Many Otaku have heard the rumblings of this show coming on the air to Cartoon Network. The story works like this. There hasn’t been a single Japanese rock act to break into the US market since 1963! For forty years, Japanese music companies have been trying to sell J-pop and J-rock acts to the US market, but none of them have ever caught on.
So, enter Sam Register. This is the man who hired Puffy AmiYumi (known as simply “Puffy” in Japan, but we already have a Puffy here) to do the theme song for Teen Titans after catching a music video of theirs on a local access cable station in New York. This dude totally dug their stuff!
Enter… his brain child. A cartoon to try to expose a younger area of viewers to Puffy AmiYumi. Work out contract with Sony to get them to do the show, and you have… Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi.
Ami and Yumi introduce the show, and the cartoon… well, it’s schizophrenic, as are many cartoons marketed toward the age range of 6-10. The cartoon itself is mildly entertaining, but not earth shattering or ground breaking. What makes this show stand on its own two feet, are the incidental songs performed by Puffy AmiYumi. Awesome tunes. Just great stuff, and this is the sort of music I don’t mind my kids being exposed to. The cartoons are cute, and about the least offensive thing I’ve seen on television in recent years. Good, wholesome stuff.
Cute show, neat concept. Let’s hope it pans out for Puffy AmiYumi.
