The Story of Quincy

The Story of Quincy (often billed as Ryotaro Sekizawa's The Story of Quincy) is a 2005 animated crime drama detective television series created by Garrett Fredrickson and based off the manga Quincy by Ryotaro Sekizawa. The series follows the life of Detective Quincy McShane (voiced by Mark Hamill), a crime fighting detective often having to deal with crime mob leader Forrester Roland (voiced by Tim Curry).

The series premiered on TNT on May 14, 2005 and concluded on March 20, 2012. Reruns of the series have since aired on [adult swim]'s Toonami block and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. It received very positive reviews from critics and fans of the original manga, with much praise going to the animation, voice acting, tone, soundtrack, and direction. It had since won numerous accolades including several Emmy Awards, five Annie Awards, and a Writer's Guild of America award.

Overview
Set in the fictional country of Durania, the series focuses on Quincy McShane, a detective who works for the police department under Chief Aarons. Outside of the show's detective crime fighting plot, it also focuses on Quincy's personal life, such as his relations with other characters, media, his role in the police department and also his well being.

Quincy also deals with several recurring antagonists. Most often being the crime mob boss Forrester Roland. A few others are the money hungry Pierceston Claytor, the jewel thief Daran, a gang of smugglers, among various others. There are also some minor unnamed antagonists Quincy faces from time to time.

Although the series creates much of it's own original stories, it does also adapt several arcs of the manga into the show as the main plot of the season. Season 3 for instance adapts a plot arc centering on Quincy's developing relationship with Durania's Princess Sophie. Unlike many American produced animated television shows based on a work of fiction, the series faithfully emulated the darker and more somber parts of the manga, as a result, some reviewers warned that the series may be inappropriate for young children.

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Characters

 * Quincy McShane (voiced by Mark Hamill) - The main protagonist of the series. Unlike most detective characters, Quincy is both very straightforward and serious but can also be fairly streetwise and laid-back. He can also show emotional vulnerability and has a sometimes violent and aggressive side to his personality; he's also shown to gamble and play cards often with a couple of con men he's friends with. The creator of the original manga, Ryoto Sekizawa, said that he thought the show's take on Quincy was "one of the most faithful aspects of the show."
 * Forrester Roland (or as he likes to be called, Sir Roland; voiced by Tim Curry) - The main antagonist of the series. He is a mobster leader and is fully aware of his criminal status. Despite this, he keeps his plans secret from anyone outside his pack and is good at both manipulating his foes and escaping from prison, which has led to why Quincy doesn't like him.
 * Princess Sophie Williams (voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar) - The princess of Durania who is introduced in Season 3. Despite Quincy's position in the police department, the two never met until Quincy had a chance encounter with her. After getting to know each other, the two became good friends, and as their bond became stronger, Quincy started developing a crush on her. Despite her regal status, Sophie is very kindhearted to those around her and shows empathy towards Quincy due to his dispistion about his detective job. By the end of Season 3, Quincy confesses his love for her, with Sophie herself admitting to having feelings for him as well, and the two become a couple, however, they keep their romantic relationship secret while instead presenting it as platonic to others.
 * Captain Randall (voiced by Joseph Gordon Levitt) - The police captain who sometimes assists Quincy in his missions. He's fairly well mannered, sophisticated, and quite intellegent, even sometimes seeing through Forrester Roland's manipulations. He was also the first to know that Qunicy had a crush on Sophie, which he found "really cute".
 * Zach T. Darwin (voiced by John Cleese) - Quincy's british-accented lawyer. He's quick to defend Quincy in whatever case he can by using all sorts of facts and evidence. In the original manga, he was less over the top and manic than how he was presented in the TV series. John Cleese has since stated he really enjoyed voicing the character, finding it a role he was made for playing.
 * Annette Howard (voiced by Kath Soucie) - A reporter for the Durania News. She is shown to have a crush on Quincy, even showing some jealousy towards his relationship with Sophie.
 * Chief Aarons (voiced by Jeff Bennett) - He's a well mannered police chief who has good faith in his staff, particularly Quincy.
 * Pierceston Claytor (voiced by Timothy Spall) - A money hungry criminal who used to own a hardware store, but after it went under, he had to resort to a life of crime, becoming quite a common sight at bank robberies and heists.
 * Daran (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - A jewel thief
 * The Smugglers (voiced by Richard Kind, Jim Cummings, Neil Ross, and S. Scott Bullock) - A gang of smugglers who often cause all sorts of havoc.
 * Baron von Frederick (voiced by Martin Short) - The fairly eccentric and sometimes cowardly baron of Durania
 * Roy M. Xander (voiced by Aaron Paul) - An officer for the Police Station.

