Humanity is trapped on Earth by the alien Radam who have taken over the Orbital Ring System space station that surrounds it. A chance for hope arrives in the form of an amnesiac who can turn into the armoured warrior, Tekkaman Blade.

An updating of the original Tatsunoko Pro series Tekkaman (1975) it aired in an “adapted” English form from Saban as “Teknoman”.

This caught me off guard a little, particularly at the start, when they introduce the Space Knight characters. There was more attempts at goofy humour than I was expecting, such as the pilot Noal getting told off for eating snacks on the bridge, rather than for his aggressive flirting/sexual harassment of his navigator Aki.

This can all be explained when you see that Satoru Akahori & Hiroshi Negishi worked on this, along with frequent collaborator (maybe mentor, does anyone know?) Mayori Sekijima. Akahori had his fingers in a lot of pies throughout the 90s into the 00s, whether as screenwriter, or from having his manga/novels adapted. Or writing novels/manga based on anime.

Akahori & Negishi’s main work together was the 2 Letter Alphabet Series between 1990-99:

• NG Knight Ramune & 40 (1990 – 1991)
• KO Beast Century (1992 – 1993)
• SM Girls Saber Marionette (1995 – 1999)
• VS Knight Ramune & 40 Fire (1996)

Akahori & Sekijima had previously written Legendary Ninja Cats (aka Samurai Pizza Cats) together for Tatsunoko Pro. Sekijima would write the various Saber Marionette J series that were based Akahori & Negishi’s original concept. Negishi was also involved in Akahori’s Heretical Hour Love Game (yes, Akahori had a series with his own name in the title) and co-created the Master Mosquiton concept with him. 

I’m sure there are others I’ve missed, and I’ve not touched on all the work they did without the others’ direct involvement. They certainly kept themselves busy.

Anyway, the point is, if you see these names working together, you are going to expect something goofier than the you get here, and so some attempt at comedy shouldn’t be unexpected. It’s brief though, and the majority of the episode features Tekkaman Blade tearing up aliens. As you might expect and/or want from such a show.

Looking at what ratings I could find for the time, it fell short of what Scramble Saver Kids, the Monkey Punch tribute to Thunderbirds, was doing in it’s slot previously. Though to give you some perspective, if it got the same ratings today, it would be a top ten anime in Japan. 

From this episode my first thought is that the concept might have been better served with a different creative team behind it. If you’ve seen enough of their other work, you can tell it’s them working on it, but at the same time it feels a watered down version of the work they created themselves. And if you want a serious remake of the 70s show, do you really want to use guys who normally amuse themselves by naming characters after food?

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Tidying my flat I found my copy of The Anime Encyclopedia, and yes it does have an entry on that Tatsunoko Pro title I’ve been whittling on about these last two weeks.

Apparently it had US dub from Harmony Gold under the name Underwater Encounter, but that doesn’t turn much up either. It was filmed on 35mm and took 2 years to animate. Beyond that there wasn’t much more that I gleaned from sites I quoted before. It’s odd that something that Tatsunoko took so much effort to make has near disappeared from discussion, I wonder if it had had a proper theatrical release it wouldn’t be so obscure.

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Remember this from a few days ago:

The mysterious Tatsunoko Pro title that Akemi Takada had worked on and there appeared to be very little information on the internet about? Well here’s what I know so far:

Title according to animated divots is Kaitei Daisenso–Ai no Nisen Miles (“The Great Navy Battle: 20,000 Miles of Love”).
It was a one off anime broadcast on 3rd January 1981.
Its themes appear on this CD: テレビアニメ スーパーヒストリー 22
The mother lode of information is on this geocities site – a fansite for 20,000 Leagues under the sea.

Akemi Takada did do the character design as I suspected.
Mecha design was by Kunio Okawara (most things in the last 30 years that had a robot in it)
The director was Koichi Mashimo (Dominion Tank Police, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, assorted dreadful Bee Train titles).
Tatsunoko head honcho Ippei Kuri produced.
It was writen by writer and cartoonist Mori Sasaki (Ultraman, Ultra 7, Heidi)

It starred Junichi Inoue and three other people who didn’t show up on Anime News Network.
These are, I think:
Masako Kitamura – an idol in the late 70s/early 80s
Makoto Kurosawa – The dub voice for Gary Cooper
And a fourth star, 伊武雅, who I have no idea about.

