Time Slip Ichimannen: Prime Rose (Prime Rose)

An emergency arises on Earth when a space fortress known as Death Mask splits up and starts falling toward the cities of Kujukuri and Dallas, forcing their people to evacuate. When the fragments make contact with the surface, the two areas suddenly vanish—and go 10 thousand years into the future.

Even though he refuses to believe such an event, Gai Tanbara is sent to investigate the phenomenon. Upon arriving in the future Kujukuri Beach, he finds only desert, ruins, and aggressive life forms at first. However, after rescuing a girl named Emiya Tachi, Gai ends up captive in a labor camp. When he discovers that the Death Mask is behind the camps, Gai must find a way to stop the oppression for good with the help of Emiya, who has her own reason for vengeance.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters & Voice Actors

Tachi, Emiya

Main

Okamoto, Mari
Japanese

Tanbara, Gai

Main

Mizushima, Yuu
Japanese

Doctor Kiriko

Supporting

Yara, Yuusaku
Japanese

Pilar

Supporting

Ikeda, Shuuichi
Japanese

Taro

Supporting

Shiozawa, Kaneto
Japanese

Tachi, Jacques

Supporting

Kamiyama, Takuzou
Japanese

Tachi, Irma

Supporting

Tsukada, Emiko
Japanese

Tanbara, Bunretsu

Supporting

Hori, Junko
Japanese

Jinba

Supporting

Komatsu, Housei
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Dezaki, Tetsu

Producer, Director

Fujikawa, Keisuke

Script, Screenplay

Ishiguro, Noboru

Storyboard

Tezuka, Osamu

Original Creator, Series Composition, Character Design

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Reviews

Jul 17, 2026

fh1478

Mixed Feelings

Why Is Spock Giving The Mission Briefing?

Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10000 Years is a strange anime, that feels like it was made in the late 60s, kept in a vault and released in 83.

it does make sense why it has that 60s feeling, it was made by Osamu Tezuka, his character design is so 60s, that it is immediately recognizable. just like his normal work, It jumps between comedically goofy in a very child way, and some dark subjects that you would not expect.

But the story feels so 80s, in its trope and how it feels like one of the many, Conan ...

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Gift

Jan 24, 2026

Firechick12012

Not Recommended

There's no denying that without Osamu Tezuka, we wouldn't have the modern anime and manga industry as we know it. He popularized many genres, tropes, and styles that are now considered commonplace today. However, not everything the God of Manga made was good, and unfortunately, Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10,000 Years is among his lesser works. Originally a 4-volume manga, his company Tezuka Pro decided to make it into a feature-length TV special as part of an NTV program. I haven't read the manga, and I'm not sure it even has an English translation, official or fan made. Do correct me if I'm ... wrong though. But after watching the movie version...I have no desire to read the manga anyway, because the anime Prime Rose is just...not good. At all.

One day, a gigantic satellite that eerily resembles the head of C-3PO from Star Wars splits into two and destroys two cities: Kujukuri City in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, and Dallas, Texas in the United States. Centuries later, Gai Tanbara, a member of the Time Patrol, is informed that the two cities and their citizens weren't actually destroyed, but actually sent forward in time by 10,000 years. He and his younger brother Bunretsu are sent forward in time to figure out what's going on. But circumstances make it so that Gai is enslaved in a labor camp where slaves spend their days building strange statues, and a young woman he tries to help, Emiya Tachi, wants to get revenge on the people who killed her lover. Gai, Bunretsu, and Emiya must work together if they're to both free the slaves and put a stop to the machinations of the satellite responsible for everything, the dreaded Deathmask.