Development
In 1995, it was reported that Garrett Fredrickson planned to make a film adaptation of Ryotara Sekizawa's manga Quincy, with Barry Sonnenfeld reportedly in talks as a producer. It was being developed at Universal Pictures for a projected release date for 1999, however, the film was scrapped as Fredrickson didn't know how to properly consolidate the manga's story into a film. In 2000, however, while working on This Is Ourselves, Fredrickson was given an offer by Shin-Ei Animation to produce either a television series or film for them. He accepted and began thinking of ideas, eventually restumbling upon the Quincy manga. In 2001, Garrett Fredrickson announced he would be restarting production on the adaptation, but he would instead be doing it as a television series rather than a movie, and that the series would be a collaborative effort between his own company, Nightstorm Productions (which later became LIVE Entertainment during production) and Shin-Ei Animation. Fredrickson took the idea to David Merkin and Barry Josephson, both of whom saw potential in the series and began looking for companies to pitch the series to.

In 2002, Fredrickson, Merkin, and Josephson pitched the series to various television networks, eventually finding favor at TimeWarner's TNT network. In 2004, TV Tokyo and TNT both began funding the television series, and that same year, Fredrickson was visited by Kerry Rosenthal, Sam Franklin, and Jeff Otis of RFO Media Group about distribution, with the company acquiring the distribution rights to the series. With that, they sold the syndication rights to Tribune Entertainment (which later transferred to Trifecta Entertainment & Media after Tribune shut down), and the home video rights to Lionsgate Films.

Casting
Fredrickson was still in the process of developing the series when he decided to find voice actors. He was assisted by Ruth Lambert (who helped him with casting in A Penguin's Memories as well as a few other Fredrickson directed films) and Kris Zimmerman. The Story of Quincy became notable for it's inclusion of movie and some celebrity actors as some of the principal voices such as Tim Curry, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Timothy Spall, John Cleese, and Martin Short to name a few. Tim Curry was cast as Forrester Roland based on his performance as Maestro Forte from Disney's Beauty & the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, which even though Fredrickson thought the movie was nowhere near as good as the original film, he really liked Curry's performance as the character, while John Cleese and Martin Short were, interestingly enough, found through casting calls, much to the surprise of many media organizations. Of course, the show did contain some regular voice actors as well including Kath Soucie, Jeff Bennett, Maurice LaMarche, Neil Ross, Frank Welker, and Tom Kenny to name a few. Initially Alyssa Milano was going to voice Princess Sophie, but she had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the television series My Name is Earl and the movies The Blue Hour and Pathology. Ruth Lambert and Garrett Fredrickson decided to cast Sarah Michelle Gellar (who had previously voiced in Garrett Fredrickson's other films Belldandy and Bob Adams: Final Fate) as Sophie instead, as Fredrickson felt that she just clicked with the character very well.

Initially Mark Hamill auditioned to voice Forrester Roland using his Joker voice, but accepted to voice Quincy when offered. Before Hamill was cast, Jim Cummings and Maurice LaMarche auditioned for the role (the latter using an impression of the late Dick Shawn), Kiefer Sutherland and Joe Pesci were also considered for voicing him.

The first season of the series was also the last Garrett Fredrickson production to feature Carl Andy in any sort of cameo appearance, due to his retirement from the entertainment industry in 2005.

Music
The music for the series was composed by Michael Tavera, who also did the music for Exosquad, and was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, with the score being inspired by Mike Batt's score for Watership Down and David Newman's music for The Brave Little Toaster. The show's theme song was called "The Detective Named Quincy" which was written and performed by Aerosmith lead Steven Tyler. The theme song was heavily inspired by various other anime theme songs at the time and has since become a highly recognizable part of the show.

Animation
The series was animated by Shin-Ei Animation in Nishitōkyō, Tokyo, who also animated the Doraemon films and series. Due to the series beginning the same year as the 2005 Doraemon series, Shin-Ei split the production team in two, with one half working on Doraemon, and another half working on The Story of Quincy. Due to this choice in production, the series was sometimes co-animated by other Japanese production studios such as Studio 4°C, Pierrot, Gonzo, and Production I.G. Many of the episodes' directors were also directors in Japanese animation, including Tekkonkinkreet director Michael Arias.

Themes
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Reception
The Story of Quincy proved to be quite a ratings success for TNT, with the first season alone garnering in 3.14 million viewers, and the series received positive reviews from critics, with much praise going to the animation, voice acting, and much of the fidelty to the original source material.

Home Media
On May 8, 2007, Lionsgate Home Entertainment released Season 1 of The Story of Quincy on DVD, with the remaining seasons being released on DVD from 2008 to 2013. On August 18, 2015, Lionsgate released The Story of Quincy - The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1. This 16-disc set contains all 104 episodes along with various bonus features like a commentary from Garrett Fredrickson, Alan Templeton, and Michael Arias.