Spirit Of Wonder...
Spirit of Wonder is a series of manga stories written and drawn by Tsuruta Kenji and later adapted into a handful of OVAs...
There's also a second volume released by Bandai. The second volume contains a two-part story, Scientific Boys Club, featuring only brief glimpses of the characters from Miss China's Ring and a couple of side stories revisiting the characters from Miss China's Ring. The animation and story-telling are all very good.
I had the dubbed VHS version of Miss China's Ring. I picked up the wrong version by mistake -- way back in the misty dawn of time, you had to choose between dubbed and subtitled when buying anime. But, true to form, AnimEigo did an exceptional job on the dub. I also have The Scientific Boys Club on DVD. Eventually, I did pick up the DVD version of Miss China's Ring. Overall, I would give Spirit Of Wonder a 4 out of 5.
According to the liner notes from the AnimEigo release of Miss China's Ring...Miss China's Ring
Sometime during the late 19th. century, a young Asian girl has made a place for herself in a seaside town as owner and operator of the Tenkai Restaurant and Boarding House. Yet "Miss China" as the locals call her, is in the dumps. She's got a Mad Scientist called Breckenridge living upstairs who is chronically late with the rent, and she's pining for Jim, a handsome watchmaker apprentice whom she mistakenly believes is pursuing the local flower girl. But this isn't our world. It is a world that has the Spirit of Wonder, where every so often, just occasionally mind you, amazing things happen. The Mad Scientist actually has come up with an incredible invention, and Jim has an unbelievable plan to use it to give Miss China the most beautiful ring in all the world.
Scientific Boys Club
As young boys, Cooper, Gordon, and Shepherd were enchanted by the theories of life on Mars published by Percival Lowell, one of the most influential people on the subject. Consequently, they formed a club called "Scientific Boys Club" and it endures for over 50 years. With the help of Gordon's daughter Windy and her husband Jack, the boys pursue their lifelong dream of traveling to Mars.
Shrinking of Miss China
Miss China operates a Chinese restaurant in Bristol, a small port town in England. Beautiful and sexy, she is also a Kung Fu master who knows how to fight. Her only headache in life at the moment is Dr. Breckenridge, a self-proclaimed genius inventor who rents a room from her. He spends all his money on strange inventions and has not paid rent for months! When she goes to his room to collect rent, she is suddenly showered by a mysterious beam. What did Dr. Breckenridge invent this time?!
Planet of Miss China
Dr. Breckenridge strikes once again with yet another "genius" invention. In order to compensate for his unpaid rent, he invites Miss China to a Martian Tour with his Space Reflective Telescope, a telescope capable of reflecting a place in the distance and creating the same space in front of you. What they see is so unimaginable that it will blow your mind!
About the title: The original title of this episode is "China-san no Yuutsu," which translates as "Miss China's Melancholy." However, that title has connotations in English that don't fit with the spirit of the story itself, so in cooperation with Studio Proteus, we chose to use a different title.Miss China's Ring has the feel of a Twilight Zone episode. Set in the past in a parallel universe, Miss China gets a very special ring. It is surprisingly well-dubbed, but, at 45 minutes, it's fairly short.
About the story: during production of the video, we tried to track down the location of Prince of Wales Island, without success. However, subsequently, we learned of a Prince of Wales Island situated off the coast of Australia. Whether or not this is THE Prince of Wales Island, we don't know. In the dubbed version of Spirit of Wonder, we deliberately used a wide variety of accents for the customers of Tenkai to "cover our bases."
And, in a special note, recently TOSHIBA-EMI re-released The Spirit of Wonder in bilingual form, using our dub and subtitles. This re-release outsold the original release, proving that the Japanese, at least, know a good dub when they hear one!
There's also a second volume released by Bandai. The second volume contains a two-part story, Scientific Boys Club, featuring only brief glimpses of the characters from Miss China's Ring and a couple of side stories revisiting the characters from Miss China's Ring. The animation and story-telling are all very good.
I had the dubbed VHS version of Miss China's Ring. I picked up the wrong version by mistake -- way back in the misty dawn of time, you had to choose between dubbed and subtitled when buying anime. But, true to form, AnimEigo did an exceptional job on the dub. I also have The Scientific Boys Club on DVD. Eventually, I did pick up the DVD version of Miss China's Ring. Overall, I would give Spirit Of Wonder a 4 out of 5.
