Back for fun with a review of a classic!! Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman) has a sort of odd history in the states. You see the show has come over from Japan not once, but thrice!! Gatchaman was originally aired in Japan from 1972-1974 totalling 105 episodes. In 1077 a theatrical film splicing together key episodes was released to Japanese theaters. This was followed by Gatchman 2 (52 episodes) and Gatchaman Fighter (48 episodes) TV series. In 1978 Sandy Frank (YES!! That Sandy Frank!!) bought the rights to release the show in english for US syndication. However Mr. Frank ran into a small problem, the show was waaaaaay to violent for 1972. The average Gatchaman episode had more explosions than the Big Show's ring entrance and more death on screen than you can imagine (The record for one episode was 137 dead Galactor Troops killed by 1 man!). So Sandy Frank edited out the heavy violence, replaced it with inane bridging animation sequences hosted by a character named "7-Zark-7" and released the show as "Battle of The Planets". 75 episodes were dubbed and if you were to show this to native Japanese they'd never know what the source the material is!! Flash forward to 1986, Ted Turner's Superstation TBS needed a show to plug into an afternoon cartoon block, somthing between 3 hours of "Tom & Jerry" and a half hour of "Rocky Road". Turner bought Sandy Frank productions in 1982. Turner Pictures then redubbed the same 75 episodes o "BotP" as "G-Force: Gaurdians of Space" to confuse people even further they named the show "G-Force" which was Sandy Frank had named the team of 5 heroes. Flash Forward to 1997!! Haim Saban, still mad with power from his success of "Power Rangers" buys the rights to Gathaman 2 and Gatchaman Fighter. Dubbing 13 episdoes of each he dubs it "Saban's Eagle Riders". To make matters worse eahc incarnation of Gatchaman that was dubbed into english changed the names of all the characters EVERY SINGLE TIME! Behold the name chart!
Gatchaman BotP G-Force
--------- ---- --------
Ken Mark Ace Goodheart
Joe Jason Dirk Daring
Jun Princess Aggie
Jinpei Keyop Pee Wee
Ryu Tiny Hooty

The main characters are easily identified by their costumes (Ken the Eagle, Joe the Condor, Jun the Swan, Jinpei the Swallow and Ryo the horned owl). the show ocused on heavy action blending several genres such as US superheroes and James Bond Style espionage. The ending of the original series was very dramatic and in fact it is covered below
 

Gatchaman Tv Episodes 102-105
--------- -- -------- --- ---

The episodes focus on Joe he Condor, it seems he is suffering from mental lapses and blackouts. After being captured and escaping from a Galactor (they are the bad guys) flying base Joe learns that he in fact has 1 week to live!! Determined to take Galactor out before he dies Joe follows them to their seret base in the Himylayas. Meanwhile the rest of the team has to fight a giant catfish mecha. Joe gets himself captued again after wiping out a platoon of Galactor agents (You see he missed one of them). The Gatchaman team beats the Catfish and recieve a signal from Joe' wrist communicator. Flying to the Galactor base they have trouble finding the entrance (which is underground). Joe escapes from the underground base, climbs a flight a stairs, fall downs a flight o sairs and makes it to the surface. His last action before dying is showing the team the entrance to the base and informing them of thre nefarious "Blackhole Project", a plan to nuke the earth's core and turn the planet into a black hole!! The team (minus Joe, he's dead you see) storm the underground fortress and come face to face with Galactor's leader Berg Kate (the hermaphrodite!!) . Ken goes nuts, beats the crap outta Katze and comes face to face with the real brains of the outfit, a supercomputer named Sosai X!! Sosai abandons the base, Katze commits suicide and the team is left trying diffuse the last bomb!! Do they succeed?
 

I really simplified these episodes because there is so much backstory to this final stoy arc that it is crazy. Berg Katze to my knowledge is the only evil genius hermaphrodite in cartoon history. It seems Sosai created Katze by fusing a pair of twins into one body.

This story makred theend of the first series and the death of the show's most popular character Condor No Joe. Joe was the true psycho characrter on the team, always wanting to blow stuff up, always doing solo missions even though he was told not to, y'know a real ass kicker that everyone loves. So Tatsunoko Productions did the only thing they could... they killed him. If you watched Battle of the Planets it means they killed Mark, if you watched G-Force it means Dirk Daring bi it. Trust me, these episodes are heartbreaking because the coolest guy in anime takes 3 episodes to die!! Several fansubbers have subbed these episodes in english. Note:Don't weep for Joe too long, he came back Gatchaman 2 as a cyborg)

This si my all time FAVE anime!! No show can come close to how cool this show can be!! For cryin' out loud i have a key chain of Joe and the God Pheonix!! This is why I started watching anime!!

James