Lost Films & Miscolored Characters: Recent Spanish & Japanese Additions

 

Happy holidays! It’s been a bit of a long time since I last did a post here, though I thought it would be a good time to do an update before the year ends. A lot of things have happened over the course of these past few months that were separate from my website, but at the moment, I would like to showcase some new material that I’ve added in the “Language Info” section. Second-hand market and auction sites have always been helpful in discovering rare and obscure items from the Little Lulu anime series.

I’ll be going over some notable highlights from this batch of material added this month. First up is Spanish-related content. There are a couple of small magazine articles from the 1980s that have shown up on “todocoleccion.net.” This one below has been part of the Spanish section for a while, though it is worth noting that the 1st episode of the Spanish dub aired on TVE: September 15, 19841.

Most of the new snippets are not in the best quality. However, one of them showcases a 1985 TV schedule, which includes an airing of Little Lulu’s 20th episode. The picture alongside it comes from Ep. 6, “Little Fireman.”

In regards to the posters, you may recall seeing an odd Argentinian poster that advertises a Little Lulu movie called, La Pequeña Lulú.

Well, I found a couple more posters in relation to the Argentinian one, in the form of lobby cards. They’re basically small movie posters that include a still frame and complementary artwork. With the lobby cards that I found online, most of the stills come from the 5th and 6th episodes of the series. The artwork that is used are the same ones that can be found on the Italian “fotobustas” for the 1981 compilation movie, The Incredible Adventures of Little Lulu. It is likely that this Little Lulu film (La Pequeña Lulú) is also a compilation movie, just dubbed in Spanish.

Alongside, we have a different set of lobby cards that are for a 2nd Spanish compilation movie called, La Pequeña Lulú No. 2 (Little Lulu No. 2). It surprises me to find out that another film was created for Latin American audiences. This time, the artwork is not as good as what we’ve seen before. Lulu appears to be trying on a new hat while Tubby has a shocked expression and a strange color palette on his clothes.

As stated in the book, “Cartelera cinematográfica, 1980-1989,” the 1st compilation film, La Pequeña Lulú, was released on July 17, 1981 while the 2nd compilation film, La Pequeña Lulú No. 2, was released the following year on August 6, 19822. Both of these release dates predate the 1984 TVE Spanish dub. The voice actors (and perhaps also the music) in these compilation films may be different from the Spanish dub, though this cannot be confirmed because there is no way to watch these obscurities in current times.

There is also some Japanese material that I’ve found recently. Here is a paper dollhouse that is supposed to resemble Lulu’s home. The first floor has the living room while the second floor is Lulu’s room. In addition, there is a chimney that runs through the whole house and a backyard as well. Strangely, no paper figures are accompanied with this set, so perhaps they were included in its original packaging.

Next up are two more coloring books. The covers have a decent charm, in spite of Tubby wearing a green coat instead of a black one. This specific cover that has Tubby being scared is a homage to the 2nd episode, “Operation Babysitter.” I’d like to imagine that Alvin tries to scare Lulu and Tubby again the day after the events of that episode.

The inside pages include various pictures to color in, with outfits and objects that you may recognize from the series. Most notably is the inclusion of the boys from the Westside Gang, who rarely appear in Japanese merchandise.

Just at the beginning of this month, a particular Yahoo Japan auction for the 1976 record of the Little Lulu anime (SCS-321) included decently high quality scans of all of its pages. This auction was first posted by “sounds1960” on December 9, 2021.

The artwork for this record isn’t anything to ride home about, definitely not as good as the ones from the Asahi Sonorama release. Again, most of the characters are colored incorrectly. The record itself has nothing special, since it only includes the Japanese OP & ED; which you can hear easily on YouTube.

These new additions have been added already in the Spanish and Japanese sections, so feel free to see them up close for more pictures and other items I didn’t cover here. More things to look forward to next year!

Link: https://sites.google.com/view/fellers-frontier/language-info

Sources:

1. September 15, 1984 Magazine Article: https://mangaclassics.mboards.com/1671915/11617001-la-pequena-lulu/

2. Cartelera cinematográfica, 1980-1989 Book: https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=XLxBcHacjkAC&dq=muestra+internacional+de+cine+zulawski&q=little+lulu#v=snippet&q=little%20lulu&f=false