FIF#120-Battle of the Planets

As the Earth expands it relations with those among the stars, it finds itself threatened by hostile Alien invaders.  To protect them, a special team is commissioned, specifically trained to deal with enemies from space.  They are Mark, Jason, Princess, Tiny and Keyop.  All five have been given special training and bird like costumes, gadgets and vehicles they can use to combat those who would attack their homeworld.  They are G-Force and they will always be ready to partake in the Battle of the Planets.

While Anime is pretty everywhere you can think of today, decades ago it was trying its best to make a splash here in the US.  While Akira would provide that beachhead in the late 80’s, some earlier attempts were made as far back as the 1960’s with Astro Boy and Gigantor (aka Tetsujin 28-go).  A couple years back on First Impression Friday we covered the three series that made up Robotech: Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeda.  Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be looking at a couple of other popular Anime titles of US yesteryear.  The first of those is the first adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman…Battle of the Planets. 

It’s interesting they chose that title cause it’s kind of misleading.   There isn’t a lot of universal stakes with Gatchaman and, to the best of my knowledge, Earth is the only battleground while various aliens try to attack and Team Gatchaman tries to stop them.  Still, the first episode showcases all of the usual hallmarks of America tampering with an Anime title to try and market it to the kids of the era.  The first episode actually plays more like an extended ad for the rest of the series.  The teams faithful “robot guardian,” 7-Zark, spending the first half of the episode outlining each backstory, skill set and mech vehicle for every member of G-Force.  We do get to see them in action and their character banter and those of you who love old school American Godzilla dubs will get a chuckle out of the line deliveries.  It’s actually kind of funny to hear the voice of Casey Kasem as Mark, mostly because we all know him both as a popular 80s radio DJ and as the voice of Shaggy on Scooby Doo.  The action is fine, reminding me a lot of Power Rangers with the Avian themed outfits, gadgets and even vehicles.  Having seen very little of Gatchaman, I do wonder how much else might’ve been changed for this version besides character names and probably omitting extreme violence.

I’ve known Gatchaman by a couple other names over the years: G-Force (which first aired in the 80s but I first saw on Toonami) and Eagle Riders in the late 90’s.  Battle of the Planets has a pretty standard first episode with character intros and action.  Seeing as how I was only a passing G-Force fan I’m not sure I’ll come back to this one often.  I’m glad I gave some version of it coverage here on the blog though because Gatchaman is a legacy name in Anime, no matter what US title you watch it under.