Hyappatsu Hyakuchu Gaiden: Literally Just The Entire* Previously Unavailable International Export Version

*Technically not the entire dub, since about 10 minutes are missing due to censorship, but as of a few days ago the number of available minutes of this dub was zero, so.

I had basically finished up my research into Ironfinger and its international export versions when I found something interesting: An eBay listing for an Indian VCD claiming to have an English-dubbed version of the film. I knew the original Frontier Enterprises dub was currently considered lost/unavailable, so this caught my eye, but I thought "Nah, why would it be on an Indian VCD? It's probably just an original dub done in-house by the distributor, I’m not gonna spend money on that."

And then I thought "...unless?"

So, anyway, here, available online for the very first time (as far as I'm aware) is the international export version of Ironfinger.

I’m keeping the seller's name off of this because I don't know if he wants to be associated with, ahem, unofficial merchandise. But "DJ", you know who you are.

People who know more about these things than I do have pointed out that it is clearly identifiable as Frontier Enterprises' work by the cast of VAs. Akira Takarada is voiced by Burr Middleton and Susumu Kurobe is voiced by William Ross. I'll add more names as I fill out the full roster (which I hopefully will do). You'll be able to see right away the the dub is in very poor condition and about ten minutes are missing due to censorship, but some people are working right now on a reconstruction using the Japanese print, so it's likely a proper version in decent quality will be available soon.

We're actually very lucky that this is from India, because Indian films are required to show their censor certificate (or at least all the ones I've seen have been), and we can glean a great deal from this certificate. Using Google Lens to translate, I was able to find out that the certificate itself was issued in August 1977 with an expiration date of August 1987. This means that the Frontier dub has been kicking around India for close to fifty years while the rest of the world knew nothing. That's... kind of astounding to me, honestly. It's also intriguing that we can see there is English writing in the upper left-hand corner that says "recertification". Was this movie being shown in India even earlier?

We can also see by the big "A" for Adult that this was given India's equivalent of basically a PG-13 or a soft R: it's for adult audiences only, but you still can't show nudity.

Now, lastly, I know what you're all wondering: Does Yumi still call Komori "Mr. Only-Interested-In-Men" in the English dub? The answer is no, she does not; she calls him "Mr. Handsome of Aonuma".