Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion)

vhs
Lost Media Beginner

hi again :-)!

Posts: 44

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 16, 2020 5:52:36 GMT lammyvox, furbyisland, and 6 more like this

Quote

Post by vhs on Dec 16, 2020 5:52:36 GMT

A Twitter thread on this can be found here, but here's a short summary:
Sometime in the mid 2000s, Japan and China collaborated to create a branch of Sanrio called "Sanriowave." Creating Sanrio merchandise and such, they also created a franchise called "魔法少女莉欧," also known as "マジカルりおんちゃん," "Magical Girl Rion-chan," or "Mahou Shoujo Rion-chan," about a group of girls who play in a band and get magical powers from a Hello Kitty plush.
At some point, this had an anime- but very little footage has been found of it as of writing. There are Chinese websites that describe it, one writing on how it won an award from the "Golden Dragon Award Original Animation & Comic Competition", and small pieces of footage from Japanese video-sharing website NicoNico, but not much else has been found.

Websites talking about Rion-chan linked in the thread:
list.youku.com/show/id_09786b5a140d11e1a046
www.soku.com/detail/show/XODg0ODky
mzh.moegirl.org.cn/zh-hans/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%8A%A8%E6%BC%AB%E9%87%91%E9%BE%99%E5%A5%96
www.chinanews.com/cul/news/2009/09-29/1894444.shtml

Clips of Rion-chan linked in the thread (both are without sound):
www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6917830
www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7049455

Adding some of my own findings, the descriptions of the videos mention the anime being animated by "オフィスプリオン" or "Office Prion." Their website is seemingly defunct, but archives of it do exist:
web.archive.org/web/*/http://pri-on.jp/
Plan to dig through it more tomorrow...

Another mention of Office Prion and Rion-chan can be found here in an short interview titled "中国とのアニメ共同制作、松本零士氏原作のアニメ化など、複数のプロジェクトを展開
" (Google translate: Developing multiple projects such as co-production of animation with China and animation of the original by Leiji Matsumoto):
tcpl.jp/about/interview.html
Nothing outside of the first box of text seems relate to it in anyway, all other text seems to be interviews of unrelated people...

he/him
hello, good night

furbyisland
Lost Media Fan

Posts: 126

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 16, 2020 6:33:27 GMT

Quote

Post by furbyisland on Dec 16, 2020 6:33:27 GMT

i was gonna make a thread on this but you beat me to it LOL

i'll keep an eye out for anything related to this (mainly to show my s/o who loves sanrio/magical girl anime) i'll do some digging on office prion tomorrow

he/him

vhs
Lost Media Beginner

hi again :-)!

Posts: 44

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 17, 2020 0:28:13 GMT crystaldarkpinkie likes this

Quote

Post by vhs on Dec 17, 2020 0:28:13 GMT

More information...sorta
(Any Chinese is machine translated FYI, so it might not be 100% correct but it's to get the point across)

Info on the award (see moegirl & chinanews links):

The "Golden Dragon Award" is referred to as "金龙奖" in Chinese.

It was won at the 6th annual Golden Dragon Award Original Animation & Comic Competition, held in 2009.
Rion-chan won a 'Special Jury Award' (评委会特别奖) for 'Best Overseas Animation' (最佳海外动漫奖) in animation (动画类).
It mentions the 'author' is Sanrio Weilang Co., Ltd. (三丽鸥威浪股份有限公司), which seems to be another name for Sanriowave.
The chinanews link talks about how the committee wasn't sure if it was eligible to enter for an award as they are primarily given to Chinese people. Despite this, Rion-chan still won.

Chinese Wikipedia mentions their award as well, along with multiple other sites, though mostly just restating the award type & winner.

A user on "Zhidao Baidu" in 2011 asking why the anime doesn't have a website.
Another user on Zhidao asks about episode 2, which someone replies with multiple links (which all seem to be broken...)

Baike.com states that the magazine the manga was published in, Manga Bar (漫画BAR), lasted from Sept 2008 to September 2012.
finding info on this is harder than i thought haha....................

