Meitantei Houmuzu

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Sherlock Holmes (1984)

Meitantei Houmuzu (名探偵ホームズ), or Sherlock Hound in english, is a Japanese TV animation series written by Hayao Miyazaki, co-produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha Entertainment (TMS) (Japan) and Rever Cinematografica / RAI (Italy), aired between 6 november 1984 and 20 may 1985 on TV Asahi (Japan). 26 episodes of 24 minutes each.



Episode List


Crew

  • Directors : Hayao Miyazaki, Marco Pagot, Kyôsuke Mikuriya
  • Screenplay : Hayao Miyazaki, Sunao Katabuchi, Tsunehisa Itô
  • Producer : Yoshifumi Kondô (TMS)
  • Character Design : Marco Pagot, Gi Pagot, Yoshifumi Kondô, Tsukasa Tannai
  • Art Director : Nizô Yamamoto
  • Music : Kentaroh Haneda


Adaptations

Board Game


Notes

In 1981, Marco Pagot, the creator of the cartoon Caliméro, proposed to the Italian television channel RAI a project for an animated series based on the character of Sherlock Holmes. RAI accepted the project and partnered with the Japanese company Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS) for the realization. The preparatory work was supervised by Hayao Miyazaki, who appropriated Arthur Conan Doyle's characters and transcribes their universe with a surprisingly light tone. He made a humorous series with anthropomorphic dogs for characters (except Sherlock Holmes who is a fox, and Professor Moriarty, a wolf), very far from the Victorian universe.

Hayao Miyazaki will produce only six episodes of the series, but all 26 episodes undoubtedly bear his mark: the offbeat means of transport, including many flying machines, testify to his influence on the series. Production was then interrupted until 1984, when TMS relaunched the design, but with a new director, Kyôsuke Mikuriya, because Miyazaki had left the production company to found his own studio under the Ghibli label.