Sherlock Hound: Case File IV (ep.15-18) [DVD]

Features

• Type: DVD
• Studio: Geneon (Pioneer)
• Language(s): english, japanese
• Subtitle(s): english
• Director(s): Hayao Miyazaki, Nobuo Tomizawa, Seiji Okuda, Takashi Tanazawa
• Actor(s): Taichirô Hirokawa, Yôko Asagami, Patricia Parris, Chikao Ohtsuka, Shôzô Îzuka, Hiroshi Masuoka, Mitsuo Senda, Lewis Arquette, Hamilton Camp, Larry Moss

Although Hayao Miyazaki directed and/or wrote the first episodes of Meitantei Holmes ("Famous Detective Holmes"), these adventures were made years later, as part of a Japanese-Italian coproduction that had a different crew. Holmes's steam-powered automobile and the primitive airplanes in the early episodes bear Miyazaki's stamp, but when the later artists tried to follow his lead, they got carried away with silly gadgets. Professor Moriarty flies a pteranodon-shaped airplane in episodes 15 and 18; he builds an elaborate underwater railway and a monster submarine in 17. Even the clever story in 16, in which Holmes uses optics to reveal the secret writing within a crystal sword case, is marred by the intrusion of a cartoony burrowing machine. The terminally inept Inspector LeStrade and Moriarty's put-upon assistants provide slapstick humor that may appeal to smaller children. Suggested 7 & Up: Minor cartoon violence, tobacco use. --Charles Solomon