GROWING UP WITH ANIME

GATCHAMAN

October 1, 1972...

Tokyo's Fuji Television premieres an all new action/hero series by Tatsunoko Productions. In the distant future, Earth is threatened by Gallactor, a vicious organization that combines terrorist tactics with advanced scientific knowledge in an attempt to take over the world. The only thing standing in Gallactor's way is the International Science Organization (the ISO for short) and its chief scientist, Professor Kozaburou Nambu. Dr. Nambu uses all the ISO's resources in a "war of information" against Gallactor, but his primary weapon is his pet secret project: five young people who comprise the Kagaku Ninjatai ("Science Ninja Squad").

Precedents in the Genre

Inspired by American comic book heroes, Gatchaman not only became Tatsunoko's most successful superhero show, but also set a number of precedents in the SF anime genre. It was the first to introduce the concept of a "team show," where there were five basic character types (hero, loner, big guy, token kid and female) and five colors (red, blue, pink, yellow and green), and the cooperation of all the members of a team was necessary to use their secret weapons. This was later adopted for use in the Giant Robot anime genre and the popular "spandex and latex" live-action hero shows. Compared to other anime shows of the age, Gatchaman showed a degree of realism, depicting grief and death in a way that made viewers take a good hard look at a medium previously considered "just for kids." Certain episodes were more than capable of terrifying the average seven or eight-year-old--Gatchaman's target audience.

For its time, Gatchaman was a very successful series. The first season (October, 1972 to Spring, 1973) saw the first series climax at episode 53, with the discovery and self-sacrifice of Ken's father. The second season, which lasted until autumn of 1974, stunned viewers with the final showdown with Berg Katse and the death of Condor Joe in episode 105.

Followups and Sequels

The series ended, but was far from forgotten. Key episodes were compiled and released in a theatrical Gatchaman feature in July, 1978, and Bunka Hoso ran 16 episodes of aGatchaman radio program from April to September of that same year. In October of 1978, Gatchaman II (52 episodes) began. The evil alien Sosai X returns to Earth, creates a new villainess named GelSadora and tries to destroy the world with a scheme called the Solar Shift Plan. The Kagaku Ninjatai receive new vehicles and weapons, and Condor Joe is brought back as a cyborg. The stories focused on personal episodes between characters rather than the action adventure style of the original series, and retained a power of their own. Joe fans were delighted when the Condor stepped into the spotlight more often. But Gatchaman II suffered from both a staff change and "sequel disease." The result was sloppier art and animation, bleached out colors, garish, clunky mechas and cheesy background music.

Gatchaman II was followed by Gatchaman Fighter (48 episodes) in 1979. A tiny fragment of Sosai X survives the final battle in Gatchaman II, and mutates into the ultimately nasty Sosai Z. Z recruits a half-sane megalomaniac named Count Egobossler, who is taking over the world by military force rather than by weird scientific schemes. Z backs him up with mechs and manpower, but the two villains often fence with each other. The Kagaku Ninjatai suffer through another vehicle change, acquiring the lacklusterGatchaspartan. The 'Spartan's ultimate weapon is called the Hypershoot, used in conjunction with Ken's new sword, the Gatchafencer to slice through enemy mecha in improbable-looking battle sequences. Gatchaman Fighter's art and animation quality was unsteady, but seemed an improvement over Gatchaman II. What crippled this series was its singleminded focus on Ken and the Gatchafencer, which left the other characters with nothing to do but watch the fireworks. This was undoubtedly the darkest series of the three, and the weapons and constant stalemates steadily took their toll on Ken's health and sanity. However, viewer percentages jumped when the final episodes came around: Tatsunoko was notorious for spectacular finales, and they delivered.

