Attack on Tomorrow

Attack on Tomorrow (あしたへアタック！) was an anime series aired in 1977 in Japan. There were 23 episodes aired at 25 minutes each. It is a spinoff of Attack No. 1. It is also known in Europe as Smash (French) and Mimi e le ragazze della pallavolo (Italian).

Original Story
The story is about Mimi Hijiiri, a student with just one school year remaining, who decides to revitaliize a volleyball team low on morale from the death of one of its team members from an accident.

Concept
The series was strictly created as a tribute to the gold medal Japanese women's volleyball team in the 1976 Olympics.

Staff

 * Additional Director: Fumio Kurokawa, Eiji Okabe
 * Screenwriter: Haruya Yamazaki
 * Producer: Kôichi Motohashi, Ryûji Matsudo
 * Createor: Shiro Jinbo
 * Music: Nobuyoshi Koshibe

Reaction
While the show would eventually aired in the European market in the 1980s in countries such as France and Italy, the plot and concept was too similar to its predecessor Attack No. 1. The show ceased production after only 23 episodes. Another of Shiro Jinbo's works, Hana no Ko Lunlun, was much more successful globally as an anime a few years later.

Trivia

 * In the French version "Smash", Mimi is Virginia Tessier. In the Italian dub, she is Mimi Miceri and she's half-japanese and half italian.  In both languages, most of the other character names were changed as well.
 * Mitsuko Horie performed both the opening and ending theme songs in the original Japanese version.