Dr. Elara Lee, noted expert on the Sleeping Android, writes:
In my last dispatch, I relayed some basic information about Power Ewes, a mid-1990s anime series that has been, more than most, obscured by time and partially clawed back into the realm of dreams. At this rate, these five sheep-themed heroines are on track to vanish from deteriorating storage media and fade from human memory completely as their story decouples from our own reality.
However, that time has not yet arrived.
A excerpted transcript follows of my interview with Middleton Police Chief Harry Thompson, a retired captain of the U.S. Air Force who was assigned to Tokyo’s Yokota Air Base shortly after the death of Ichika Miura and the cancellation of the Power Ewes series she had created.
[EXCERPT BEGINS]
LEE:
Chief Thompson, thank you for agreeing to speak with me. Do you mind if I record our conversation?
THOMPSON:
If it would help my town weather this crisis, you could slather me with whipped cream and call me Mary.
LEE:
Perhaps later. For now, just the interview will be sufficient.
THOMPSON:
[Deep sigh.] Yes, you have my permission to record.
LEE:
Thank you.
Chief Thompson of the Middleton Police Force, I’ve been informed that you recently spoke to one of your subordinates about the 1990s Yakonoko Animation production, Power Ewes. Do you still recall those episodes?
THOMPSON:
What? Is this some kind of joke? A goddamn giant robot is taking a nap in the middle of my town and you want me to talk about an old cartoon?
LEE:
Yes.
THOMPSON:
I’m sorry. I was told we were hosting a world-renowned expert on AI and robotics, but I seem to have walked into entertainment trivia night at Roberto’s. What’s next, karaoke?
LEE:
I assure you that all my questions are relevant to the Sleeping Android phenomenon. Now please, tell me about the Power Ewes.
THOMPSON:
You can’t tell on this voice recorder but I’m rolling my eyes here.
Anyway, sure, whatever. I was stationed to Yokota for about eighteen months, from late 1994 into 1996. A few of the guys there were into this thing called anime, which I’d never heard of before. Weird stuff. Anyway, there was this one guy on base, Rick, who was the ringleader of the local anime fan group. This guy was absolutely obsessed.
LEE:
Can you recall Rick’s last name?
THOMPSON:
Began with an L maybe? I don’t know offhand, but I can look it up for you if it’s important.
LEE:
Thank you, Chief. Are you certain the show you watched on the base was definitely Power Ewes?
THOMPSON:
Girls with sheep ears and horns fighting giant robots…could there have been more than one show like that?
Rick had a bunch of episodes he’d recorded off the air, and his crew had added English subtitles. Then he had more episodes he claimed had only ever been released on tape.
LEE:
That tracks with my own research. What can you tell me about the series?
THOMPSON:
Mostly that it was violent to the extreme. Like, “make Michael Bay squirm and look away” levels of violence. And don’t get me wrong, I grew up with cartoons cats and mice trying to literally murder each other, but these big-eyed schoolgirls and giant robots were in a league of their own.
That’s why I mentioned the show to Officer Loomis in the first place. I wanted to give him some idea what’s at stake with this Sleeping Android. If this thing wakes up, we’re cooked.
LEE:
Unless we can recruit some big-eyed schoolgirls?
THOMPSON:
Don’t even joke!
LEE:
Sorry, Chief. Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find a copy of the show to review, so I’m eager for whatever you can remember. Even the smallest detail might be important.
THOMPSON:
It’s been years. Decades. All I have left are vague recollections.
LEE:
Did you watch the series from the beginning? My research suggests the pilot episode featured a robot shaped like a giant squid?
THOMPSON:
The first two seasons all blur together for me. I didn’t catch every episode Rick and his crew screened, but there was this basic formula they all followed. The girls, yadda-yadda-yadda, the robot, yadda-yadda-yadda, the battle, yadda-yadda-yadda, and then they all went out for ice cream. One girl always wanted vanilla, and the shop would be out of vanilla, and the other girls would laugh and throw things. I guess it was supposed to be funny?
I only got interested when the third season started.
LEE:
Third season? I was under the impression that there were only two seasons of Power Ewes. Are you sure?
THOMPSON:
Of course. Suddenly, the animation quality improved, the drama ramped up, the characters were fleshed out, and I got hooked.
[EXCERPT ENDS]
At this point, I must emphasize that none of my other sources had ever described a third season of Power Ewes. In fact, industry reporting on the death of Ichika Miura described her as having fallen behind schedule on her scripting and storyboarding duties. Her studio bosses were quoted as saying that of the planned third season, Miura had left behind little more than a handful of rough outlines.
In fact, by all official accounts, Yakonoko Animation barely had the resources to finish a rushed production of the show’s second season. Contemporary reviews uniformly denounced the quality of these final episodes, reflecting extreme cost-cutting and quality-cutting measures as Yakonoko Animation slid into bankruptcy.
It makes no sense for the studio to have undertaken a third season of secret, unreleased episodes, made without their chief animator, and for Chief Thompson to have considered these episodes to be an improvement in quality.
According to Thompson’s recollections, the third season deepened the lore of the series, with the Ewes realizing that their power-up sequence came from a fusion of their human bodies with dream-yokai in the form of sheep. The Ewes also discovered that Lord Orongo had not just been seeking the destruction of Tetsudō City, but had been trying to clear the human city out of his way so that he might reach a giant mecha that had been buried, centuries before, under the ground where Tetsudō City had more recently arisen.
A flock of dream-yokai, who called themselves Cyberlams, were introduced as distinct characters who interacted with the girls in their daily lives and fused with them for battle sequences. Also, again according to Thompson, a sixth Power Ewe joined the team in the third season he claims to have watched.
[EXCERPT BEGINS]
LEE:
Do you remember how this new character was introduced?
THOMPSON:
Of course. She made quite an entrance, falling out of the sky like a comet!
She landed so hard, she made a crater in the main shopping district of Tetsudō City. The girls were already there, buying beachwear or something, so they quickly transformed into the Power Ewes and went to investigate.
They found her unconscious, but she had horns and ears like their own, so they figured she had to be one of the good guys. They carried her back to the Secret Pasture and looked over her until she woke up. She was very confused about where she was, but also, when the Power Ewes started to introduce themselves, it seemed like this new girl already knew who they were.
They asked her name, and she said it was Ichika Miura.
LEE:
Chief, I think your memory is confused. Ichika Miura was the show’s creator.
THOMPSON:
I don’t know anything about who created the show, I just watched it and let me tell you, the character’s name was Ichika Miura. Like I said, I had a bit of a crush on her for a while. The other girls were just cartoons, but Ichika?
She seemed so real.
[EXCERPT ENDS]
If I harbored any lingering doubts about the connection between the Power Ewes program and the Sleeping Android phenomenon, they were quashed in that moment. I would later confirm Chief Thompson’s account, deepen the mystery, and perhaps encounter the ghost of Ichika Miura herself.
But that part of the story will have to wait for my next dispatch.
To be continued in Part 3...