As for story, well here my Japanese-ignorant research skills grind to a halt. It appears to involve a Future Emperor Darius, so I’m guessing it’s not super reliant on the original novel for it’s story. Someone with actual Japanese skills want to make a stab at the synopsis on that Jules Verne fan page?

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It’s been a year since I touched this project, but here’s a redo of the last post I made on it after I was pointed to Akemi Takada’s website.

Akemi Takada handily has a very comprehensive list of works up to 2001 on her website. Doesn’t give the roles in the shows, but I’m expecting most are character design works.

1977 – Ippatsu Kanta-kun
1978 – Science Ninja Team Gatchaman II
1979 – Science Ninja Team Gatchaman F
1980 – Tondemo Senshi Muteking
1981 to 1986 – Urusei Yatsura
1981 – 海底大戦争 愛の20000マイル – Think this is called “The Great Navy Battle: 20000 Miles of Love” in English.

OK this one I’m a little stumped on, and so I now want to find out as much as possible about it.

It’s from Tatsunoko Pro (but seemingly missing on their English website). It’s listed as being originally created by Jules Verne. And I can’t see hide nor hair of it on ANN.

1981 – Maicching Machiko-sensei
1983-1986 – Magical Angel Creamy Mami
1983 – Future Police Urashiman
1985-1989 – Kimagure Orange Road
1985 – Honoo no Alpen Rose: Judy & Randy
1986 – Urban Square
1986 – Maison Ikkoku
1987 – Twilight Q
1987 – Red Glasses (Emblem Design)
1989 – Patlabor
1989-90 – Patlabor TV
1990 – Patlbor After TV OAV
1991-92 – Licca

After ’92 her career is much more that of an illustrator, rather than anime character designer. Indeed her illustration credits are far more prolific than her anime ones. Her involvement with anime from this point is mainly illustrations for auxilary projects relating to titles above – particularly Patlabor and Creamy Mami, which are arguably the two shows were you get her design at it’s purest. Original characters rather than redesigning other people’s for anime or subsumed slightly in a house style. There is one notable exception though, a return to the magical girl genre.

1997-1998 – Fancy LaLa

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2007 is the year for anniversaries it seems. As well as the upcoming Golgo 13 TV anime and a new Space Adventure Cobra show, it’s the 30th anniversary of Tatsunoko Pro’s second (and most popular) Time Bokan series. Which means we have a new TV series remaking the original, and Takashi Miike’s live action film (now due in 2009).

In first episode we get introduced to Gan and Ai, 13-year-old mechanics who are fixing Gan’s father’s dog-like robot Yatter-Wan (this is robot homaged in the post-apocalypse episode of Excel Saga), assisted by the die-shaped robot Omotchama. Meanwhile across town the villains Doronjo, Boyacky and Tonzler (known collectively as the Dorombo Gang) plan to sell cut price dodgy sports cars. After they are successful with this scam, they are contacted by Dokurobey, the “God of All Thieves” who wants them to steal the 5 Dokuro rings that will grant any wish. Gan, Ai and Yatter-Wan try to stop them and the crime fighting team Yatterman is born!

This remake is a fun little show. I’m guessing it’s aiming at an audience of kids and adults old enough to the remember the original. For self-referential yucks, Boyacky appears to be the only character aware that this a remake, at one point bemoaning that there’s stuff they could get away with in the original that they can’t now.

The animation is competent all the way through, with Yoshitaka Amano’s original character designs updated but not losing their charm. There really isn’t much to wow you though in terms of animation. Notably Mitsuki Nakamura is the Art Director, they performed the same role on the recent BoBoBoBo anime and this show has similar visual cues to that show. In particular the shots of the dispatching of the “Surprise Mecha” could have come straight from BoBoBoBo.

Wait. I just rewatched it a little. There’s a shot of the Dorombo Gang’s mecha of the week exploding through their base that looks really nice.

What did look extremely nice straight off the bat was the opening animation.

The show is a nice casual watch, but there’s nothing there as yet to make it an essential watch.

