Gatchaman--Opinion

Sosai X, Berg Katse, and their organization known as Galactor are bent on dominating the world. Fortunately, Dr. Nambu and the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman have something to say about it.

Gatchaman is a brainchild of Tatsuo Yoshida, who is probably more well-known for Macha Go Go (known in the States as Speed Racer). Like its Tatsunoko predecessor, Gatchaman was known by other titles, and was dubbed no less than THREE times into English. The first was Battle of the Planets; while the dub acting itself was decent and the original music is preserved, the story was more or less butchered beyond recognition in order to bear a resemblance to Star Wars. In fact, for BotP, the more violent scenes were edited out and new Hanna-Barbera animation were put in, usually of stock spaceflight footage and of 7-Zark-7, a robot that was pretty clearly an amalgamation of C-3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars.

I was first introduced to Gatchaman in its second dub, G-Force: Guardians of Space. Relatively speaking, the story was closer to the Japanese version, though the names are still changed. However, the voice-acting was pretty laughably bad and for some reason Ted Turner felt the need to make the majority of the soundtrack this really annoying disco music. I felt Barbara Goodson's (Agatha and PeeWee, G-Force equivalents of Jun and Jinpei respectively) acting was what made this dub so embarrassing (well, besides how a lot of male characters sounded a little too similar to one another and the pathetic dialogue). She tended to pronounce "robot" like "robutt". Also, she utterly failed to instill any sort of personality in either of her characters.

Finally, ADV released a dub that maintained the story and names of the original. The acting was generally pretty good, particularly that of Ken, Joe, and Ryu. Personally, I felt the actress who voiced Jun sounded far too old to be voicing a 16-year-old girl. Also, I felt Jinpei's actress was just a tad annoying.

Still, I'd have to say the Japanese is the way to go. What I do like is how Jinpei, a 10-year-old boy at the beginning of the series, is voiced by an actual 10-year-old boy (Yoku Shioya), and not a grown woman instead. Also, Jinpei, like his voice actor, clearly ages as is shown in his voice breaking and sounding more and more like a young adult. My favorite performance though, is definitely that of Isao Sasaki, who provided Condor Joe with his epically deep voice.

So what about the anime itself? Well, to put it bluntly, it is the epitome of campiness. The series is generally told in a "Monster of the Week" way of storytelling where Berg Katse (foolishly) delegates the conquest of Earth and the destruction of the Science Ninja Team to one his gaudily-dressed generals and the green-clad troops (think stormtroopers from Star Wars, only decked out in green and wearing bell-bottoms) under their command.

Also, the Science Ninja Team itself is your standard 5-man team. Ken the Eagle is very much the leader of the group, and is rarely proven wrong (even if he actually is wrong) who is pretty fond of using excessive force while still toeing the line with what Dr. Nambu finds ok. Condor Joe is not as ready to do what Nambu tells him and is pretty clearly out for some Galactor blood and often openly defies what Ken or Nambu tell him to do (i.e. not firing a bird missile, and he LOVES firing bird missiles). Jun the Swan is more or less The Chick of the group. Her job seems to be primarily looking pretty (and oh man is she pretty ;)), look to Ken for answers, and take care of Jinpei. Jinpei the Swallow is basically the typical Kid, who often manages to get himself captured by Galactor only to somehow make it back out (with or without the help of the rest of the team). Finally, Ryu is the Big Guy, whose job is to pilot the team's aircraft, the God Phoenix.

The animation is more than a little crude. Tatsunoko clearly meant for the series to be long, so consequently the per-episode budget wasn't too high. The quality of the animation is generally on par with that of Speed Racer. Also, I just saw episode 19: Speed Race from Hell. The animation was like a typical episode of Speed Racer because it does surround an auto race. Also, I couldn't help but notice some of the sound effects were reused.

So the story is campy and the animation is crude. My opinion? This anime is a definite must-see. A lot of it has to do with its significance in the history of anime. Also, I think Gatchaman is just plain fun to watch. If you liked Speed Racer (and really, who doesn't?), then I wholeheartedly recommend Gatchaman.



Score: 3/4