You Are Umasou

[Danosaur]

Considering it’s both animation-related and dinosaur-related, I’m surprised there isn’t a topic here already about one of my favourite films of all time. If you want to use the original title, its “Omae Umasou da na!”, which translates to ëYou Are Delicious!’ although most people refer to it as You Are Umasou.

If you haven’t heard of it, which you probably haven’t, it is an anime film about a Tyrannosaurus Rex who is raised by a Maiasaura. Angry about how he was born into a herbivore family, he runs away and grows up by himself as a meat-eater, where he finds an egg which hatches into a baby Ankylosaurus, who believes that the T-Rex is his father. Taking the name Umasou (delicious), due to a misunderstanding when the T-Rex says how good he will taste, the T-Rex reluctantly adopts him and ends up forming a strong parental bond.

Although the storyline is quite strange (and will have palaeontologists shouting in anger) the actual film is beautiful, with a very simplistic cartoon style which makes every single character, even the more murderous T-Rex villains, insanely cute. As well as being a heartwarming story about family, there is a lot of action, including a brilliant scene in which the main T-Rex beats up several other dinosaurs using martial arts set to a Japanese nursery rhyme:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhcJEdkQrug

Although it looks like a silly little cartoon, it is really well written, well paced (although the intro is a little rushed) and all the characters are lovable from the minute they appear on screen.



Unfortunately, the English dub of the film was cancelled pretty early on, despite the fact they even released a trailer for it. Shame as the film is perfect for all ages and since there are so many cheap direct-to-DVD family films being released now, it must be profitable for a dubbing company to pick it up elsewhere, especially with the fact it is anime attracting the whole anime fanbase as well as the colourful kids appeal. The only version available is the Japanese version with subtitles, but I would really strongly recommend this film to anyone.

I assume that no-one has, but is there anybody out there other than me that has seen this?

[bushwacked]

This does look good. The scene you linked was pretty interesting, the animation seemed a lot smoother than most animes tend to be. I'm not too disappointed that it won't be in English, I find the voices for most anime dubs tend to grate after a while. The original Japanese usually seems better to me.

Definitely a film I'll be looking out for  

[Danosaur]

This does look good. The scene you linked was pretty interesting, the animation seemed a lot smoother than most animes tend to be. I'm not too disappointed that it won't be in English, I find the voices for most anime dubs tend to grate after a while. The original Japanese usually seems better to me.

Definitely a film I'll be looking out for  

Yeah, I mentioned the English dub that got cancelled, which I was originally disappointed about, but the brief clip that did get released featured some of the most atrocious voice acting I'd ever heard. It was literally like they had randomly picked people up off the street and told them to speak in the same manner they would to a 6 month-old baby, when the film itself is aimed more at a family audience of 6-7 and up. I hope a company like Funimation or Viz Media pick it up in the future. (Particularly with the Pixar dinosaur film next year, would be a good opportunity for a cash-in release.)

The original Japanese version contains a lot of famous anime VAs, the main T-Rex (Heart) is voiced by the man who also voiced L from Death Note and Usopp from One Piece.

[bushwacked]

No kidding? L is one of my favorite characters ever, yet another reason to check it out.

I guess Funimation does seem to release some of the better dubs, so actually I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if they manage to pick it up. Especially since that would hopefully bring more attention to one of the more obscure films like this.