Sherlock Hound. Case File I - VI.
TV series (26 episodes), 1981, 1984-85. Directors: Hayao Miyazaki, Kyosuke Mikuriya. V.l & V.2, 5 episodes/125 minutes, V.3 — V.6, 4 episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Pioneer Entertainment.

© RAI/TMS. All rights reserved. Under license to Pioneer Entertainment (USA), Inc. Produced by TMS Entertainment, Ltd.

Sherlock Hound is famous among anime fans as the last TV animation that popular director Hayao Miyazaki worked on before devoting himself entirely to theatrical production. This children's TV cartoon series, loosely based on the Sherlock Holmes stories with all the characters as anthropomorphized dogs, was commissioned by RAI-TV in Italy from the Tokyo Movie Shinsha studio. Miyazaki designed the characters and series outline and began directing in April 1981, but the project was interrupted after six episodes by a dispute with the Conan Doyle estate. By the time it was resolved in 1984, Miyazaki had left TMS and the remaining 20 episodes were directed by Kyosuke Mikuriya. Meitantei Holmes (Great Detective Holmes) was shown in Japan from November 6, 1984 through May 20, 1985. An English dub got a Celebrity Home Entertainment "Just for Kids" video release about a decade ago. Now Pioneer is releasing a bilingual DVD version with informative production notes.

Although Sherlock Hound is primarily a funny animal TV cartoon for children, it is genuinely for "all ages." Holmes and Watson are both intelligent and likeable, and Watson is less a comedic foil than in some of the live-action movie and TV versions. Holmes is gentler and more polite than Conan Doyle's often arrogant egotist; more like an adult version of Miyazaki's wholesome boy heroes such as Pazu in Laputa: The Castle in the Sky. The villains in almost every episode are arrogant Professor Moriarty and his two bumbling henchmen Todd and Smiley. It is difficult to watch them without thinking of Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and his assistant Otis (Ned Beatty) in the 1978 Superman movie.

Miyazaki only directed four episodes and parts of two others, but the whole series shows his "personal touch." Many of the episodes embody elements that Miyazaki fans will recognize from his earlier or later movies. Prof. Moriarty invents an airplane that looks like a mechanical pterodactyl; Miyazaki's films are well-known for their impressive flying machines. Miyazaki favors quietly strong female characters; in two episodes Mrs. Hudson, their landlady at Baker Street, upstages Holmes and Watson. And Miyazaki has acknowledged that, while working on the series, he became such a close friend of RAI representative Marco Pagot (who created the concept of a funny animal "Holmes" TV cartoon) that he used Pagot's name, slightly modified as Pagotti, for the hero of his 1992 animated feature Porco Rosso. Anime fans will get a little bit more out of Sherlock Hound, but it is fun for the whole family.