[00:00:00] Zoltar: G Force again, they are like smoke. They appear and disappear like ghosts. Why does the Great Spirit allow them to torment me this way? [00:00:15] Princess: Mark, we've got to get our hands on that cassette. [00:00:28] Matthew: Well, hello. And welcome to a special episode of the Inter Millennium Media Project podcast. My name is Matthew Porter. And I'm Ian Porter. I'm his dad. He's my son, and I make him watch television, [00:00:39] Ian: strange old television. [00:00:42] Matthew: Every episode of the IMMP podcast, I introduce Ian to a TV show or a movie, or a book or a record album or something that, that impacted me when I was young. Uh, to find out what Ian thinks of it, coming to it sometimes for the first time, [00:00:54] Ian: and to discuss what we think its future now might be, which is part of the fun. And the weird, [00:01:01] Matthew: and we're at NDK. So once again, that means anime. In the past we've talked about Speed Racer and Gigantor, uh, Space Battleship Yamato, which I grew up, uh, knowing that as Star Blazers. [00:01:12] Ian: Aha. [00:01:13] Matthew: But we're talking about, uh, an anime from that I knew from the late seventies on local television Battle of the Planets. [00:01:24] Ian: Those are rather bird themed planets. [00:01:27] Matthew: Now I watched this and I enjoyed it. It was cool. It had had superheroes and its spaceships and it adventures. It always seemed a little disjointed to me. [00:01:40] Ian: Okay. I wonder why that is. Dad. [00:01:45] Matthew: Many years later I realized this was a, an Americanized version of the Japanese anime. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Yay. [00:02:01] Ian: I am excited because I know of GotmGatchaman's one of those like always in the periphery things, and so I'm like, oh, great. I get to see the original and the weird American version. Put a pin in that [00:02:18] Matthew: and to give you an idea as to how different these two anime were, the original Japanese version and the American version. I wanna show you the opening to the American version to Battle of the planets that I, I knew as a kid, and then we'll see some of the original Japanese opening. [00:02:39] Narrator: The. G Force five incredible young people with superpowers and watching over them from Center Neptune 7-Zark-7 watching Warning Against Surprise Attack by Alien Galaxies. From Beyond Space. G force, fearless young orphans, protecting earth's entire galaxy, always five, acting as one dedicated, inseparable invincible. [00:04:08] Matthew: Uh, so on American TV in 1977, this was very much a. An Adventures in Space show. Yeah, I was gonna say, you've already [00:04:18] Ian: shown me Jerry Anderson's, UFO. Why am I watching it? Again? In animated form. [00:04:24] Matthew: And if you recognize the name Sandy Frank, you're probably either a fan of Kaiju movies or Mystery Science Theater or both because he had a track record of bringing Japanese movies and television to the us, dubbing them, adapting, adapting them. Uh, that includes the Gamera movies. Uh, most famously, [00:04:43] Ian: oh, that's why they launched his name into space at the start of the titles, [00:04:46] Matthew: and this was 1977 Certain influences happening in American pop culture in 1977. [00:04:53] Ian: Yeah, yeah. That you, you tilt all your texts backwards and you make it scroll to the top of the screen. [00:05:00] Matthew: But let's compare this to the original Japanese opening for Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. [00:06:35] Ian: Wow. They really hold on him just in front of the planet for a way long time. Don't they do okay then leave Ken alone. [00:06:42] Matthew: They do. So if you were a a in middle school in 1977, which one of these would have appealed to you? I don't [00:06:52] Ian: know, because I will say. Uh, the first one has the cooler opening with the more dramatic idea, but Battle of the Planets is such a generic name. You put the words Science Ninja Team in front of anything. You do have a hook. The, the, the Children's Choir is definitely a choice. It, it reads more Captain Planet than the thing with Planet in its name. [00:07:18] Matthew: Yes. And I can understand why. Selling this to local TV stations to sell to kids in 1977, they didn't stick with the children's choir singing in Japanese. They did the um, uh, the Japanese version did have a different opening partway into its, uh, its run. We will have a little bit of that. It's a funkier version. [00:07:49] Ian: Oh. Showing off. They punch people a lot more. Wow, that's funky. [00:08:25] Matthew: That is my favorite