If that plot summary sounds convoluted as all hell, that's because it is. There's no way a TV special that's an hour and a half long is gonna be able to cover that much material without compromising it in some way, and sure enough, that's exactly what happens. Prime Rose just moves from one plot point to another without really taking the time to flesh them out and give them the breathing room they need to utilize their potential. Not to mention that the story itself makes zero sense if you try to apply any logic to it. So two cities get sent forward in time, suddenly split into two whole nations that are at war with each other, and somehow they speak the same language? That's just the first of many questions that the story raises and gives absolutely no answers to. We never see just how this whole situation came about other than being told that they were sent forward in time, not to mention a lot of the fantasy creatures that appear just seem like they're there as an excuse for the characters to get from point A to point B because the plot demands it. Seriously, where do Emiya and Gai even get their horses from? And how did they manage to wrangle a whole group of gigantic cockroaches? Where did they even get those cockroaches? Furthermore, Emiya's ability to turn to stone seems to have no concrete (Ha, get it?) rules. Most of the time she can change back whenever she wants, but in the finale, she stays frozen in stone for over a month with literally no explanation other than we have to milk a potential tragedy to wring the tears out of the audience.

This also results in piss-poor writing for the characters overall. Every single one of them has as much depth as a puddle, Emiya suddenly goes from swooning girl to competent warrior within two or three scenes, making any development she gets feel completely rushed and unearned, and one villain just...decides he doesn't want to be a villain anymore because Gai made him sign a document demanding that he stop being a dictator or some shit. Also, FUCK BUNRETSU. This kid is annoying as all hell and easily the worst thing about the entire movie. Bunretsu causes Gai and Emiya no small amount of grief, gets way too much screen time, has several pointless scenes where he's perving on Emiya (Whether it be seeing her naked or getting too close to her butt when they're trying to escape getting hanged), and is generally a dumb, useless brat. You could cut him out of the movie entirely and it'd be so much better off for it. By the way, what the heck is Spock from Star Trek doing in this movie? No, I'm not kidding, Gai's boss, who only appears in the beginning of the movie, literally looks so much like Spock that I'm surprised Tezuka didn't get sued for copyright violations. Not to mention Emiya, after watching her first boyfriend die in a laughably silly manner, gets over him at the end of the movie and falls in love with Gai. See what I mean when I say the writing for the characters is shit?

Honestly, the animation and soundtrack aren't much to write home about either. The character designs are your typical Tezuka fare, with important characters looking a good mixture of human and cartoony whereas all the minor characters are supremely cartoonish and silly-looking. I hate Emiya's warrior outfit though. It's literally just a pair of panties and an X-shaped bra with shoulder pads glued onto it, and all it does is make her look super sexualized when she could be wearing anything else. Again, like I mentioned, there's a scene where Bunretsu almost runs face first into her butt when they're trying to escape getting hanged, and there's literally no purpose to it other than titillation. I guess not even Tezuka is immune to pointless horny sexual humor. Now, something interesting I learned is that Prime Rose actually got an English dub, which is shocking because some new company commissioned it, and I'm surprised Tezuka Pro even bothered to preserve the M&E track for it, which doesn't often happen for older properties like this. I gotta say, having actually watched this English dub, which was the very first one that SkySet Entertainment made, it's surprisingly a solid effort. Not perfect, as this is their first dub, and there were several points where dialogue didn't match the lip flaps very well, but it's a way better first attempt at a dub than I expected. Oh, and the dub outtakes are absolutely hilarious.

Not that it does anything to save this trainwreck of a TV special. So yeah, Osamu Tezuka has made a lot of great series during his lifetime, but Prime Rose: A Time Slip of 10,000 Years is not one of them. It has so many conflicting ideas it wants to explore, but can't make sense of any of them, and as a result, it feels really bloated, directionless, and unsatisfying, trying to find some purpose and coming out empty handed. Seriously, don't waste your time on Prime Rose. It's terrible.

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Gift

Dec 6, 2023

B2Reviews

Not Recommended

Let me get this out of the way be because I really found it weird: Spock is in the beginning of this anime. Yeah, I'll research it later but as far as I know, Paramount never sued anybody. Anyway, on to the review.

Some classics just don't age well, and this has curdled a bit. I suppose you'd call this story an isekai today, but that's being generous. A very Mad Max-ish dystopia accompanied by a bad soundtrack. I guess if you respect the older titles you can watch it out curiosity, pretty much as I did, but is it ...