Fire Tripper

Fire Tripper is based off a story from Rumiko Takahashi’s ‘Rumic World’ series, the other segments are: Warau Hyōteki, Maris: The Chōjo, and Ningyo Shirīzu. Despite my affection for Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura, I couldn’t fathom what this particular OVA was trying to say. There are a couple of cool ideas, like time warping via fire and multiple copies of a single person floating through separate time periods, but Fire Tripper fails to monopolize the interesting aspects of its plot.

—Story/Characters

The series follows an ordinary teenage girl named Suzuko, who—prior to her introduction—dreams that she is a little girl from the *Feudal era, that dies by getting ... crushed by a wooden beam in a burning shack. After waking up, Suzuko decides to walk a small neighborhood boy, Shūhei, home from the park. He shows off the scars from having his appendix removed and as they are walking, there is a fatal gas explosion from a nearby power plant. Both of them are caught in the explosion and, suddenly, Suzuko is suddenly laying in a pile of corpses in a battlefield.
*Also known as the Kamakura period: 1185–1333.

A group of gangly vagabonds attempt to rape her, but she is rescued by a teenage boy named Shūkumaru. Shūkumaru brings Suzuko back to his village, gives his younger sister (Suzu) a bell as a gift, and then claims that he will marry Suzuko. Afterwards, Shūkumaru takes Suzuko into a storehouse to get her clean clothes. It is revealed that Shūkumaru has fleeced corpses for their wares and collected them for supplies to aid the villagers. Suzuko finds Shūhei’s t-shirt among the pile of clothes, deduces that he must have been sent back in time with her, and tries to find him… but to no avail.

After a night of Shūkumaru trying to bed her but, drunkenly, passing out instead—Suzuko has an epiphany after seeing Suzu’s bell again; remembering that she has an identical one back in her own world! Suzuko then deducts that ‘Suzu’ is an alternate timeline version of herself, meaning that Shūkumaru is actually her brother!

Suzuko is tormented by the fact that they are siblings, because she has fallen in love with Shūkumaru. The village once again burns, like in her dream, because of the evil *Akauma. The scene from her dream is replicated and ‘Suzu’ is sent to the future, after being crushed by a fiery beam. Suzuko then realizes that the fire is a catalyst to travel between the past and the future. Shūkumaru is losing to Akauma, so Suzuko uses the fire to transport her and Shūkumaru to the future.
*Akauma is a play on the Japanese word ‘akuma’ (悪魔), which means ‘demon’ or ‘devil.’

After they arrive, Suzuko takes Shūkumaru to her house to dress his wounds. While doing so, she notices that Shūkumaru has the same scar that Shūhei had from his appendix removal and realizes they’re the same person! It turns out that Shūkumaru had gone back in time over a decade earlier than she had and grown up in the Feudal era, therefore Shūkumaru is not biologically related to her—he is an adopted brother from the other dimension. They then realize that they had gone back to the period, right before the initial gas explosion. So, they use the factory’s explosion again to go back in time again and announce their engagement to the other villagers. The end.

Oh man! Where do I begin, first of all, what is the point of this story? Did Rumiko Takahashi have a elementary schooler as a neighbor and thought, ‘If both of us used a time warp, then that kid could be my husband some day!’ Another point, and a common point of contention within the isekai genre, is wouldn’t she miss her family? How is she so okay with living in the Feudal era and never seeing them again? Does she just plan to set herself on fire, or something, to go visit them?

Another thing that I didn’t understand is why did Shūhei arrive in the Kamakura period—over a decade prior to Suzuko making it there? Does that mean that she was stuck in a dimensional interstice all that time? If that’s the case, how were Suzuko and Shūkumaru able to time travel perfect in synch the other two times? Towards the end, they knew that the power plant was going to explode… why didn’t they try to warn anyone, instead of using the explosion to go back in time? Also, when Shūkumaru and Suzuko returned—the village had been completely decimated by Akauma and it looked like many people had lost their lives; Shūkumaru bails on people that depend on his protection and then happily announces his soon-to-be marriage upon his return? What the hell?

As you can see, the story makes no sense whatsoever and there isn’t even anything to be gleaned from it. Heck, the characters aren’t even likable. Suzuko is a bland Mary Sue, Shūkumaru is a barbarian, Suzuko’s parents don’t have any personality, and Akauma is just a typical mongoloid pillager. This is the first time, in quite a while, that I’ve felt that I completely wasted my time on an anime!

I guess it’s to be expected, the only other ‘Rumic World’ story that I’ve seen is Ningyo Shirīzu, also known as ‘Mermaid Saga’ and I didn’t care for that OVA either. I haven’t watched the television series yet, but it is relatively low on my priority list—seeing as the OVA was a mess!