version of all of the three. [00:08:28] Ian: Are they, I love that. Are they doing it for the same reason? Modern idol shows, change themes so that they can sell the rec, the album with more songs, [00:08:36] Audience member: Standard practice. [00:08:37] Ian: Yep. Yeah. I, I kind of hope so. [00:08:41] Matthew: So that's gives us. Kind of some difference in terms of style between Battle of the Planets and Gatchaman, but let's talk into in some more detail. You know, what did Gatchaman have? Yes. Gatchaman has everything. It has, it has a lot of violence. It has a high body count, including lots of civilian casualties. Oh my [00:09:03] Ian: goodness. Yeah. [00:09:04] Matthew: Profanity, exotic earth locations, uh, rampant environmentalism. Uh, it also has a gender fluid villain, and it has actual story continuity, which was a problem for the way TV was syndicated in America in the 1970s. Wow. [00:09:21] Ian: It has so much going on. Oh my goodness. [00:09:27] Matthew: So let's compare that to Battle of the Planets. What does Battle of the Planets have? [00:09:32] Ian: Uh, aliens. Oh, that's what they replaced the entire thing with all of that. No, no. Aliens. [00:09:41] Matthew: There is so much talk in that American opening of space attacks and alien galaxies and their, their main craft, which we'll talk about in some more detail later, uh, is a ship. This was very much turned from something that had more in common with say, captain Planet. Which it was very much an environmental, the villains were more James Bond villains who wanted power and control here on earth. There were one or two stories that made their way into space. It was an unusual thing, but instead, the American version is all about. Adventures in outer space. [00:10:26] Ian: It is wildly different. 'cause the, absolutely the, the dynamics and the characters are all, all changed and it's, it's so much flatter. It's so much flatter. [00:10:38] Matthew: They just took a location, uh, that was somewhere on earth and they said, this is now a space colony. And they'll put in a clip of the, uh, the, the ship in space to say that we're traveling there. [00:10:52] Ian: Uh oh yeah. [00:10:53] Matthew: Something else that Battle of the Planets had that Gatchaman did not is the character seven, Zark seven. This was completely added out of whole cloth and he is sort of the narrator of the stories smoothing over the fact that these were heavily edited from the Japanese versions. And he's also kind of the team's dispatch officer. He gives them assignments and monitors what they're doing and he is in a, an underwater base called Center Neptune, which they developed from the fact that we had some establishing shots of team Gatchaman's underwater base GForce. The team in the American version, uh, had this underwater base, which they rarely visited, but that's where 7-Zark-7 hung out. [00:11:43] Ian: I do love the fact that they have to call 'em GForce because you can't get rid of the giant obvious G on all of their belt buckles. So their branded as Gatchaman and they're desperately trying to rebrand it in the American version. Even with the visuals being there, so there's no reason for them to be called GForce. [00:12:03] Matthew: That said, it's a pretty cool name. [00:12:05] Ian: It really is. It worked. I wish that my generation didn't have that cool name idea poisoned by a movie about hamsters. [00:12:11] Matthew: Ah, yes. That's a good point. But why, in addition to needing something to kind of deal with the fact that these were chopped up and needing a narrator to, to keep the story moving, what might have happened? In 1977 that would have led someone trying to sell something to kids. What, what, what would've led them to decide they need a robot? [00:12:38] Audience member: Star Trek, [00:12:39] Matthew: uh oh. Uh, dunno what that is, but there's Star Wars in 1977. I do not know if, uh, if robots can take paternity tests, but I think. This might be required. I think there is some possible family connection here. [00:12:58] Ian: Oh, I absolutely. We've got a, we've got a small robot here, uh, leading a team. If he's not related to R2D2, he's definitely related to Alpha Five in some way. This is absolutely Power Rangers happening, [00:13:11] Matthew: so a lot of the changes that Sandy Frank and his team made to turn Gatchaman into battle with the planets. What was a reaction to Star Wars? Oh, here's a, a cartoon with superheroes and things that look kind of like space suits. Let's turn it into a space adventure. And they did this by getting the animation and he hired people to write scripts