Another anime series I would recommend catching while it is available for free viewing is this one. But you MUST watch it in English dub. Allow me to 'splain:
It only lasted one season in Japan because it suffered from a terminal case of bad ratings. Maybe it was a poor time slot. Maybe the audience at the time wasn't in the mood for teenagers facing the seriously paranormal every week. Who really knows? The point is, it was a disaster. So when it came time for the producers to try to sell it overseas, they didn't care what the dubbers did with it as long as they were paid well for the privilege. ADV was the powerhouse anime dubber/distributor in North America in those days. Given the green light to throw out the straight-translated script of every episode and just go for laughs, they mercilessly gave it the sort of dialogue that just would not fly in today's Thou Shalt Not Offend Anyone climate. It's the sort of thing that Woody Allen did with?What's Up, Tiger Lily?, a serious foreign-made spy movie to begin with, but turned into a laugh-a-minute comedy in English. In the first episode, the kids encounter a nasty demon haunting the old abandoned school building who means to do them some harm, until the female lead reads something written in a journal left by her late mother, which causes the demon to become trapped within the body of her pet cat. So the demon hates them all for putting him into this undignified position, but he also knows that the only way to be set free is if the girl breaks the spell. Despite himself, he is forced to co-operate with them in sharing what he knows about the spirit realm as they continue to have adventure after adventure where they must deal with mysteries that have a supernatural twist. The demon cat is voiced by standup comedian Rob Mungle who has a long career of doing many unforgettable anime characters. Here, he has an almost Vincent Price-like glee in giving the cat a malevolent sense of humor. It is no wonder that he is one of my favorite dub actors.
The series is available for free ad-supported viewing on retrocrush.tv. You can visit their site, or watch via any popular platform (like Roku), or even download their app. They have a wide variety of old-school anime (and a growing number of newer exclusives) that are worth watching. Walt
