Master Keaton - Naoki Urasawa’s Forgotten Masterpiece

With the somewhat recent release of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, I been thinking a lot about some of his other works.
First off that obscure and totally unknown TV series Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl from 89’ that ran a crazy 124 episodes until 92..
or that it’s literally been a decade since I first watched and never finished monster..
and how monster’s older brother Master Keaton is one of my favorite anime of all time.
From 1988-94, Urasawa put out 18 volumes of master keaton thru Shogakukan, same publisher of a lot of Rumiko Takahashi work around that mid to late 80s era.
Today we’ll be discussing the 39 episode anime from 1998.
So the basic premise of Master Keaton surrounds this grown ass educated man name Taichi Keaton who is a Hafu, which of course is a Japanese term for a half Japanese half non Japanese person. His father is a Japanese zoologist, while his mother is from Britain.
There’s actually a lot of lore to Keaton,
For one part he and his wife studied at Oxford University over there in England.. the wife,
well ex wife studied at somerville college which is an offspring of oxford, which is true in the real world as well..
but Keaton today is an ex special air service soldier for the British Army and has developed skills which aids him in what WE end up seeing in the anime..
as the bulk of show’s purpose being his role as an agent for an insurance fraud company called lloyds.
at times keaton will run into people from his days as a student, and as a SAS solider, and this reinforces him as a real person with a serious background that you internalize as actually real.
Majority of the show is made up of episodic investigations that go wrong where keaton ends up having to play offense or defense against insurance fraud or regular criminals.. but it does something totally different than a lot of crime stopping stories do..incorporating an abundance of slice of life episodes and moments into the mix.
But not slice of life like comedy or day in the life type..
Things that are cerebral and make you think.
Or just things that bring the humanity out of you.
And of course..
What stands out the most about this show..
Is the fact that it’s episodic nature takes us to places all over Europe.
Lets throw some examples out there.
The first episode takes us to Dodecanese.
Where the fuck is Dodecanese.
Some islands In the middle of nowhere off the coast of Greece, and near turkey somewhere. I mean who thinks to write a story there.
Next, random.
Episode 3.
The Świętokrzyskie Mountains, in Poland, amazing..
one more..
episode 33 takes us to florence italy..
beyond those examples of course theres different locations across England, I remember seeing a episode in dresden Germany ..
Unfortunately, the anime adaptation was extremely low budget, all across the board from animation to voice acting production quality.
They had great voice acting in my opinion when you judge it off actor performance..
but the actual audio work was poor for both the Japanese and the dub.
Now most of us that love the show, cause whether conscious or subconsciously due to the barebones production being carried by amazing writing and it’s maturity level..
but for the average person that’s not impressed by this kind of thing..
It will be an instant turn off once you witness that opening intro.
I mentioned this in previous videos about great teacher Onizuka, but Master Keaton has a different vibe because of it’s production that makes it seem several years older than it actually is.
The series came out in 98, but looks like something from 91 or 92. I mean it was only a year or two before things like blue sub 6 would come out, or big O, or tons of other anime that pushed that hand drawn animation technology to it’s limits..
and this still looks like it’s stuck trying to decide if it’s still the 80s.
Now all of what I just put out there was for the general population of anime watcher who decide to check this out.
Now lemme talk to the rest of you that love retro anime..
This is heaven.
There is so much pre digital candy in here in terms of hand drawn cels.. 90s anime style aesthetic with the backgrounds.. and the anime goes out of it’s way to make sure it shows these various images to you in several ways.
Rather it be b roll in between scenes, or during actual dialogue or action..
The visual presentation of master keaton was very distinct and intentional.
We can assume this is because of all the various locations it takes us to as I said earlier.
I don’t read manga, but the general population of Keaton consumers have reported the anime to be a fairly faithful adaptation of the manga. And I can feel this without even have read it because it does at times feel like the anime is a visual manga.
Beyond the mangas’s run and the anime..
There was a 1 volume manga one shot called Master Keaton remaster that dropped in 2012.
/ animebackwhen

[@Vailskibum]

Master Keaton is a perfect blend of everything that represents life, I love it

[@lastlife7348]

This is genuinely one of the best anime has to offer. I'm always trying to promote this anime to others. I remember when I asked you about this on one of your streams and you instantly pulled out your copy of Master Keaton from your collection.

[@thisas_]

Master Keaton underrated Gem

[@MainEventDul]

This is a well edited video. A smooth watch.
Good on you.
In watching this series at the moment and I wanted to find a recent review.

[@animebackwhen]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@AronSensation]

This is the only anime I’ve given a 10/10 on MyAnimeList, although it’s episodic, every episode has an original interesting story with new characters, Keaton is just a badass, though he looks normal and average middle age dad, he is very capable and professional at his work, since he’s a former SAS officer. I haven’t seen an anime of this caliber, I’m amazed that not a lot of people have seen this anime

[@demetriusb.7885]

Monster my favorite Anime of all time ❤

[@Bahara.ha11]

Great video ❤

[@retroanimemike]

Seems like these days i spend more time watching videos about anime than actual anime. Master Keaton is a manga i intend to read, but its a long list of those. Guess i should sort those by priority and move Keaton close to the top.

[@rhinseout]

A very eloquent appraisal of one of the best anime/mangas ever 🙌🫶🏻🙏