There are certain revelations that hit you like a ton of bricks, potential projects dashed early that only can exist in your imagination. What would Hype Williams have brought to Speed Racer? What would Chris Cunningham have done with Neuromancer? I myself have helped to report on the many possibly ill-advised American attempts at Sailor Moon. But the revelation that a Spice Girls anime was pitched, including with concept art, is a devastating reminder of what could have been.
This latest revelation comes from Laurence Guinness, formerly of Manga Video by way of AnimEigo. The history of Manga Video itself is a fascinating and complex topic, an offshoot of the legendary record label Island Records. AnimEigo recently interviewed both Andy Frain and Guinness separately. If you have any interest in the early history of anime distribution, both videos are a fascinating deep dive with two people who have very different tellings of how things went down.
Manga’s relationship with its source material is complex in part because of its position relative to the recording industry, leading to it re-scoring many of its titles in fascinating ways. The Manga Video dub of Space Pirate Cobra was rescored using the music by Swiss duo Yello (most notable for the song “Oh Yeah” from Ferris Bueller's Day Off), and Guinness claims in the video that Gavin Rossdale and Nigel Pulsford from Bush were commissioned to work on the intro for The Guyver (although if they do not appear to be credit in the original release.)
(Update: the company "Mad Dog Winston" is listed as the publishing company for Bush. This is who is credited in the Manga Video release, so this does scan with Guinness' telling.)
The Spice Girls revelation comes near the end of Guiness’ interview. For a brief time Manga Video experimented with not just distributing anime but co-production as well. At one point Guinness mentions that a Wu-Tang Clan anime called The Imperial Warrior was far along but never materialized. He then goes on to several production stills from what he claims is a pitch for a Spice Girls anime produced by Production I.G, the studio that would produce both Patlabor movies, Ghost in the Shell, and much more.
It’s unproductive to mourn things that might have never been, but looking at production cells of Baby Spice running from a T-Rex like child Gohan, the whole crew posted up like Dirty Pair, or Posh Spice looking sick as hell on a motorcycle in front of a pre-9/11 skyline hurts to think about. Manga Video had bigger problems near the end and would eventually fall apart, but if the Spice Girl anime had snuck by like that, imagine how sick it would have been.