Last Edit: Dec 17, 2020 23:25:29 GMT by vhs

he/him
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lsdbaba
Lost Media Beginner

Posts: 2

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 21, 2020 16:09:03 GMT lammyvox, echofox, and 2 more like this

Quote

Post by lsdbaba on Dec 21, 2020 16:09:03 GMT

Chinese here, I came across this topic and was very interested, so I register this account to share what I have found. Please forgive my poor English.

1. Despite those videos you showed, I don't really think the anime series exist. There's no any trace of the show can be found, even in Chinese websites. Besides, there is a famous forum in China called "Baidu Tieba", which is quite similar to reddit and there's indeed a "subreddit" of Magical Girl Rion. Lots of people inside asked about the TV series, all of the answers were it simply doesn't exist.

2. According to the information I gathered in Baidu Tieba, the comic had 12 issues in total, lasting from June 2010 to March 2011 and only available on the magazine, Manga Bar. None of these are confirmed.

3. Most important thing is, I found the manga. There's a famous second-hand book trading website called 孔夫子旧书网. I tried to search the name, Manga Bar. To my surprise, a lot of the old magazines were on sale. So I started to investigate their covers, wishing to find the name, Magical Girl Rion. The first time this name showed up on cover is on June 2010 and the protagonist Rion herself was the cover figure of the issue, which means it's very likely to be the debut of the manga. The magazines sets on the websites are not very complete and many of them don't even have covers on thumbnail, the issue March 2011 happened to be not on sale. The strange thing is that the last time I found the manga's title on cover was on issue November 2010. The title was missing on the covers of early issues in 2011 like January and February ones. So the ending date of the manga is still unconfirmed.

Link to Baidu Tieba of the manga: tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E8%8E%89%E6%AC%A7&ie=utf-8&tab=main
Link to the sale page of Manga Bar, June 2010: book.kongfz.com/33400/1845368574/

Last Edit: Dec 21, 2020 16:27:21 GMT by lsdbaba

vhs
Lost Media Beginner

hi again :-)!

Posts: 44

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 22, 2020 20:19:31 GMT

Quote

Post by vhs on Dec 22, 2020 20:19:31 GMT

Dec 21, 2020 16:09:03 GMT lsdbaba said:

Chinese here, I came across this topic and was very interested, so I register this account to share what I have found. Please forgive my poor English.

1. Despite those videos you showed, I don't really think the anime series exist. There's no any trace of the show can be found, even in Chinese websites. Besides, there is a famous forum in China called "Baidu Tieba", which is quite similar to reddit and there's indeed a "subreddit" of Magical Girl Rion. Lots of people inside asked about the TV series, all of the answers were it simply doesn't exist.

2. According to the information I gathered in Baidu Tieba, the comic had 12 issues in total, lasting from June 2010 to March 2011 and only available on the magazine, Manga Bar. None of these are confirmed.

3. Most important thing is, I found the manga. There's a famous second-hand book trading website called 孔夫子旧书网. I tried to search the name, Manga Bar. To my surprise, a lot of the old magazines were on sale. So I started to investigate their covers, wishing to find the name, Magical Girl Rion. The first time this name showed up on cover is on June 2010 and the protagonist Rion herself was the cover figure of the issue, which means it's very likely to be the debut of the manga. The magazines sets on the websites are not very complete and many of them don't even have covers on thumbnail, the issue March 2011 happened to be not on sale. The strange thing is that the last time I found the manga's title on cover was on issue November 2010. The title was missing on the covers of early issues in 2011 like January and February ones. So the ending date of the manga is still unconfirmed.

Link to Baidu Tieba of the manga: tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E8%8E%89%E6%AC%A7&ie=utf-8&tab=main
Link to the sale page of Manga Bar, June 2010: book.kongfz.com/33400/1845368574/

no need to apologize! you're all good.
this is really helpful! thank you so much!! though if it really doesn't exist, what are the clips and mentioned award from then?

he/him
hello, good night

echofox
Lost Media Fan

Posts: 195

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 23, 2020 0:44:20 GMT

Quote

Post by echofox on Dec 23, 2020 0:44:20 GMT

Dec 22, 2020 20:19:31 GMT vhs said:

no need to apologize! you're all good.
this is really helpful! thank you so much!! though if it really doesn't exist, what are the clips and mentioned award from then?

