Fox Force Five: Chasing Minmei

A Good Enough production, 1996.

Liner Notes by Josh

Yes, this show was the most popular topic of discussion on rec.arts.anime at the time. Sailor Moon, that is, not F3.

Fox Force Five: They stand for love! And Merchandising! The mega-successful Fox Force Five commands three of the most popular, ratings-grabbing television elements of the 90s: cheaply produced sentai shows, post-ironic dialogue-based humor, and lesbians, lesbians, lesbians. It's a throwback to the Seishun of the early 90s, when Ranma was just coming out of the closet and a battle royal involving aliens, nazis, and that scourge of fandom, filkers. Are there any filkers left now? If produced today, the villains would certainly be furries.

Minmei, Blunt, and Chronic.

The last production of the 1990s, and almost our last production, period. It was the start of a new summer, and having spent the previous five early summers working on these, we decided to go ahead with our tenth production. From the beginning it was meant to be something quick and/or dirty, a production that would truly earn the Good Enough name. The story elements are a perfect snapshot of all our preoccupations at the time, chiefly alt-rock, Kevin Smith movies, and furious contempt for the darling show of its day, Sailor Moon. For years most of us regarded Ranma as a mild embarrassment. Now that's the level we were shooting for. Ranma, not mild embarassment.

The production itself was somewhat fragmented. You'd think having a combat-heavy 23 minutes would write itself with throwaway lines, but this turned out to be far from the case. I seem to remember spending the better part of two weekends trying to get it cooked into a rough form that we cold start dubbing from, having false-started on the dubbing at least once.

None of us had ample time to work on the project -- we were all going our separate ways (just like in Robotech episode #75!) with jobs, girls, bands, etc, and once the script was done I had little involvement with most of the dubbing. No matter how I try I can't recall being at more than one session though I know it took at least three. The cast was notable in its time for featuring five actresses, none of whom needed to double up on their parts (a high-water mark we may never achieve again). With no one else wanting to do it (and with no other roles to my name), I took the bit part of Captain Kotex, and further talked myself into a corner by not writing his lengthy episode-closing monologue until the mic was on. It shows.

What a show, that Sailor Moon...

Ten years on, F3 figures highly in my top-3-least-favorite productions list, its slot depending on my mood. Time has not been kind to it, though like Ranma it seems to have a number of fans.