Chiburashka and Crocodile Gena are Big in Japan!
No. I'm not kidding!
See this Japanese poster :
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/images/B001FWIT6O/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=561958&s=dvd
Read this : Cheburashka arrives in the land of the rising sun
http://russiatoday.com/Art_and_Fun/2009-10-18/cheburashka-japan.html
Five years ago at the Tokyo International Anime fair, Russia’s SoyuzMultFilm signed a contract with Japan’s SP International for the rights to distribute Russian cartoons abroad. They bought the rights for Cheburashka until 2023. The Japanese company plans to make from 46 to 52 episodes starring the Soviet cartoon character
With the permission of Eduard Uspensky, the creator of Cheburashka and his best friend Crocodile Gena, Japanese director Kudo Susumu has stretched four Soviet puppet cartoons to 26 episodes, each three minutes long.
On October 7, TV channel Tokyo aired the pilot version of the first episode titled “The First Friend”. The episode is about how Cheburashka and Gena meet. The show was an immediate hit among Russian web surfers.
The plot of the new series will be based on numerous books by Eduard Uspensky, including those released in the past few years. Among them are: “Crocodile Gena’s Business”; “Cheburashka Abducted”; “Crocodile Gena’s Holiday”; “Crocodile Gena – The Police Lieutenant”; and even “Crocodile Gena Joins The Army”.
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For those of you who are very familiar with the Soviet Union cartoon characters Crocodile Gena and Chiburashka since childhood is unnecessary to explain who they are, we have actually grown up with the songs, cartoons and books about them. To this day I fondly remember and still like them. I even reread the book recently and it is one of the very few songs I remember the words to and occasionally feel like singing.
---The origins
According to the story by Uspensky (the book author), Cheburashka is a funny little creature unknown to science, and lived in a tropical forest. One day, however, he accidentally ends up in a crate of oranges, falls asleep, and wakes up in front of a puzzled shop owner. The salesman calls him Cheburashka as, after his long sleep, the animal was tumbling down all the time (in the book the salesman’s word for tumbling is “cheburakhnutsa”).
Cheburashka also became known in some countries outside the former Soviet Union (and of the Soviet Bloc). He became very popular in Japan after an animated film series about him was shown in 15 cinemas all over Japan and was watched by approx. 700,000 Japanese between summer 2001 and spring 2002. In 2008, the Cheburashka films were inducted into the Ghibli Museum Library with Japanese theatrical release on the same date as Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.
The amazing thing is, it would appear that Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena are very Big in Japan. On the subway station of JR line which I almost daily use I noticed sign boards with the very familiar to me imaginary Russian characters.
I don't know what exactly the posters say, but from the look of it it looks like a message urging people not to talk loudly, not to use cell phones etc while commuting...It impressed me very much, as you can imagine. I didn't expect a Soviet children book character to appear and be famous in Japan!
But so it seems.
Haven't seen the Japanese cartoon, just noticed the boards at the railway stations...
I dug a bit in Google to find out what that might be about so I found out a bit of the above background that would explain the existence of those posters...
I love being reminded of their existance even in Japan :)
Here and here are links to the Japanese version of the song of Crocodile Gena. Enjoy!
No. I'm not kidding!
See this Japanese poster :
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/images/B001FWIT6O/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=561958&s=dvd
Read this : Cheburashka arrives in the land of the rising sun
http://russiatoday.com/Art_and_Fun/2009-10-18/cheburashka-japan.html
Five years ago at the Tokyo International Anime fair, Russia’s SoyuzMultFilm signed a contract with Japan’s SP International for the rights to distribute Russian cartoons abroad. They bought the rights for Cheburashka until 2023. The Japanese company plans to make from 46 to 52 episodes starring the Soviet cartoon character
With the permission of Eduard Uspensky, the creator of Cheburashka and his best friend Crocodile Gena, Japanese director Kudo Susumu has stretched four Soviet puppet cartoons to 26 episodes, each three minutes long.
On October 7, TV channel Tokyo aired the pilot version of the first episode titled “The First Friend”. The episode is about how Cheburashka and Gena meet. The show was an immediate hit among Russian web surfers.
The plot of the new series will be based on numerous books by Eduard Uspensky, including those released in the past few years. Among them are: “Crocodile Gena’s Business”; “Cheburashka Abducted”; “Crocodile Gena’s Holiday”; “Crocodile Gena – The Police Lieutenant”; and even “Crocodile Gena Joins The Army”.
-----
For those of you who are very familiar with the Soviet Union cartoon characters Crocodile Gena and Chiburashka since childhood is unnecessary to explain who they are, we have actually grown up with the songs, cartoons and books about them. To this day I fondly remember and still like them. I even reread the book recently and it is one of the very few songs I remember the words to and occasionally feel like singing.
---The origins
According to the story by Uspensky (the book author), Cheburashka is a funny little creature unknown to science, and lived in a tropical forest. One day, however, he accidentally ends up in a crate of oranges, falls asleep, and wakes up in front of a puzzled shop owner. The salesman calls him Cheburashka as, after his long sleep, the animal was tumbling down all the time (in the book the salesman’s word for tumbling is “cheburakhnutsa”).
Cheburashka also became known in some countries outside the former Soviet Union (and of the Soviet Bloc). He became very popular in Japan after an animated film series about him was shown in 15 cinemas all over Japan and was watched by approx. 700,000 Japanese between summer 2001 and spring 2002. In 2008, the Cheburashka films were inducted into the Ghibli Museum Library with Japanese theatrical release on the same date as Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.
The amazing thing is, it would appear that Cheburashka and Crocodile Gena are very Big in Japan. On the subway station of JR line which I almost daily use I noticed sign boards with the very familiar to me imaginary Russian characters.
I don't know what exactly the posters say, but from the look of it it looks like a message urging people not to talk loudly, not to use cell phones etc while commuting...It impressed me very much, as you can imagine. I didn't expect a Soviet children book character to appear and be famous in Japan!
But so it seems.
Haven't seen the Japanese cartoon, just noticed the boards at the railway stations...
I dug a bit in Google to find out what that might be about so I found out a bit of the above background that would explain the existence of those posters...
I love being reminded of their existance even in Japan :)
Here and here are links to the Japanese version of the song of Crocodile Gena. Enjoy!
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