The second Nico Douga upload you shared has a description stating both videos lacked audio because the footage was still unfinished. They're likely from test animation for a pilot or a pitch trailer. There are awards given to shows that are in development.

Now, how did those clips get online? I'm not sure. Office Prion's website stopped getting updated prior to this production. It's possible the uploader worked for them or got their hands on a screener. Since there was merchandise, maybe they gave away promo discs (though, something like that would probably have audio)? That's all speculation on my part.

This seems similar to the Hannah Montana anime, which was cancelled in development. The only difference is that part of this franchise actually made it to market.

Last Edit: Dec 23, 2020 0:45:04 GMT by echofox

lsdbaba
Lost Media Beginner

Posts: 2

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Dec 24, 2020 13:44:41 GMT

Quote

Post by lsdbaba on Dec 24, 2020 13:44:41 GMT

Dec 22, 2020 20:19:31 GMT vhs said:

Dec 21, 2020 16:09:03 GMT lsdbaba said:

Chinese here, I came across this topic and was very interested, so I register this account to share what I have found. Please forgive my poor English.

1. Despite those videos you showed, I don't really think the anime series exist. There's no any trace of the show can be found, even in Chinese websites. Besides, there is a famous forum in China called "Baidu Tieba", which is quite similar to reddit and there's indeed a "subreddit" of Magical Girl Rion. Lots of people inside asked about the TV series, all of the answers were it simply doesn't exist.

2. According to the information I gathered in Baidu Tieba, the comic had 12 issues in total, lasting from June 2010 to March 2011 and only available on the magazine, Manga Bar. None of these are confirmed.

3. Most important thing is, I found the manga. There's a famous second-hand book trading website called 孔夫子旧书网. I tried to search the name, Manga Bar. To my surprise, a lot of the old magazines were on sale. So I started to investigate their covers, wishing to find the name, Magical Girl Rion. The first time this name showed up on cover is on June 2010 and the protagonist Rion herself was the cover figure of the issue, which means it's very likely to be the debut of the manga. The magazines sets on the websites are not very complete and many of them don't even have covers on thumbnail, the issue March 2011 happened to be not on sale. The strange thing is that the last time I found the manga's title on cover was on issue November 2010. The title was missing on the covers of early issues in 2011 like January and February ones. So the ending date of the manga is still unconfirmed.

Link to Baidu Tieba of the manga: tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E8%8E%89%E6%AC%A7&ie=utf-8&tab=main
Link to the sale page of Manga Bar, June 2010: book.kongfz.com/33400/1845368574/

no need to apologize! you're all good.
this is really helpful! thank you so much!! though if it really doesn't exist, what are the clips and mentioned award from then?

I have checked the news article about Golden Dragon Award, the award was given to both comic and animations and the article clearly mentioned Magical Girl Rion was rewarded as a comic instead of animation.

Last Edit: Dec 27, 2020 8:16:53 GMT by lsdbaba

Deleted Deleted Member Posts: 0	Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Feb 16, 2021 16:21:43 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2021 16:21:43 GMT What channel did it air on?

senshisun
Lost Media Enthusiast

Posts: 671

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Feb 21, 2021 22:58:43 GMT

Quote

Post by senshisun on Feb 21, 2021 22:58:43 GMT

The only thing I can find Office Prion making is a pachinko machine. I've found documentation saying that they worked on 3D TV shows and pachinko machines, but information on their projects is scarce. Their website largely only archived text, not images.

"Weekend? It's Monday already."