based upon the animation, not with reference to translations of the original Japanese scripts. Just, well, here's what the story seems to be telling. Let's make up characters and, and make this happen, [00:13:44] Ian: which makes it all the weirder when sometimes they line up. [00:13:47] Matthew: Yes. It's, it's actually closer than I would expect, given that, yeah. And this, this is an example of a, a sad but not uncommon path in which someone buys, especially back then, somebody buys a TV show from Japan, It's animated. Well, that means it's a cartoon. It's a cartoon. That means it's for little kids. And then, hold on a minute. Have you seen this? Have you seen what's in this? We can't show this to little kids. Yeah. We've gotta fix it so that we can show it to little kids. Uh, we, we can't have all this violence and a gender, gender changing bad guy and stories that expect you to have seen a prior episode. [00:14:26] Ian: Well, it can't, of course it can't be that it's a cartoon. They say that. No. [00:14:32] Matthew: Yeah. So, so they, they have to fix it. To make it match their original broken assumption that it's a cartoon, therefore it's for kids. I'm sure we can think of at least one piece of anime that had a similar problem when it was first brought to America [00:14:47] Ian: [singing] Dreaming! Don't give it up, Luffy! Dreaming! No. Anyway. Yes. Oh, goodness. [00:14:55] Matthew: Uh, but again, what they given all those limitations, given those problems or mistakes and how they started out, they actually. Were able to turn it into something coherent and something that was very, uh, interesting to, to kids my age in the 1970s. [00:15:12] Ian: They, they succeeded in something. Absolutely. Oh, goodness. Look at that. It's aggressively funky versus just plain aggressive. [00:15:23] Matthew: So, yeah. Let's talk about the, uh, the, the characters and the, the group. First of all, GForce The GForce, that's the Battle of the Planet's version. There are five young orphans with cerebonic implants that give them superpowers. [00:15:38] Ian: Wait, gimme that word again. [00:15:40] Matthew: "Cereboinic.". [00:15:41] Ian: I can't tell if that's awesome or awful [00:15:44] Matthew: Today. That would be a sports beverage. It really would. Back then it was a brain implant. Okay. Um, so they were fighting ruthless enemies. Okay. So, you know, child soldiers, because it's anime. [00:15:59] Ian: This isn't Gundam. Oh goodness. [00:16:04] Matthew: Get in the bird ship, Shinji. [00:16:08] Ian: Get in the bird ship, Shinji... Oh, [00:16:10] Matthew: and, and each one is themed for a different bird. That's the, as you can tell, that's the theme here, and that's true across both versions. Gatchaman and Battle of the Planets. [00:16:20] Ian: This gives me an opportunity. Anybody out there in our listener group who's ever cosplayed as of Gatchaman character, is that helmet hard to look out of, because I feel like it'd be really easy to look at the owl helmet. But the duck one looks painful. [00:16:38] Audience member: I cosplayed as Ken yesterday. [00:16:40] Ian: Hey. Oh wow. Excellent. Very nice. [00:16:45] Audience member: I couldn't find a helmet, though. I had to make a little crappy paper mask. [00:16:49] Ian: Ah, works out [00:16:51] Matthew: well. Let's talk about Ken or Mark, also Ken, the Eagle in Gatchaman. Mark [00:16:56] Audience member: Ken is an American name, though! [00:16:57] Ian: Yeah, [00:16:57] Matthew: they, Ken was not, was not American enough. I guess. They had to rename him. Mark, maybe at the time especially, and probably today, again, Ken was evoked too many references to Barbie, so they didn't want to call their hero Ken, his, so they named him Mark. [00:17:14] Ian: His job is Eagle and he's good at it. [00:17:18] Matthew: And he's, he's the leader of the team. He, um, he's also kind of hotheaded usually. In these team superhero groups, the leader is going to be more of the the cool and decisive one, and there there's gonna be a rebel who's a hothead. We have somebody who's sort of in that role, but Ken is often the one who needs to be restrained. [00:17:40] Ian: Yeah, honestly, Ken is, Ken feels like the rival character in a different anime who doesn't have a main protagonist to play off of. [00:17:50] Matthew: And his special weapon is this dart-like boomerang thing, which I thought was pretty cool. [00:17:55] Ian: No, absolutely. If, if Avatar The Last Airbender has told us anything, it's how cool Boomerangs can be. [00:18:03] Matthew: But here's another note about Mark. Listen to Mark's voice. See if this sounds familiar. [00:18:08] Mark: