I have wanted to talk about Future-Retro Hero Story for a long time. I’m sure the majority of people reading this are already very familiar with Outlaw Star. To a lesser extent maybe with its spin-off Angel Links.
(*NOTE* This is a repost from our old defunct site MatureManga.net.)
A Brief Introduction to Future-Hero Retro Story
Back in 1988, a full nine years before the release of the Outlaw Star manga, Takehiko Itou’s Future-Hero Retro Story was released. Also known sometimes as Space Hero Tales, or Uchuu Eiyuu Monogatari to give it its Japanese name. At this time it was just the second manga he had released in his career.
Now, Outlaw Star as far as the anime is concerned was a huge success in the west. Like myself, many of you probably cut your teeth watching anime seeing it on Toonami alongside Cowboy Bebop. Despite this Angel Links was the only semblance of a sequel it ever got. There were several projects in the works for a sequel by Itou and with the help of the animation studio Sunrise, but ultimately none of these came to fruition. We will talk about these again in a future article.
Reasons for Its Obscurity
It was somewhat to my surprise then about five years ago that I found out about Future-Retro Hero Story. As it turns out, Outlaw Star itself was a sequel. You may be asking, like I do, that with Outlaw Star’s popularity how come this isn’t common knowledge? Personally for myself it’s a hard one to understand. My best guess is that as a starter anime for many, people moved on to other series and developed their tastes over time. People somewhat just look at Outlaw Star with nostalgia.
Other reasons for Future-Retro Hero Story’s obscurity also comes down to other important factors. Even though the manga series was a hit in Japan, an anime adaptation unfortunately never got to see the light of day. As far as my knowledge goes, the animation studio fell into financial difficulties, or so I believe. There was an audio drama made, but I think we know the chances of anyone translating these are slim to none.
Here’s a taster of said audio drama, complete with catchy theme song:
Are Translations Available?
Unfortunately Future-Retro Hero Story never got an official translation. However a small number of scanlations were provided a few years ago by You’re Welcome Scans. Looking at their page though it seems like they’re looking to revive those efforts with the help of the prominent Outlaw Star fan site Outlaw Star Nexus. So there is hope there will soon be more available.
I’ve read these scanlations and if you’re thinking it’s similar to a shounen version of Outlaw Star, you would be pretty close. I think it has a bit of the Dragon Ball feel to it, that you may expect from a manga from this time. It’s much more comedic in tone than Outlaw Star was, and has a very different feel to its seinen successor.
References in that Hot Springs Episode…
When talking about this topic we also need to discuss a certain episode from Outlaw Star. Episode 23 to be exact, the episode that originally Toonami did not show. Yes, that’s right, the infamous hot springs episode if you remember. This episode is actually incredibly important as it is the only episode in Outlaw
Star that ties it to its lesser known predecessor. If you remember there were three wizards in this episode, Ark, Hadul and Urt. All three of these were originally Future-Retro Hero Story characters.
Ark and Urt also utter some very important lines respectively:
Digging Deeper
OK now I’ve given you an overview about what Future-Retro Hero Story was and how it relates to Outlaw Star. Let’s start digging a bit deeper. What was the story about, who were the characters, and how did the three wizards come into all this?
The Story
The story basically concerns the grandson of a famous space adventurer named Roger Griffiths, a young teenager called Juji Godoh. Unlike in Outlaw Star, the Future-Retro Hero Story takes place on Earth and in our solar system, before humanity was able to branch out and expand among the stars. This is known as the Fixed Star era, whereas Outlaw Star’s time is known as the Towards Star era.
Roger met with an unfortunate fate during his past in his own set of Space Hero Tales. He now consists of a walking brain in a jar, that you can see on the video above. So Juji ends up inheriting his old space ship and his gun that shoots mana. Similar to Gene’s in Outlaw Star.
From what I’ve seen and read, things are pretty standard for a shounen manga with Juji and Roger adding more to their group along their adventures. Like Juji’s classmate Sakumi. A witch named Azel, as well as a robot trying to expand his own fast food franchise across space as bizarre as that sounds.
The Setting…
The setting for the story is a little odd. Please correct me down in the comments if I’m wrong about any of this. Information about this series is still hard to come by. It seems as though Earth essentially exists in its own kind of realm, and outside of this the rest of the solar system is populated by other beings. It also seems Roger was originally from this more magical realm. The series antagonist, Star King Brass, banished him from this realm and placed a curse on him and his family. Hence what Urt said at the end of the Outlaw Star episode…
How Did the Priests Come Into It?
I believe the three priests from Outlaw Star served under Star King Brass, and were supposed to be as strong individually as an army. After Star King Brass’ defeat at the hands of Juji and co, the priests were forced to flee across space in order to find more mana. They needed this to extend their lifespan and source their magical powers. Eventually they ended up on Planet Tenrei.
After this space pirates began to take control. Humanity discovered dragonite and was able to travel to other star systems, eventually leading us to Outlaw Star.
I used two main sources while writing this article that you should take a look at if you would like to know more:
The Japanese Wikipedia page
http://www.angelfire.com/anime3/m_haiena/Future.html
What do you think about this and did you already know about Future-Retro Hero Story? Have any information I missed? Please leave your comments down below.
