Sweat Punch

Sweat Punch
スウェットパンチ (Sweat Punch)
Genre	Short subject (Musical, Sci-fi, Gothic, Mecha)
Original video animation
Directed by	Hidekazu Ohara Osamu Kobayashi Kazuto Nakazawa Yasushi Muraki Nobutaka Ito
Produced by	Eiko Tanaka
Studio	Studio 4°C
Released	2001 – January 25, 2007
Runtime	52 minutes
Episodes	5
Anime and Manga Portal

Sweat Punch (スウェットパンチ, Suuettopanchi^?) is a series of five Studio 4°C shorts collected in January 2007 as a direct-to-DVD package film titled Deep Imagination. The first four shorts had previously featured on the 4-volume "DVD magazine" series, Grasshoppa! (グラスホッパー！, Gurasuhoppa!^?), with one Sweat Punch episode per Grasshoppa! DVD. Upon collection and release in 2007's Deep Imagination, a fifth short was added to the Sweat Punch series. Each short is directed by a different director, and the shorts deal with a variety of subjects.

Professor Dan Petory's Blues

A 10-minute short directed by Hidekazu Ohara,^[1] "Professor Dan Petory's Blues" (「タンペトリー教授の憂鬱」, "Tanpetori Kyouju no Yuuutsu"^?) is a musical number^[2] starring a hand puppet named Junior. The puppet is controlled by the drunken Professor Dan Petory who explains in puppetry the answers to such questions as why the Earth is blue and why UFOs fly in a zig-zag pattern.^[3]

End of the World

A 10-minute short directed by Osamu Kobayashi^[1], "End of the World" is a science fiction story about a young alien girl named Yuko as she escapes from the world of humans. After returning to her own world with Kazumi, a human girl she met at a rock concert on Earth, Yuko wages a retaliatory campaign against hordes of S&M monsters^[2], and the evil queen of Yuko's world. The music featured is by the all-girl punk rock group, Lolita No.18.^[3] The short features the voice-talent of Hikaru Midorikawa.

Comedy

Main article: Comedy (anime)

An 11-minute short directed by Kazuto Nakazawa^[1], the gothic "Comedy" (「喜劇」, "Kigeki"^?) is based on Shubert's "Lucifer,"^[3] and details the adventures of a pale young girl (Ai Maeda) and her interactions with the mysterious "Black Knight" (Hikaru Midorikawa) who has the power to utterly decimate entire armies.^[2]

During the Irish War of Independence, a five-year-old girl went out in search of the mysterious Demon’s Castle. She hoped to recruit the services of the infamous Black Swordsman, who was portrayed as a dark, albeit skilled, swordsman. She wanted the swordsman to protect her village from an imminent attack by English soldiers; however, the Black Swordsman would only accept a particular genre of books as payment for his services. Upon receiving the book, the swordsman engulfed himself in reading the novel. While the girl anxiously waited for the Black Swordsman to finish the novel, the English approached the Irish village. As an attack was imminent, the Black Swordsman finished the novel and rushed to intercept the skirmish, where he quickly finished off the English soldiers. The bodies disappeared; the girl knew where to, but the swordsman told her not to not tell anybody about it, or he would kill her.

The short features the two Schubert pieces, "Ellens dritter Gesang" and "Erlkönig".

Beyond

An 8-minute short directed by Yasushi Muraki^[1], "Beyond" (「彼岸」, "Higan"^?) is a mecha piece set in a battlefield.^[3] The story revolves around three soldiers in mech powersuits who are engaged in a fight to the death against two mobile tanks.^[2]

Junk Town

A 13-minute short, "Junk Town" (「ガラクタの町」, "Garakuta no Machi"^?) represents the directorial debut of Nobutaka Ito. This is a science fiction story about a young boy who discovers and befriends a small robot at a shopping arcade. The robot is hungry and he grows in size as he devours a number of machines of increasing size.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} http://www.studio4c.co.jp/english
2. ^ ^{a b c d} http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/2005/03/special/05.php
3. ^ ^{a b c d} http://www.studio4c.co.jp/works/grasshoppa/

External links

• Grasshoppa! homepage
• Grasshoppa! page at Studio 4°C
• Studio 4°C homepage (in English)