Gatchaman": a Groovy Kind of Sci-Fi

[wayshway]

Found this aticle.

Bobby

Anime fans today can thank their lucky stars for the monumental stateside success of properties like Akira, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and Ghost in the Shell, for they created a bustling anime marketplace in the U.S. which now offers a previously unimaginable breadth of titles. The downside of this revolution is that it didn’t really take hold until about ten years ago, which means the first thirty years of anime history remain obscure to many. Thankfully Gatchaman is not only a great classic but also a hugely famous franchise, and after a wait that was much too long the complete first series is finally available on DVD.

Gatchaman was one of the very first hit anime series on U.S. TV. The original series aired in Japan in 1972, but the Star Wars sci-fi boom in the late 70s brought it to the U.S. as the very popular but heavily edited Battle of the Planets. It returned again in the mid-80s as the less edited but atrociously scored G-Force and again in the mid-90s as the rather confusing Eagle Riders, which cobbled together parts of the second and third Gatchaman series. Gatchaman also stands out as a model for the Japanese live action superhero team genre that exploded in the 70s and is still going strong with series like Power Rangers.

Although you may remember them by different names, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman is composed of stoic leader Ken ("the Eagle"), lovely Jun ("the Swan"), her screwball adopted brother Jinpei ("the Swallow"), hotheaded Joe ("the Condor"), and bulky Ryu ("the Owl"). Each has their own combat vehicle: Ken, a jet fighter; Jun, a motorcycle; Jinpei, a flying tank; Joe, a race car; and Ryu pilots the mighty God Phoenix spacecraft, which carries all the others. Every week the talented Gatchaman heroes engage some new monster created by would-be world conqueror Berg Katse’s criminal organization, Galactor. Sure there’s lots of exciting action, but there is also a respectable amount of character development and drama, which slowly begin to emerge in the third episode. Oh, and chances are the show’s a lot funnier than you remember. Not quite the Superfriends maybe, but then what is?

The saga begins with “Gatchaman Versus Turtle King,” in which an unstoppable turtle-shaped robot steals uranium from a military base. Esteemed scientist Dr. Nambu determines it is the work of Galactor, and orders his Gatchaman team to follow the robot to Galactor’s headquarters. This delicate mission causes considerable tension between by-the-book Ken and impulsive Joe.

Next, in “The Monstrous Aircraft Carrier Appears,” Galactor kidnaps two astronauts and takes them to a massive underwater carrier along with their “earth compact,” a device that can locate energy resources such as uranium in the earth’s core. Gatchaman is dispatched to rescue the astronauts and recover the device.

In “The Giant Mummy that Summons Storms,” a giant mummy starts swatting airliners out of the sky. Ken learns from Nambu that Galactor is using the dangerous platonium X to power the mummy, and that only Dr. Takahara’s "uranless" compound can neutralize it. Unfortunately Galactor also knows this, so Ken must keep Takahara out of their hands.

Japanese science fiction is rife with political commentary, and Gatchaman is no exception. Like Godzilla before it, Gatchaman cautions about the dangers of nuclear energy in the wrong hands. This theme naturally resonates all the more strongly in Japan, which experienced the fearsome power of nuclear weapons first hand.

Gatchaman may not seem too violent to those raised on modern anime, but it’s still pretty extreme by U.S. broadcast standards. In the most egregious moment, a momentarily crazed Ken, desperately seeking info from a Galactor commander, shouts “If I have to beat it out of you I will, you worthless piece of garbage!” as he slams him over and over into the wall. In a similar scene, Joe pins a Galactor trooper against the wall with shuriken, then mercilessly beats the helpless man. Of course we expect that sort of thing from Joe. If he could trave

[gatch72]

Gatchaman is by far one of the best Anime made.
Thankx
Billy