Published: 18 October, 2009, 17:34
Edited: 26 March, 2010, 18:44
Japan has found a way to show its love for Soviet cartoon character Cheburashka, and has brought him into the modern era with a new animated series “Cheburashka Arere?” based on the original.
Five years ago at the Tokyo International Anime fair, Russia’s SoyuzMultFilm signed a contract with Japan’s SP International for the rights to distribute Russian cartoons abroad. They bought the rights for Cheburashka until 2023. The Japanese company plans to make from 46 to 52 episodes starring the Soviet cartoon character
With the permission of Eduard Uspensky, the creator of Cheburashka and his best friend Crocodile Gena, Japanese director Kudo Susumu has stretched four Soviet puppet cartoons to 26 episodes, each three minutes long.
On October 7, TV channel Tokyo aired the pilot version of the first episode titled “The First Friend”. The episode is about how Cheburashka and Gena meet. The show was an immediate hit among Russian web surfers.
The plot of the new series will be based on numerous books by Eduard Uspensky, including those released in the past few years. Among them are: “Crocodile Gena’s Business”; “Cheburashka Abducted”; “Crocodile Gena’s Holiday”; “Crocodile Gena – The Police Lieutenant”; and even “Crocodile Gena Joins The Army”.
According to the story by Uspensky, Cheburashka is a funny little creature unknown to science, and lived in a tropical forest. One day, however, he accidentally ends up in a crate of oranges, falls asleep, and wakes up in front of a puzzled shop owner. The salesman calls him Cheburashka as, after his long sleep, the animal was tumbling down all the time (in the book the salesman’s word for tumbling is “cheburakhnutsa”).