Well, the Giant is finally as burned out as the planet he came from. I wonder what Planet Zoltar will strike from next. I hope we never have to go back to Zyr again. [00:18:20] Ian: I'm like, Zoikns, man! [00:18:23] Matthew: Yes. Mark. Uh, uh, mark was voiced in the American version by Casey Kasim, who Yes, applause for Casey Kason. And he, uh, he was also known for playing, uh, Robin in the animated versions of Batman at that time, and maybe best known for playing Shaggy in Scooby-Doo. A very versatile voice. I mean, this is a very different Mark to Robin. Maybe not such a huge difference, mark or Robin to, uh, to Shaggy. That is a bit of a, a stretch and that shows some range here on, uh, on Casey's part. [00:19:05] Ian: Absolutely [00:19:06] Matthew: not that Shaggy and. Gatchaman necessarily live in completely separate universes. [00:19:16] Zoltar: It's a ghost. Have mercy on me. Mercy, I beg you, I will give you riches, but don't take me. [00:19:27] Mark: So that's the flip side of mighty Zoltar!, afraid of ghosts. Spirit can't help you. Now, [00:19:35] Zoltar: G Force will I never rid myself of these pests from earth. [00:19:42] Audience member: Roasted by Shaggy. [00:19:49] Matthew: And then we've got Jason, well, in again, in the, in the Gatchaman version, he was named Joe and apparently that wasn't American enough, so they had to rename him. Jason, you could be your why. Yeah. Yes, [00:20:02] Ian: it, I don't understand. [00:20:06] Matthew: And this is the character who. He would, in, in a lot of these kinds of, of teams, he would be more of the rebel, the hothead. Here he seems more like he's, he's the guy who always has a clever idea, which he's not necessarily going to spend his time explaining to other people. But he's going to come, he's gonna bring that out, and then it's gonna go, [00:20:26] Ian: I, I do love that they give him like the hooked mask of the, the condor. So he always looks a little sinister, which makes him being like, I've got a plan Yes. In the corner. And everyone's like, tell me no, just do it. It's kind of even more worth weird, like, oh, okay, Joe. [00:20:45] Matthew: Okay, so you've got a plan. How much of this plan is a war crime. Exactly. That's what we get. Again, he though he was usually fairly crafty about the way he put these together, but his demeanor made you wonder. Oh yeah. And then we've got Princess, who is Jun in the, uh, the Japanese version. Her bird is the swan. [00:21:11] Ian: Aha. [00:21:12] Matthew: And you know, every one of these teams has the girl, uh. She in Battle of the Planets, she has a crush on Mark. Certainly another character we're gonna talk about. Seems to think so. And keeps poking fun about that. Yeah. Um, and seven, Zark seven has a crush on Princess. Yeah. And her special weapon is a battle. Yo-yo. [00:21:35] Ian: Oh my goodness. [00:21:36] Matthew: And that is awesome. [00:21:37] Ian: There is characters nowadays who have used battle yo-yos. I'm, and it is such a cool weapon. There's something about that. [00:21:45] Matthew: And she's their explosives expert. This keeps getting better. She is so cool. Yeah. [00:21:50] Ian: Thwak, thwack, thwack,. Okay. That's not working. Bam. I almost, I think Princess might have the highest body count if you include demolitions that cause like, uh, buildings to collapse on minions. Yeah. You, you've got a point there. Oh my god. Uh, I lost count at some point. [00:22:13] Matthew: And then we've Keyop, who is Junpei, the swallow in Gatchaman. And what did they do to this character and why? [00:22:23] Ian: Oh, uh, character, personality. [sqeaky noises]. Yeah, I still speech impediment. I don't why exactly. They, they [00:22:33] Matthew: just mangled the boy in Battle of the Planets. He is an artificial life form. Constructed from the DNA on up and for some reason that gives him a very bizarre speech pattern. [00:22:45] Ian: They also put a lot of bird-like noises into his weird things. It could be that they needed someone to. To explain why bird, like, like we've got this thing, we've explained the g with the name, but we need some way to explain why bird themed. So why don't we all, we put all of that on the kid and then move on. [00:23:08] Matthew: His, the most bird-like of the characters and, and I do think they may have messed with the animation a little bit in terms of they selected frames to make him look a little weirder and a little. Um, a little less in control of himself, a little less expressive, Thank you. It was Alan Young who's doing the voice of seven Zark. Seven. A very distinctive character voice. Thank