Enma-kun is the nephew of Lord Enma, ruler of the Underworld. This is a joint project with Hokuto no Gun. On the bright side, he’s voiced by the late, great Machiko Soga, who in addition to being the original voice of Q-Taro, also played villains in many live action shows like Rainbowman, Denjiman, Sun Vulcan and Zyuranger (the latter now available on DVD with English subtitles!) Shotaro Ishinomori’s classic manga series was first adapted into two mini-movies for the Toei Manga Matsuri, and then this TV series.Ġ07 is very different in this show than he is in the manga. On the other hand, the first episode does feature a WWII flashback where Hitler offs himself with a bullet to the head. In the original manga Akira injects himself with the Big X formula in order to grow all big and super-heroic, but in the TV series the needle-pen injector has been changed into to a beam device, presumably to avoid an epidemic of copycat intravenous drug use on Japanese playgrounds. And now, you can finally enjoy these formerly lost episodes of Big X complete with English subtitles. But just as missing Doctor Who episodes continue to be found, a 16mm print of Big X episode 1 turned up (oddly enough, in the hands of an American film collector), and more recently episode 11 was found as well.
For a long time the first 39 episodes were thought to be lost forever, and the Japanese VHS and laserdisc releases of the 1990s only included episodes 40-59. Like the 1960s episodes of Doctor Who, there are a lot of Big X episodes that are currently missing. Based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka, directed by Osamu Dezaki, with music by Isao Tomita.
This is the very first anime produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha.