Magical Hat: Episode 9 Part 1
Magical Hat is a 1989-90 anime series by Studio Perriot, based on a manga by Yoji Hakukura. The anime isn’t all exactly fairly-known in the west compared to the other anime I’ve covered so far, not helped by it never being released outside of Japan. Oddly, it has a weird legacy in the west as its Sega Mega Drive game adaptation got retooled into Decap Attack, replacing everything but the gameplay, and became a small strip in the UK Fleetway Sonic the Comic.
The expansion featured in episode 9 and 10 was made aware of on Animexpansion, featured on the Chinese video player site Youku (now no longer on there) and then was given a page on the Fudge Yeah Cartoon wiki (now Big Cartoon wiki), and a video made of it on Animansha, the Tumblr blog archiving body change stuff in manga and anime. You’ll notice there are Korean subtitles on the screencaps; they’re embedded into a different set of videos of the episodes that are on Youtube and Korean video player Pandora. It’s thanks to them that I’ve been able to figure out the specific context of these episodes.
The story is about a boy named Hat, who finds out he’s the descendant of the legendary hero known as Magical Hat who defeated Ziark the King of Devildom, the entrance of which was sealed on Uson Island. Falling into Devildom (which is below the planet’s surface), Hat adopts the title as the second Magical Hat and the powers that come with it, such as the eponymous magical hat. He gains allies in the form of selfish teen girl Spin, the cowardly dog boy Hotken, old man Tau and egg-shaped transformative robot Robog. There’s also the large gorilla demon beast G. Conger who Hat can summon. Together, they aim to stop Ziark’s plans to take over the Earth once again. Ziark himself has his fox-like son Kowar and his golem Dogoo as supporting antagonists.
In episode 9, ‘Sumo Morimori Island’ the heroes come across an island with a town that surprisingly has everyone incredibly fat and round, so round that they can actually bounce along, first demonstrated with a man bouncing and cramming himself into his car perfectly well despite his size. Even the animal are fat, as seen with a plump cat chasing a round mouse! Two women walk pass the characters and joyfully talk about how one’s gained 100kg (that’s 220.462 pounds), which the other envious. So everyone seems to really accept their rotund bodies, even with at least some encouraging it.
The heroes are really confused by this before noticing that all the streets are full of restaurants and other food places. That’s when the recurring Chinese character Khun Chang turns up with his ramen stall, similarly plump now, and reveals that the food here is absolutely free courtesy of a mysterious generous Mr Otu, while the two women from just before are served by him and stuff their fattened faces with his ramen. With food free for the taking, the people are free to gorge themselves rotten without worry of denting their wallets and purses.
