Anime Profile: Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo

Bobobo is another Furi Kuri-bizarre anime that has just recently been released in Japan. The story is set in the kingdom of Margarita, where the townspeople are facing a strange dilemma: their hair is being taken! The Hair Snatchers run the kingdom, and for an unknown reason, they are on a crusade to make every resident become bald.

One day, a girl by the name of Beauty is about to have her hair shaven off by one of the Hair Snatchers' henchmen. However, she is rescued by a man by the name of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo.

Bobobo fights using his whip-like nosehair, and is at first accompanied by his companion, Tsukemono (who is not allowed to listen to any of Bobobo's stories). Eventually, Beauty joins up with Bobobo on their quest to defeat the Hair Snatchers.

Bobobo and Beauty are eventually joined with a similarly wacky group of allies including the unpredictable Don Patch (he basically looks like a walking sun) and Gasser [Heppokomaru], who uses flatulence as a weapon.

And on a side note, not only does Dill Pickle [Tsukemono] not get to listen to Bo's stories, but he gets kicked off at the end of the first episode.

Bobobo-Bobo-Bobo is the strangely freaky adventure of a man named Bobobo with a blonde fro and five-foot-long nose hair, which he can use as whips. He can also hear hair talking, and is fighting this big government that tries to make the whole world bald.

Beauty teams up with Bobobo after he saves her hair from being shaved, and mainly follows him as he beats up people shaving other's heads, turns into fruit, sits inside a large burger bun, turns into a tank, cross-dresses, and even has the king of nose hair (Bababa-Baba-Baba) come out his nose... which is really weird, and I personally think someone had a LOT of time on their hands when thinking up this story's plot.

The first North American DVD release came on February 13th, 2007 by Illumitoon Ent, the same company that brought us Beet The Vandel Buster. Up front, the DVD release sounds great, being unedited and sporting both the English and Japanese language track. Of course, I'm not really a big fan of the series, watching only two or three episodes when it first aired on TV before taking it off of my TiVo's season pass, so I wasn't exactly excited about the DVD release. But I was curious to see what it was like unedited, and the original Japanese version. And that's where things start to take a turn for the worse.

First off, I wasn't able to see a real difference between the edited version I saw on TV a while back and the unedited version on DVD. I can't really blame anyone but myself for that, but it just tells me there probably isn't much difference between the two. The real problem comes with the lack of subtitles for the Japanese. Tried as I might, all I could ever get on screen was the subtitles for the English dub, which often don't match with what's going on in the Japanese version. Suck as subtitles popping up when nobody is talking. And these subtitles seem more like closed captioning that actual subtitles, as they list sound effects and seem to be broken apart in weird places.

As I said, I did not become a fan of the series when it was on TV, and this DVD did not even come close to turning me into one. I thought perhaps that I would enjoy the original Japanese version more than the televised version, but until I actually learn how to speak Japanese or they release another version of the DVD with proper subtitles, I'm never gonna know for sure.

Fans will be happy to hear that the second DVD release, which went on sale May 1, 2007, has real subtitles for the Japanese dialog track, and not just "dubtitles" (subtitles for the English dialog track).

Editor’s Note:

Illumitoon Entertainment, Ltd. announced that based on overwhelming demand it will be initiating a trade-in program for its "dubtitled" DVDs. "Dubtitles" are video with the English dialogue superimposed over Japanese audio, as opposed to true Japanese translations of the Japanese audio.

"It's something that's obviously very important to the fans, and we want to give them what they want," said Barry Watson, President/CEO of Illumitoon. "Going forward we want to incorporate literal translations on all our anime product."

The trade-in program is only available through Illumitoon's website, and will not be available through retailers. Details are available at www.illumitoon.com. The trade-in offer applies to all Illumitoon DVDs released before April 30, 2007, specifically:

BoBoBo-Bo BoBoBo - Bo-nafide Protector of Hair
Beet the Vandel Buster - The Sacrifice
B't X - Empire of the Machines

"We're always listening to our fans, and are extremely grateful for their input," said Watson. "I think fans will be very pleased."

Illumitoon is offering the trade-in program through 5/30/2007. For more information, visit the company's website at www.illumitoon.com.