LMWF God: (noun) a person who posts a lot on this forum

rabbit
Lost Media Beginner

Posts: 2

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT lammyvox, furbyisland, and 1 more like this

Quote

Post by rabbit on May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT

everyone I have good news !!! im very sorry it took me so long to say anything. i was the one who originally made a twitter thread about this and i got busy in life and things happened, but im happy to announce that

1) I had part of the chinese version of the manga delivered to me awhile ago! I plan to scan and have my friends (native Chinese speakers and ones taking classes) to help out translating :-) the bad news to this is that I wasn’t able to grab all issues of the magazine (manga bar) that published the manga. i will keep an eye out for the missing issues, i believe i only need 3 or 4 to complete it (i’m also keeping an eye out if the japanese ver ever pops up,,)

And 2) after a lot of struggling to sign up for weibo and getting busy (again sorry) I was finally able to make a account and dig more. I found this post

( media.discordapp.net/attachments/797876946070536232/841742817588281364/image0.png )

with a picture of the animation and says it was played live. there IS an animation !!!! this is devastatingly good news to me. Multiple people told me I was wrong and there was no anime but something didn’t sit right with me, and I’m so glad I dug further. even if it might’ve not been complete, it exists somewhere out there. but the sad part to me is it may be impossible to find... the person this screenshots from has been active just a few weeks ago on their weibo. I will try to form a message with friends to ask further if they remember or have any info about this (or anyone here feel free to try to contact them if u know chinese, it may take me some time since I have to ask for help ...)

i hope I can comment again soon with more news. i don’t want to give up on rion. if someone can please make her a page in the wiki I will appreciate it. I think she qualifies , there is a missing manga and animation of her.

Small edit i added an actual photo of the screen shot and also i want to say, if anyone wants to ask about rion or what ive found or share anything about her (literally anything i will happily accept..) feel free to dm my twitter @ tradingfig, i don’t know hw often I’ll check this site but im very active there. ^^

Last Edit: May 11, 2021 18:30:20 GMT by rabbit

Terry the Cat Lost Media Fan LMW's resident "Hey, is this real?" guy Posts: 467	Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) May 12, 2021 2:29:33 GMT via mobile Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by Terry the Cat on May 12, 2021 2:29:33 GMT Okay you have my attention lol

PinkieLopBun
Lost Media Fan

Posts: 176

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) May 12, 2021 11:10:44 GMT

Quote

Post by PinkieLopBun on May 12, 2021 11:10:44 GMT

May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT rabbit said:

Small edit i added an actual photo of the screen shot and also i want to say, if anyone wants to ask about rion or what ive found or share anything about her (literally anything i will happily accept..) feel free to dm my twitter @ tradingfig, i don’t know hw often I’ll check this site but im very active there. ^^

Just so you know, your Twitter doesn't have open DMs.

rabbit Lost Media Beginner Posts: 2	Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) May 13, 2021 21:05:38 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Post by rabbit on May 13, 2021 21:05:38 GMT May 12, 2021 11:10:44 GMT PinkieLopBun said: Just so you know, your Twitter doesn't have open DMs. sorry about that fixed it, anyone who wants to dm me there feel free to now!
	Last Edit: May 13, 2021 21:07:01 GMT by rabbit

vhs
Lost Media Beginner

hi again :-)!

Posts: 44

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Jun 1, 2021 23:15:06 GMT

Quote

Post by vhs on Jun 1, 2021 23:15:06 GMT

May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT rabbit said:

everyone I have good news !!! im very sorry it took me so long to say anything. i was the one who originally made a twitter thread about this and i got busy in life and things happened, but im happy to announce that

1) I had part of the chinese version of the manga delivered to me awhile ago! I plan to scan and have my friends (native Chinese speakers and ones taking classes) to help out translating :-) the bad news to this is that I wasn’t able to grab all issues of the magazine (manga bar) that published the manga. i will keep an eye out for the missing issues, i believe i only need 3 or 4 to complete it (i’m also keeping an eye out if the japanese ver ever pops up,,)

And 2) after a lot of struggling to sign up for weibo and getting busy (again sorry) I was finally able to make a account and dig more. I found this post

( media.discordapp.net/attachments/797876946070536232/841742817588281364/image0.png )

with a picture of the animation and says it was played live. there IS an animation !!!! this is devastatingly good news to me. Multiple people told me I was wrong and there was no anime but something didn’t sit right with me, and I’m so glad I dug further. even if it might’ve not been complete, it exists somewhere out there. but the sad part to me is it may be impossible to find... the person this screenshots from has been active just a few weeks ago on their weibo. I will try to form a message with friends to ask further if they remember or have any info about this (or anyone here feel free to try to contact them if u know chinese, it may take me some time since I have to ask for help ...)

i hope I can comment again soon with more news. i don’t want to give up on rion. if someone can please make her a page in the wiki I will appreciate it. I think she qualifies , there is a missing manga and animation of her.