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More old school stuff I've never seen. I was familiar with the character designs though for reasons I cannot fathom.

From Tatsunoko's Official Site:

Meet THE GENIE FAMILY: An old jar which has found its way to modern residential neighborhood just happens to be the home of three Arabian genies. There's Hasshoo, the husband; Eppah, his wife; and their little daughter, Ya-ahn. They can only emerge from the jar if somebody standing by it happens to sneeze, hiccup or yawn. A sneeze brings forth Hasshoo; a hiccup calls out Eppah, and a yawn summons Ya-ahn. While they are out they must grant the wishes of whoever released them, until another inadvertent sneeze, etc., sends them back again. But it's not an unmixed blessing for their new master! Hasshoo is so clumsy that his attempts to obey wishes result in hilarious disaster. And mischievous Ya-ahn always finds a way to humorously twist the wish in a way her master never thought of. THE GENIE FAMILY is cartoon series of comedy misadventures filled with fantasy, action, and excitement.

As you can see from the above quote, this 1969 show is about a family of genies, It doesn't take much to guess it was inspired by the 1965 “I Dream Of Jeannie” US sitcom. Which leads me to wonder just how many anime shows are influenced (directly and indirectly) by that and Bewitched? And apparantly it was translated for nearly every country in Europe except those that speak English. It was created by the immensely prolific Tatsuo Yoshida, creator of Gatchaman and Speed Racer amongst many others. Regardless of what you might think of Tatsunoko's work on a technical and artistic basis, they've had an undeniable impact culturally. The fact that I recognised characters of a show I've never heard of is just one of the minor ripples of that impact.

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Now we're talking.

Gatchaman, in form of the Sandy Frank-butchered version known as Battle Of The Planets, is probably one of the main influences on my formative years. When I was a kid, I LOVED THIS SHOW. I can still recall avidly reading it's comic adaptation in TV Comic and a journey to London for various medical tests when I was a kid, where I got a Battle Of The Planets transfer kit (and a Spider-Man comic with Ghost Rider in it – another formative influence…) as a present to off set the disruption.

And then once it stopped airing it was out of my mind, only to reappear on the horizon around 1990, when someone in my class had bought a copy of a magazine like Fangoria or Cinefantasia in to school. It had an article on violent Japanese cartoons, and mentioned that Battle of the Planets was really a show called Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and had been excised of lots of violent scenes.

THIS BLEW OUR COLLECTIVE MINDS

At this time we were becoming fairly fascinated by Japanese pop culture, through the grey import of PC Engine, Megadrive and Super Nintendo games. But it was this article that drove a friend to purchase an un-subbed copy of one of these “violent japanese cartoons” from the pages of the PC Engine Fanatics fanzine.

Which we were then, bizarrely, allowed to watch at school over lunch.

The “violent Japanese cartoon” in question? Crying Freeman…. And I pretty much turned on anime at that point for the next 5 years, until I saw another show on the Top 100.

But still, without seeing Gatchaman as a little kid, it's highly unlikely all that would have been set in motion.

Oh, and I suppose it's also notable for originating the Sentai concept too.

Here's the Second Opening of the show (which began as the Ending, but they were wisely swapped over as the original opening is dull as dishwater):

Bonus: Battle Of The Planets Opening

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Number 99 in that TV Asahi chart I mentioned yesterday. And another show I've not actually seen. However from the anime shows I've actually seen and what I know of Yatterman (and the Time Bokan series of shows that it comes from), I shall declare it (and the others in the series) as being influential.

“Influential?” you ask. Yes, influential. In part ir's because of it being a successful series of shows joined by theme but not actual continuity (something Sunrise would exploit with Gundam and the Yuusha series in the nineties).

But mainly because of it having teams of comedy villains who tend to be composed of an attractive female and two goofballs.

This can be found referenced/homaged in shows such as Nadia: Secret of Blue Water, Flint The Time Detective (which is packed with Time Bokan influences), the Ragnarok Online anime and most famously in Pokemon's Team Rocket.

Oh yeah, Excel Saga watchers may also recognise the design of the mecha in these credits…

Tatsunoko Pro's English Description of the show.
Montage of clips from the show itself

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