, it could be worse. She could still be stuck in her old job, as a professional wrestler. Now, she is a member of the special police, which mainly means that she gets all the jobs that no one else wants. Woe is Maris.....

Traveling with Maris is Murphy from a fox like race. He can create nine copies of anything he wants with his tail and is forever teasing Maris.

However, things may be looking up. The son of a billionaire has been kidnapped. This may be the chance that Maris needed to become financially independent.

Of course, the kidnapper might be the rich kid himself, who just happened to be bored and so decided to try evil for a while. To matter worse, there is an actual kidnapper involved who happens to be an old rival from Maris's professional wrestling days. Woe is Maris....










GIF image

Mermaid Forest


JPEG image Type: short movie
Genre: Horror, fantasy
Dub/Sub: Subtitled
Length: 55 minutes
Copyright date: 1992
Animation quality: 7
Rating:
                                   V----V
          G-----------PG----------PG13-----------R------NC17
Why: v, n, mo
General overall quality: 8
Distributed by:U.S. Manga Corps

It is February 1936 and a young man is shot while running away from some Japanese Imperial policeman. He appears to be dead, and the policeman are sure that he is dead

As the policemen approach all they see are some bloody footprints that lead off away from the bloody snow where the young man fell.

Such is the life of Yuta who, as a young man, survived eating some mermaid flesh 500 years before and is now immortal.

Yuta has been searching these past centuries for someone, anyone, like himself.

Allow 55 years to pass.....

Yuta has found someone like himself, another person who has survived eating mermaid meat. She is a naive young girl named Mana and is very important to Yuta.

This is the basic premise of Mermaid Forest. The story continues an adventure where Yuta and Mana meet some odd and bazaar persons who wish to do harm to him and Mana because of what they are.

I really enjoyed Mermaid Forest, so much that I bought the manga that the anime movie is based upon.

JPEG image

It turns out that the anime movie is one chapter or so of the manga. By and large, the anime is reasonably faithful to the manga in most cases.







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