Small edit i added an actual photo of the screen shot and also i want to say, if anyone wants to ask about rion or what ive found or share anything about her (literally anything i will happily accept..) feel free to dm my twitter @ tradingfig, i don’t know hw often I’ll check this site but im very active there. ^^

sorry, i've been very busy finishing school and other interests but whoah!!! this is really cool!!!!!! if you find anymore stuff please post...!!!

he/him
hello, good night

crystaldarkpinkie
Lost Media Casual

Hunting Rion-chan!

Posts: 75

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion) Sept 23, 2021 16:03:17 GMT

Quote

Post by crystaldarkpinkie on Sept 23, 2021 16:03:17 GMT

May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT rabbit said:

everyone I have good news !!! im very sorry it took me so long to say anything. i was the one who originally made a twitter thread about this and i got busy in life and things happened, but im happy to announce that

1) I had part of the chinese version of the manga delivered to me awhile ago! I plan to scan and have my friends (native Chinese speakers and ones taking classes) to help out translating :-) the bad news to this is that I wasn’t able to grab all issues of the magazine (manga bar) that published the manga. i will keep an eye out for the missing issues, i believe i only need 3 or 4 to complete it (i’m also keeping an eye out if the japanese ver ever pops up,,)

And 2) after a lot of struggling to sign up for weibo and getting busy (again sorry) I was finally able to make a account and dig more. I found this post

( media.discordapp.net/attachments/797876946070536232/841742817588281364/image0.png )

with a picture of the animation and says it was played live. there IS an animation !!!! this is devastatingly good news to me. Multiple people told me I was wrong and there was no anime but something didn’t sit right with me, and I’m so glad I dug further. even if it might’ve not been complete, it exists somewhere out there. but the sad part to me is it may be impossible to find... the person this screenshots from has been active just a few weeks ago on their weibo. I will try to form a message with friends to ask further if they remember or have any info about this (or anyone here feel free to try to contact them if u know chinese, it may take me some time since I have to ask for help ...)

i hope I can comment again soon with more news. i don’t want to give up on rion. if someone can please make her a page in the wiki I will appreciate it. I think she qualifies , there is a missing manga and animation of her.

Small edit i added an actual photo of the screen shot and also i want to say, if anyone wants to ask about rion or what ive found or share anything about her (literally anything i will happily accept..) feel free to dm my twitter @ tradingfig, i don’t know hw often I’ll check this site but im very active there. ^^

Hello, you moved your accounts of @ tradingfig, what is your new account, if not why it's it private?

Lost Hello Kitty Magical Girl Anime (Magical Girl Rion)

Post by vhs on Dec 16, 2020 5:52:36 GMT

Post by furbyisland on Dec 16, 2020 6:33:27 GMT

Post by vhs on Dec 17, 2020 0:28:13 GMT

Post by lsdbaba on Dec 21, 2020 16:09:03 GMT

Post by vhs on Dec 22, 2020 20:19:31 GMT

Post by echofox on Dec 23, 2020 0:44:20 GMT

Post by lsdbaba on Dec 24, 2020 13:44:41 GMT

Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2021 16:21:43 GMT

Post by senshisun on Feb 21, 2021 22:58:43 GMT

Post by rabbit on May 11, 2021 18:26:34 GMT

Post by Terry the Cat on May 12, 2021 2:29:33 GMT

Post by PinkieLopBun on May 12, 2021 11:10:44 GMT

Post by rabbit on May 13, 2021 21:05:38 GMT

Post by vhs on Jun 1, 2021 23:15:06 GMT

Post by crystaldarkpinkie on Sept 23, 2021 16:03:17 GMT

Discord