Ranpou (found anime series; 1984)

Anime's opening title.

Status: Found

Ranpou (らんぽう Ranpou) is a Japanese gag manga created by Masatoshi Uchizaki and serialized in Weekly Shonen Champion magazine from 1978 to 1987, for a total of 37 volumes. It is about a short, perverted middle-school boy named Ranpou who goes on crazy misadventures with Chutaro, a talking mouse genius who invents things for the two to mess around with.^[1]

An anime series adaptation of Ranpou aired from April 5th, 1984 to September 27th, 1984 on Fuji TV, for a total of 21 episodes. The production started at Tsuchida Productions and was originally planned to be aired on TV Tokyo in 1983, but it was canceled due to the change of the organization policy on TV Tokyo's side. Captain Tsubasa instead replaced Ranpou and broadcast on TV Tokyo. The production resumed after changing the broadcast station to Fuji TV.

The show allegedly received bad ratings because it was airing against a baseball game in some areas. Due to the meager ratings, the last episode was wired on a few stations.

Availability

A collectors' edition DVD-Set of all 21 episodes of the Ranpou anime is set to release on December 24, 2021, through TC Entertainment and Best Field in Japan. This will mark the first time that the Ranpou anime has been released on home video.^[2] ^[3] Prior to the announcement, the show never received a home video release, and only a small amount of footage has resurfaced online.