Gatchaman for the 90s

Twenty years after the first series premiere, Polydor Records offered a special laser disc collection of the original Gatchaman series for the whopping price of US$1,500. The number of orders was gratifying enough that the discs were released again, separately. The anime slump of the 1990s was also responsible for a "nostalgic anime" trend, with shows like Giant Robo and Eight Man After. Tatsunoko Productions teamed up with Nippon Columbia and followed up with revivals of their classic hero shows, including a three-part Gatchaman Original Animated Video (1994). The characters and machines received a new look for the nineties, while Gallactor's motive became more credible and serious, but overall, the videos were a rehash of (and homage to) the original series.

Look for both subbed and dubbed releases of the Gatchaman OAV from Urban Vision. For reviews of the English versions, click here.

Gatchaman 2000 Live Action/Anime Campaign

Imagine our shock when Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) released a series of animated and live action commercials featuring a Gatchaman team with updated art and Birdstyles. A special NTT website included character writeups, downloads of the animated commercials, Flash "story" advertisements, interactive Shockwave games, and a special "Gatchaman novel" that you had to register to receive (according to those who did receive and translate the novel, it was awful--lots of yelling, grunting and posturing, but none of the action that makes Gatchaman fun). Most notable were the photos of the live action costumes and the live action TV commercials featuring the popular Japanese boy-band, SMAP (yes, this means that Jun's part was played by a guy).
Unfortunately, the site is down now, since the campaign only lasted through the month of September, 2000. The site was revived in spring of 2006 "due to popular demand" and also, possibly to check for interest in new versions of the series. The site's re-release, and surveys on the Tatsunoko web site, might be linked to the plans for a 2008 Gatchaman film feature.

Gatchaman in 2008? Maybe!

In June of 2006, Imagi Entertainment announced they had received permission from Tatsunoko to produce a new Gatchaman movie, slated for release in 2008. The movie will be done in all computer animation and released in English, directed by Kevin Munroe (who directed Imagi's 2007 release of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie). Character, mecha and scene designs are currently in the works as well as storyboards for a teaser film. Will this movie make it to its slated 2008 premiere? Only time will tell!

Gatchaman in Other Countries

In 1978, Sandy Frank Syndication released Gatchaman as "Battle of the Planets," a show that introduced many Americans to the world of Japanese animation. In order to meet US children's programming standards, the Sandy Frank edited (some fans might say hacked, butchered, mangled, mutilated...) the episodes for violence and added a new, Star Wars style robot mascot (7-Zark-7) to narrate and fill in the gaps made by the film cuts. More cheap animation was added to show the Phoenix flying through space for space battles (all the original battles took place on good old Earth). Composer Hoyt Curtin added his music to the original Gatchaman soundtrack (done by Bob Sakuma). The character names were changed, and an all-star cast (Casey Kasem, Ronnie Schell, Janet Waldo, Keye Luke, Alan Dinehart and Alan Young) were selected to do the voices for America.

Battle of the Planets ran in syndication from 1978 through the early 1980s. In the late '80s, the show was rewritten, redubbed and rerun by Turner Broadcasting as "G-Force, Guardians of Space." (Here it gets confusing: in Sandy Frank's version, the good guys were also known as G-Force.) The newer versions are more faithful in story and dialogue to the original Gatchaman, and more of the battle scenes are left in. However, the characters' new names (trite labels such as "Ace Goodheart," "Dirk Daring," "PeeWee and Hooty" and "Dr. Brighthead") were a definite handicap, and the voices, compared to those done for Battle of the Planets, were lackluster and boring. Hoyt Curtin's music was replaced by a monotonous disco pounding that filled every single gap not occupied by original soundtrack. The first run of "G-Force," in 1987, didn't net good results (probably for these reasons), but the show is currently running on Turner's Cartoon Network in the United States, and other stations worldwide.

Gatchaman II and Fighter have finally reached American shores, dubbed under the series title, Saban's "Eagle Riders." There have been more name shifts, though not as bad as "G-Force." Ken is now "Hunter Harris," Nambu "Dr. Thaddeus Keane," and so forth. This series aired a short 13-episode run in the United States, but more episodes were aired in Europe. Check your local TV listings!

article taken from

http://www.chronicsite.com/gatchaman/introductions.html