The New Archies

The New Archies (Neo-Japanese: ザ・ニュー・アーチーズ) is a Neo-Japanese manga series that is an spinoff of the long-running Robloxian comic book series, Archie. It ran for approximately 12 issues, from May 1985 to July 1994. However, only the first 11 issues were originally released in Robloxia before the translation of the manga stopped for 15 years, with issue 12 finally being translated for the Robloxian market in December 2009 under the title “The New Archies Issue #12”.

The series was written by Yuji Naka and illustrated by both Hirokazu Yasuhara and Naoto Ohshima.

Summary

The series is an loose reimagining of the original Archie series that takes place in an contemporary timeline, except that the main protagonists are in middle school and that they cause significantly more chaos than what it seems.

In the series, the protagonists are often seen attending an unnamed junior high school (or in the Robloxian translation, “Riverdale Middle School“).

TV series

In 1987, a anime television series based on it aired in Neo-Japan under the title “The New Archies: The ANIMATION”. It was produced by Roei Animation and aired on Maruko Nishi from September 12th, 1987 until November 8th, 1990. It had 140 episodes and it only adapts the first 6 volumes of the manga, since the manga had not been finished at the time of the anime’s production.

This series was the second anime series in the Archie franchise, succeeding The Adventures of Little Archie, which aired 13 years earlier in 1974.

Cast (dub only)

• J. Michael Roncetti as Archie Andrews
  • Daniel Mitchell as Archie Andrews (episodes 78-onward)
• Emma Coristine as Betty Cooper
• Amy Court as Veronica Lodge
• Colleen Jones as Jughead Jones
• Fiona Marshall as Reggie Mantle
• Marvin Goldhard as Mr. Weatherbee (the principal)
• Colin Waterflower as Eugene
• Greg Anderson as Coach
• Karen Cruikshank as Amani
• Victor Gomez as Big Moose
• Jasmine Andrews as Big Ethel
• Whitney Matterson as Miss Grundy

Rating

The anime adaptation and the books are both rated 9-12 by the Robloxia Rating System, mainly due to the fact that the series was meant for Robloxians aged 9 through 13, however, according to Yuji Naka, the manga can be enjoyed by all ages.

Despite being a children’s manga, some of the subject matters in the manga can be considered to be “dark”, such as the depiction of divorce, which can potentially traumatize some robloxians.

The video game is rated E by the Ro-ESRB with the rating description mostly being “Animated blood” and “Fantasy violence”.

Other media

Besides the anime adaptation, there are 4 seperate PSAs (Public Service Announcements) using the characters from this universe, the first 3 PSAs are live action while the 4th PSA is animated by the same studio as the anime.

There is also an RPG-styled video game based on this series that was released for the Ro-Sega Genesis internationally in June 1990, which was developed by Game Reak and published by Ro-Sega.

Trivia

• The series was Yuji Naka’s last manga, before he retired the manga industry permanently following his arrest in July 1994 for insider trading.
  • This incident is also suspected to be the reason why the manga ended abruptly without any announcement.
  • It was likely that an announcement would have triggered panic.
• The Robloxian Bloxlish dub for the anime adaptation is very notorious because of the fact that the dub was made to be only 139 episodes of the originally produced 140 episodes because the network that agreed to air the series, Kids’ Avast TV (Children’s Avast Television) only ordered those specific episodes.
  • The 140th episode would later be dubbed in 1994 and was put as an television special that was often aired in 1990s and 2000s.
  • Several merchandise was produced for the anime adaptation, such as branded dolls, skateboards, notebooks, pencils, and other content that have been released.