you. And they had him doing Kop as well, and the, there's only so much you could have him sound like 7 Zark 7. So they made it weirder. [00:23:37] Ian: It makes some sense. [00:23:39] Matthew: So that may be one reason why they, they changed the voice, they changed the character so much as well. Now granted, they were on a budget, they couldn't necessarily hire a brand new voice actor, uh, another voice actor just to do this part. But I do think that. Maybe they didn't necessarily want a kid character in the same way [00:23:57] Ian: they might. Yeah. They were kind of using him for multiple reasons in that sense. Yeah. [00:24:01] Matthew: Junpei in, in Gotchu, man. He was, he was a kid. He, he wants to goof off, but he wants to be on, on the action. He is, uh, he's always hungry. He's quick to poke fun at the others. Uh, he misses his mom. He [00:24:16] Ian: his dead mom? [00:24:17] Matthew: Yeah, his, his late mom. And, uh, he. Develops crushes on cute girls. He's a kid, he's allowed to be a kid. [00:24:25] Ian: Uh, he's the most child of this team of child soldiers. [00:24:30] Matthew: I do wonder if to some extent he was too much of a kid, too much like their expected audience in the US version because a show like this in the us I don't think that at the time, especially kids didn't necessarily want to, kids didn't necessarily wanna see kids like themselves. They wanted to see the slightly more grown up people they wanted to become. And then there's Tiny, who's Ryu the owl in the In Gatchaman. Oh. And get, get it. He's called Tiny. 'cause he's a big guy. [00:25:02] Ian: Yeah. How clever. Wow. [00:25:05] Matthew: And in battle with the planets, he's the butt of a lot of jokes and he complains about being left out of the action. When the others are in the middle of fights and things, and, and again, that seems very different than the way the character appears to me in, uh, in Gatchaman, [00:25:20] Ian: in, in Battle of the Planets. Tiny will complain about driving everyone there in Gatchaman doesn't matter what it is or if it has tires. Ryu could e-brake drift that thing into a perfect parallel park? He's amazing and fantastic driver. He's the guy who's just like, you know what? I will get us there through them. It is fantastic. He is awesome. [00:25:49] Matthew: He is, and he's the stalwart. He's the rock. He, he will be the one who's making sure all the civilians are, uh, are evacuated to someplace safe. The rest of the team are, are fighting the bad guys or the bad guys' robots. [00:26:02] Music: Mm-hmm. [00:26:05] Matthew: And he, and he's the owl and owls are objectively the best birds. So, [00:26:10] Ian: ah, [00:26:15] Matthew: and then a few other characters. We've got, we talked about 7 Zark 7 in that he was the robot addition, the response to Star Wars. [00:26:24] Ian: They gave him a sweater. [00:26:25] Matthew: Yeah, he, he did have good fashion sense. Sometimes he wore a sweater, sometimes he wore a cape. He had a dog. One rover, one ah, Ahuh. And he had a crush on Susan. Susan was an AI based on Pluto, who we, uh, we only know as a sultry voice on the radio. I believe that's all 7 Zark 7 knows of Susan also. And just as with 7 Zark 7. All of that, and everything that happens with Zark completely re completely animated, completely created specifically for Battle of the Planets. No reference to any of this in Gatchaman, [00:27:03] Ian: and the animation style is so different. It's got almost a little bit more of a rubber hose element in terms of all these snaking pipes and everything. It's got these. Blinking flashing lights in a much more Hanna-Barbera way. It's just so different. [00:27:19] Matthew: It is. And then we have one other character who they didn't really know what to do with Chief Anderson. Who in Gatchaman is Dr. Nambu, who is an executive at Interpol and a member of the International Science Organization and he's team Gatchaman's boss. He's the one who gives them assignments. Uh, he lays down the rules. He has their back when it comes to all the politics in battle, the planets, because they've got seven zark, seven monitoring things and giving Got, giving G-Force their assignments. It makes Chief Anderson kind of a middle manager. [00:27:57] Ian: Yeah. [00:27:59] Matthew: He's working now for the Intergalactic Federation of Friendly Planets. Yeah, they're, they're very loose with their cosmological terms here. [00:28:07] Ian: He's got, he's got a weird like shift lead kind of energy in Battle of the Planets, for sure. Yeah. Weird terms too. Friendly planets. Hmm. Wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay. If