New series of TV-animation type "Battle Athletess DAIUNDOUKAI" has started since 12/12/97 in Japan. (First series started on 10/03/97.) This anime is rather popular in Japan.
DAIUNDOUKAI is a Japanese word which means a large athletic competition.
The origin of the anime is a simulation video game for Sega Saturn "DAIUNDOUKAI" made by iPC in December 1996. Ms 16-year-old Akari Kanzaki is a daughter of Late Tomoe Midou that was the champion of DAIUNDOUKAI, "the cosmo-beauty." Akari also aims at gaining the championship. A player must play the role of her coach in the game. She has many rivals. Most of them are of strong build. It seems difficult that she wins the championship.
Thereafter Original Video Animation-type DAIUNDOUKAI was released, Yuki Nakano started cartoon-type DAIUNDOUKAI at Monthly Dengeki Comic Gao of Media Works and TV-Tokyo started TV-animation type DAIUNDOUKAI in October 1997 (18:30-19:00 every Friday). The director of the anime is Mr. Katsuhito Akiyama. The animation was produced by AIC. You know both of AIC and iPC have their own homepages. You will find out further information on the anime.

Anime Story:

This year is 4999 A.D. Ms Akari Kanzaki was born in Hokkaido on 03/23/4983. Her mother whose name was Ms Tomoe Midou was already dead. Tomoe is still well known and was a cosmo-beauty of USSA (The United System Sports Academy). Long time ago a legendary brave fought against an alien and defeated it. Thereby a space war finished. Thereafter sports was laid stress on and the USSA was established on the University Satellite. The USSA holds a large sports competition called DAIUNDOUKAI per year. The champion among female students of USSA in the DAIUNDOUKAI is called cosmo-beauty. Tomoe Midou was the 977th cosmo-beauty and the strongest woman.
Tomoe's daughter Akari aimed at the cosmo-beauty in the Earth-Southpole school. However she had many rivals. She did not give up her aim. She won the championship of preliminary competition at last. (Here the first series ended.)
In the second series, she goes to the University Satellite. She has two room mates of Room 007. They are Kris Christopher (CV = Tomoko Kawakami) and Anna Respighi (CV = Akiko Yajima). In order to go into the final of DAIUNDOUKAI, their team must win a preliminary competition. But ...
The dean of USSA, Grant Oldman (CV = Kouji Nakata)always pays attention to Akari. He selected Mr. Miracle (CV = Unshou Ishizuka) for their teacher. Mr. Miracle is strange and has the physician in charge of him, Eric Roberts (CV = Kazuhiko Inoue). Mr. Miracle gains his plenitude index (Manpuku Shisu) by ingesting chocolate. He is a legendary coach, so the three ask for instruction.

Tomoe Midou

Akari Kanzaki (CV=Rio Natsuki)
She is the heroine of the story.
Her height is 158 cm, and her bust-waist-hip sizes are 76 cm, 59 cm and 80 cm.
She graduated from Earth-Southpole preparatory training school. Her graduation ranking was No. 1.
Her close friend is Ms Ichino Yanagida, an Osaka-people (CV= Aya Hisakawa). She is a rehabilitant at present and was an athletess.
Ichino Yanagida

Other characters:

Grant Oldman
He looks like Mr. Genjurou Kibagami from SNK Samurai Shodown.

Kris Christopher
She loves Akari. She lived on the moon. She is one of "Beginners." They put more emphasis on nature than civilization. She brings a cow called "Gyubei" into the University Satellite as a milch cow.
By the way, Tomoko Kawakami played the role of Utena Tenjou. But Kris voice is much more boyish than Utena's boyish voice.

Anna Respighi
She has some unthinkable secrets. (In OVA-type DAIUNDOUKAI and cartoon-type DAIUNDOUKAI, her serious secret was revealed. Anna might be training at the Male University Satellite.)

Tanya Natdhipytadd
She was a friend of Akari from Africa in the Earth-Southpole training school (CV = Aya Sakaguchi). She looks like red-colored Cham Cham from SNK Samurai Shodown.

Jessie Gartrand
She was a rival of Akari from USA in the Earth-Southpole training school (CV = Miki Itou). And she is still Akari's rival and Tanya's room mate.

In the 12th story "3 Biki Ga Iku! (3 fellows go forward!)" on 12/19/97, Akari wrote to Ichino. She said, "The satellite is big, great, and very heated."

Last, many teachers and PTAs have begun to caution children against overwatching anime since the POKEMON affair. Moreover Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture and Central Council for Education evaluate the effect of video games and anime on human relations among children.
However DAIUNDOUKAI deals with warm friendship and will power. It is a tear-jerking program. Dean Oldman and his colleagues give aid to Akari. Perhaps they were formerly given something by her mother Tomoe. (Maybe something in Japan means the heart and action of Mr. Shigeo Nagashima, a former baseball star player of Yomiuri Giants.)

* Copyright on these images belongs to iPC and AIC.

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Comments: Battle Athletess DAIUNDOUKAI was a tearjerking program. Thereafter the anime was completed in March 1998. The true character of Daizaemon Kanzaki (Mr. Miracle) was her coach and true father. Though he was dying, he still lives with his daughter Akari. Of course, she is a cosmo beauty. What? She and her rivals had to fight against invaders. The invaders brought her mother Tomoe Midou to life. She had to fight against Tomoe Midou. Of course she won her mother. Invaders were defeated. Thereafter Tomoe also lives with Akari. What? Akari is fickle and merry. Akari is rather extraordinery and peculiar. However Tomoe is more peculiar than Akari. Moreover Kris and Ichino went to Akari's house in Hokkaido to live with Akari. Their friendship was much emphasized.
Now TV-Osaka began to broadcast DAIUNDOUKAI as a revival Autumn 1998. Ichino's steady and firm friendship was shown. I saw the programs formerly, of course. I cried and was impressed again.

These programs were produced by Increment P and AIC. Especially "Increment P" is a subsidiary of Pioneer Corp. These programs are sold by Pioneer LDC. Of course, the company is a subsidiary of Pioneer Corp. Increment P got popular when DAIUNDOUKAI was released. As you know, Increment P is one software house in Japan. It is not always a videogame software vender. Increment P mainly deals with softwares for automobile satellite navigation system of Pioneer Corp. Nikkei Newspaper 11/17/98 issue reported that Increment P will release automatic transformation system for portable telephone setting on 12/11/98. As you know, NTT decided to change all portable telephone numbers in Japan January 1999. DAIUNDOUKAI gathered excellent software engineers to the company.