The Ballad of Tobio (Anime)

The Ballad of Tobio (Japanese: トビオのバラード, Hepburn: Tobio no barādo, lit. Tobio's Ballad") is a Japanese boxing anime based on the manga of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. like the original source, it follows a young street boy named Tobio Katsumoto and his boxing career under the wing of American war vet Robert Shmuel.

Originally airing from 1979 to 1982 for two seasons, it was popular enough for Carl Andy (whom prior directed a 1975 live action adaptation) to produce an English dub of the series with Paramount Television, airing on HBO in late 1984, however only the first season was dubbed, following Paul Frees' death, Andy decided not to go with dubbing the second season, this changed when Paramount released the entire series on DVD with a new dub of Season 2 supervised by frequent Andy collaborator Garrett Fredrickson (who was a translator and writer for the original dub).

The Ballad of Tobio has gone on to be called one of the best anime of all time, it's English dub also having a similar reputation for it's faithfulness to the original Japanese version in comparison to most Anime dubs at the time, this would not only set the bar for more future dubs but also animation aimed at older audiences like The Simpsons and more.

Japanese Voice Cast

 * Keiko Toda as Tobio Katsumoto
 * Casey Takamine as Robert Shmuel, Maku Kata
 * Mari Okamoto as Hannah Cacaronie
 * Noriko Ohara as Jiro Takeshi, Jazz Kid
 * Katsuji Mori as Mr. Oroka, Salvador Havana
 * Hisashi Katsuta as Johnny Cacaronie
 * Taeko Nakanishi as Katie Cacaronie
 * Yuriko Yamamoto as Kyo "Chibi" Cacaronie
 * Yū Mizushima as Jean Belmondo
 * Mari Shimizu as Jo Kashuka
 * Michiru Hojo as Luca Ferrari
 * Toshio Furukawa as Calamity Jones

English Voice Cast
Note: Due to the large time gap between the dubbing of seasons one and two (1984 and circa 2007, respectively), several of the voice actors were changed between the seasons, though several of the actors did reprise their roles from the first season of the series, namely the voice actors for Hannah and her family.

All Seasons

 * Christie Moreau as Hannah Cacaronie
 * Gregg Berger as Johnny Cacaronie
 * Barbara Goodson as Katie Cacaronie, Jo Kashuka (Season 1 only)
 * B.J. Ward as Kyo "Tiny" Cacaronie

Season 1 only

 * Brett Johnson as Toby Katsumoto
 * Paul Frees as Robert Shmuel
 * Knowl Johnson as Jeremy Bottoms
 * Carl Andy as Mr. Orson, Mack the Knife, Jean Belmondo
 * Shawn Wayans as Jazz Kid

Season 2 only

 * Spencer Robert Scott as Toby Katsumoto
 * Keith Scott as Robert Shmuel
 * Benjamin Bryan as Jeremy Bottoms
 * Carl Andy Jr. as Mr. Orson
 * Lara Jay Miller as Luca Ferrari
 * Jess Harnell as Calamity Jones
 * Carlos Alazraqui as Salvador Hanna

English Dub
the first season was dubbed into English by director Carl Andy's Dreidel Productions and retitled The Life of Toby with Distribution from Paramount Television (whom previously produced a failed Sitcom with Andy), however finding a network to air it proved a challenge, ABC, CBS and NBC all turned it down for their Saturday Morning Lineup, in part due to it's violence and the concept of a boy becoming a prize fighter at a young age, the then newly established Nickelodeon also turned it down, Syndicating the show was also not an option, eventually Home Box Office (HBO) accepted the series and gave Andy creative control over the dub, unlike most English dubs of the time, this one was uncut by retaining the violence and swearing, it aired from 1985 to 1986, later on, Paramount Home Video released volume tapes of all the episodes edited together to 2 feature length movies, "New Kid on the Block" and "Road to Glory", Paramount also released these versions to theaters Internationally, they were also released on DVD in 2001.

Other Dubs
in West Germany, ZDF aired a German dub in 1987 called "Toby der Kinderboxer", the dub was infamous as it changed a lot of aspect, such as the setting being changed to the future, more Electronic sounding music and stock footage from the 1980 Astro Boy series to reinforce it's future setting, another aspect was many shots involving blood we're painstakingly recolored to black as well as adding metal sounds whenever someone is hit, implying Tobio and the other fighters are all robots, supposedly this was done to avoid controversy about it's violence involving teenagers. this dub was later cancelled after 7 episodes, the series was later aired in Germany in the late 2000s on Animax Germany, restoring it's 1960s setting and violence.

Home Media
In January 2008, Paramount Home Entertainment released the entire original series uncut on DVD restored and approved by Carl Andy. The DVD set contains the Japanese versions of both seasons, the audio track for the English dub of Season 1 and a newly made dub of Season 2 produced by NYAV Post. Garrett Fredrickson, the translator and writer for the English dub of the first season, returned to supervise the dub of the second season for this release, while Christie Moreau reprised her role as Hannah.