—Technical

There’s nothing particularly bad about the visual direction, but there’s nothing memorable either. It just looks like your typical run-of-the-mill ‘80s OVA. The director, Motosuke Takahashi, is known for directing *Warau Hyōteki, *Maris: The Chōjo, Cosmo Police Justy, Aitsu to Lullaby: Suiyobi no Cinderella, and Harbor Light Monogatari: Fashion Lala yori. Sadly, Motosuke Takahashi passed away on November 8th, 2007 due to lung cancer complications.
*Both Warau Hyōteki and Maris: The Chōjo are from Rumiko Takahashi’s ‘Rumic World’ series.

Despite my dislike of the story, this production brought in a few A-list seiyū. The first is Yū Mizushima, voice of Shūkumaru. Mr. Mizushima was cast regularly as the lead protagonist in many anime productions of the ‘70s and ‘80s, usually either voicing an action hero or the love interest—in series whose target demographic was primarily little girls, like Mahō no Tenshi Creamy Mami and Tokimeki Tonight. Mr. Mizushima is still doing voice work for anime, at age 63—as well as doing Japanese dubs of live-action shows, like voice-overs for franchises like Friends and Star Wars! Notable Japanese animation roles include:
• Ryō Asuka, Devilman
• Shukumaru, protagonist of Fire Tripper
• Isamu Kurogane, Hyaku Jūō GoLion
• Toshio Ōtomo, Mahō no Tenshi Creamy Mami
• Subaru Equuleus, Saint Seiya Omega
• Luigi, Super Mario Bros: Peach Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!
• Shun Makabe, Tokimeki Tonight
• Clow Reed, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE
• Telemachus, deuteragonist of Uchū Densetsu Ulysses 31
• Riki Muroi, Mahō no Yōsei Persia
• Marion Fiesse, protagonist of Natsu e no Tobira
• Takeru Myōjin, Rokushin Gattai God Mars
• Shō Fukamachi, protagonist of Kyōshoku Sōkō Guyver
• Tsutomu Sugioka, protagonist of Meikyū Monogatari -EN: Neo Tokyo-
• Hikaru, protagonist of Time Patrol Tai Otasukeman
• Gai Tanbara, protagonist of Time Slip Ichimannen
• Sanada Ikkyū, protagonist of Ikkyū-san (1978)
• Akemi Nakajima, protagonist of Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei
• Bander, protagonist of One-Million Year Trip: Bander Book

Suzuko’s seiyū was Sumi Shimamoto. At age 65, she is still working in the industry and even does video game voice overs, as well as Japanese dubbing for foreign films—Star Wars (Princess Leia) and Watchmen (Sally Jupiter) are among her credited roles! She’s similar to Yū Mizushima in the breadth of her voice acting repertoire. Notable Japanese animation roles include:
• Yukiko Kudō, Shin’ichi’s mother in Detective Conan
• Ginrei, Giant Robo
• Eirin Yagokoro, 東方Project
• Kohaku Tsukishiro, Hitomi’s grandmother in Irozuku Sekai no Ashita Kara
• Nausicaä, Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä
• Kanata Izumi, Konata’s mother in Lucky☆Star
• Clarisse d’Cagliostro, Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro
• Kyoko Otonashi, Maison Ikkoku
• Rei Asaka, Oniisama e…
• *Asuka Mizunokoji, Urusei Yatsura
• Ishizu Ishtar, Yū-Gi-Ō!
*Hilariously, Suzuko and Asuka Mizunokoji look exactly alike. Asuka—Urusei Yatsura, is in love with her brother and Suzuko—Fire Tripper, thinks she’s in love with her brother. Both are from separate Rumiko Takahashi stories. And, coincidentally, both have the same seiyū!

Akauma’s seiyū, Tesshō Genda, is another veteran voice actor that continues to work in the industry. His age is not listened online but, on his biography, it states that he has been working as anime voice actor since the ‘70s. He does Japanese dubbing for numerous Batman animations and God of War, and is known as the Kevin Conroy of Japan. Notable anime roles include:
• Takanori Jingūji, 3-Gatsu no Lion
• Shū, Dragon Ball GT
• Master Chief, Halo Legends
• Slegger Law, Mobile Suit Gundam
• Terry Sanders Jr., Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
• Kurama, Naruto
• D, Project A-ko
• Aldebaran Taurus, Saint Seiya
• Optimus Prime, Transformers: The☆Headmasters
• Rei, Urusei Yatsura
• Violence Jack, Violence Jack: Harlem Bomber-hen
• Fukuzō Moguro, Warau Salesman (2017)
• Younger Toguro, Yū Yū Hakusho

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend Fire Tripper to anyone! If you’re looking for an isekai where a female protagonist is transported to the Feudal era, Inuyasha is your best bet. If there weren’t talented people working on the visuals and audio, I probably would have rated Fire Tripper a 1/10 but, because of the presentation, I rate it a 2/10!