in Gatchaman. Dr. Nambu gives the instructions, but in Battle of the Planets 7 Zark 7 does. And Battle of the Planets seems to try to make everything seem more futuristic. Does that mean that 7 Zark 7 is actually Dr. Nambu and he's somehow inside the robot misremembering everything that was happening is this way darker than I thought? Are they the same guy? And we're watching a man inside a robot slowly lose his mind. Somebody, please stop me. I could go down this rabbit hole for a long time. [00:28:59] Audience member: Like the real R2D2 exactly. [00:29:01] Ian: Oh, goodness. Okay, good. [00:29:07] Matthew: Take a breath. [00:29:08] Ian: Oh, before I, before I burst into flames. Oh wait. [00:29:13] Matthew: Robot Dr. Nabu can't hurt you. He's not real. [00:29:15] Ian: Okay, good. [00:29:19] Matthew: And then we've got their, their vehicles. Their main ship is the Phoenix, the God Phoenix in the Japanese version. They weren't gonna keep that term in the, the American version of the seventies. And every one of the characters also has their own vehicle. Mark has a kind of a Cessna light aircraft that turns into a jet, and Jason has a race car. Uh, princess has the Galacticycle. Very cool. Motorcycle. I think sometimes also it's a snowmobile and a jet ski. And what is the thing that Keyop has? [00:29:52] Ian: I don't know. I, I, it, it, it seems almost like a. Why do I just wanna say like a warthog out of, uh, HALO. It's just weirdly rugged and bounces around. [00:30:05] Matthew: Yeah. It's like this jet assisted little one person tank thing called the star buggy. [00:30:10] Ian: Yeah. [00:30:10] Audience member: Wow. I love that. [00:30:13] Matthew: Oh goodness. And the phoenix where everybody has to, to ride and used for transport is Tiny's vehicle. Mm-hmm. He's the pilot of the Phoenix, [00:30:23] Ian: which does sometimes burst into flames. [00:30:26] Matthew: Yeah. It has this special mode. Where it transmutes into the fiery phoenix and usually catching on fire is a failure mode. [00:30:35] Ian: Yeah. [00:30:35] Matthew: For aircraft, it's not good. [00:30:36] Ian: That's usually not good, [00:30:38] Matthew: but it can get them out of a tight spot. It can be invincible to any enemy weapons. It can move at tremendous speed, but it's a dangerous thing to do, understandably. It's catching on fire. It, uh. The, the, the fiery phoenix takes a lot of their power. It taps into their cerebonic implants. [00:31:01] Ian: Yeah. [00:31:01] Matthew: And, uh, they, they, they use it sparingly, which is kind of refreshing. [00:31:07] Ian: Yeah. It's not as trippy as like, uh, sending the Yamato into warp, but it definitely is of a same, you know, everybody brace in your seats. This isn't going to be pleasant kind of scenario. Yeah. [00:31:22] Matthew: And in so many of these kinds of adventure shows, they'll set up at, at the beginning, well this is very dangerous. We can only use this sparingly. We should, it's we, we will use it now. 'cause it's life and death. And then every single episode in the last 10 minutes, they find an excuse to do it. [00:31:38] Ian: Yeah. And [00:31:38] Matthew: that doesn't happen here. No. It's, it's something they really do reserve for, uh, for extreme circumstances, which keeps it interesting. Keeps it special. [00:31:46] Ian: Exactly. Uh, I do love this about it. They show every time everybody buckling their seat belts. I do wonder what, like a small lap belt with a flip a buckle is going to help you with when your entire vehicle transmutes into fire. But they care about the safety. I like that. [00:32:12] Matthew: And I mentioned this character earlier, uh, Zoltar. Who in in Gatchaman was Berg Katse. AKA Mala. Now Zoltar, uh, in Battle of the Planets, works for Spectra, takes his orders from, and apparently sort of worships the Great Spirit, which is this disembodied head. That appears on his view screen and mainly he steals stuff from earth and attacks outer space bases and, uh, has a lot of unlikely mecha contraptions and, uh, subordinates to pilot them. [00:32:50] Ian: I will say, making that cape work. [00:32:54] Matthew: Yes, yes. Very, very cool style there. [00:32:57] Ian: The style is working. [00:33:00] Matthew: Now it gets somewhat weirder in Gatchaman. [00:33:03] Ian: You don't say [00:33:04] Matthew: a little bit. [00:33:05] Ian: Okay then! [00:33:06] Matthew: In Gatchaman, this character is Berg Katse, who is a, A mutant formed by artificial embryonic fusion of a male and female fraternal twins. [00:33:19] Ian: Wait, what? [00:33:20] Matthew: Yeah, this is pretty wild. [00:33:22] Ian: Okay. [00:33:23] