Welcome to the best RONIN DOJO HIGH SCHOOL DX Fansite on the internet!!!
If you're viewing this personal webpage, either you've read my numerous postings on the now defunct alt.tv.rdhsdx (thanks a lot r0ninD0j0Pr1me ) or you're just a Ronin Dojo High School DX fan who was searching Lycos with keywords "world's most awesome anime". Either way, this is the best place to learn about the Japanese phenomenon that is Ronin Dojo High School DX!
Origins
Ronin Dojo High School DX was an anime series which aired in Japan from 1994-1995. Though extremely unpopular during it's initial run, it is now a cult hit among Japanese and American otaku's alike. But for a series so heavily swapped within the tape trading circuit, it's origins are shrouded in mystery. Some of most dedicated fans don't even know that Ronin Dojo High School DX began as an educational cartoon!
Yusuke Ishikawa
The original concept for the series was the brainchild of Yusuke Ishikawa, eccentric CEO and President of the YumYum Corporation. Ishikawa was a self made billionaire, whose own life story could have been ripped from pages of a Japanese Horatio Alger novel. Orphaned as a baby in 1892, Ishikawa lived on the docks of Yokohama, scraping by as a boot-blacker. It was a hard life, no doubt made harder by the fact that most Japanese fisherman wore sandals. Poor Ishikawa, he could not afford even a single piece of candy to satisfy his sweet tooth, nor the urgent medical attention for his severe respiratory disease. But necessity is the mother of invention, and severe respiratory diseases are the father.
The poor fishermen of Yokohama, who were often in similar financial troubles, would pay for a foot polish with the small octopi they had accidentally caught in their dolphin nets. In a little cardboard box lab, Ishikawa found a way to create a small cough drop out of these octopi. This simple medicinal treat became the foundation for the Ishikawa's financial empire, making him rich beyond even the most optimistic orphan's dreams and making Yum Yum a household name.
Ronin Dojo High School
But Ishikawa never forget where he came from, and always wanted the Yum Yum Corporation to take on projects which had the needy youth of Japan in mind. Riding off the financial success of the Great Octopus Boom of the late 1980's, he began to expand his company into more philanthropic enterprises. Ishikawa wanted to help the youth of Japan "not only grow with concern to the body, but also in concern to the mind and spirit". So he decided to create a series of educational cartoons entitled Ronin Dojo High School.
Ronin Dojo High School starred three high school students with vegetables for heads. In each episode they were to learn about good study habits and proper manners. The pilot was created solely by Ishikawa- he wrote, voiced and animated the entire 30 minute cartoon all by himself. The results were what you would expect from a cartoon drawn by 98 year old business man completely ignorant of the animation process. The episode bordered on incoherence; the drawings were done on a stack of 5,000 business cards, the characters were devoid of any artistic value, the young students sounded like veterans of World War I, and the plot- which was supposed to be about creating a proper paragraph- devolved into the students fighting a giant Reagan pumpkin head.
The project had somehow cost 7 billion Yen, thus garnering the attention of the Yum Yum Board of Trustees. In an effort to save the company, the board hired Studio Futanari, makers of "Bathroom Party" and "Cat Girl Cops", to produce the series.
In 1991, a 12 episode run circulated through out Japanese school system.
Ronin Dojo High School DX- The Manga
The unwatchable, Ishikawa created episode of Ronin Dojo High School (officially titled "Single Indentation Burning Strike") brought to light several problems with the Yum Yum CEO. Ishikawa was 98 years old, and though his age had brought invaluable financial wisdom to the company, it was feared he was digressing into senility. He became increasingly insistent on several outlandish projects: the founding of a Space Academy for Wayward Boys and the creation of an environmentally friendly aquatic reserve- on the moon.
The Board of Trustees, faced with the financial failure of Yum Yum's recent project- "Clam-Aids: the clam band-aids you can eat", and the increasing costs of Ishikawa's philanthropic endeavors, felt they need to wrest control of Yum Yum from Ishikawa in order to save the company. In 1992, after a bitter legal battle, Ishikawa was relegated to a figure head position, and the Board took full control of Yum Yum.
With Ishikawa's humanitarian influence diminished, the Board of Trustees were free to focus completely on relaunch Yum Yum's old properties with a hip new spin. Yum Yum's trademark octopus flavored cough drops were mutated into a high fructose corn syrup candy treat. Even Ishikawa's beloved Ronin Dojo High School was rebranded as an action packed manga with human high school students, set in a fictional town in America- Ringwald County. (The exact translation should be Ringwald Prefecture, but that would make no sense in the United States. So the closest approximation would be Ringwald County. This has caused some divisiveness within the fan community- see FAQ)
Though the manga version of Ronin Dojo High School DX was much closer to the Ronin Dojo anime we all know today, the books lacked the spark of the TV series to come- as each installment was loosely based around eating or acquiring octopus candy.
Ronin Dojo High School DX- The TV Series
In 1994, running with ith the success of the Ronin Dojo High School DX mangas, YumYum struck a deal with TV Tokyo and Studio Futanari- creating the television series Ronin Dojo High School DX!
Though the series retained vestiges of it's former octopus candy commercial roots, it was more about three troubled American nerds fighting both metpahorical and physical battles against their foes. The protagonists-Mark, Barry and David- went on a different adventure every week, and whether they were trying to save a comic book store or hand mold a pewter Orc figurine- the episode usually ended up in a high energy battle.
The series was widely unpopular amongst all demographics, and panned by every Japanese critic- and even some Korean and Cambodian ones. The most common complaint was that they were too referential which was usually followed with the question- 'and what's with all the octopus stuff?". Still, the series had it's cult fans. When the news broke that the series was to be cancelled, RDHSDX fans across Japan launched a huge letter writing campaign aimed at TV Tokyo, sending envelopes filled with Kosher hot dogs- the characters on the show only ate hot dogs as was the perception of American teenagers.
But alas, the show was cancelled in 1995. The final episode aired on April 26, 1995- and as a final insult the ending was cut off accidentally by an octopus candy commercial.
The full episode has since been leaked, and bootlegs can be found at certain at video stores and comic shops.
Ronin Dojo High School DX- Series 2?
Following the cancellation of the series, the Ronin Dojo property was deemed financially unsalvageable. When Ishikawa offered to buy the rights back, the Board of Trustees were all too happy to sell.
Now the world's oldest orphan (Ishikawa never married) he had his only "children" back with him. He was at peace, and could retire to his quiet seaside retreat. Yusuke Ishikawa disappeared from the public eye until November 18th, 1997 when his quiet seaside retreat, which turned out to be a space missile silo, shot what is presumed to be his corpse into space. He would have been 104 years old.
However the series may not have died with Ishikawa. It's rumored that on his octopus shaped deathbed, Yusuke Ishikawa granted the rights to Ronin Dojo High School DX to two visiting Americans. They promised to revive the series and it's good natured intent- minus the vegetable heads. Nobody liked the vegetable heads. However it's also rumored that Ishikawa had his consciousness transferred to a modified Apple II computer before he died- so it's not quite clear what will happen.
e-mail me @ rdhsdxf01@yahoo.com if you're looking for fan subs or any other Ronin Dojo stuff
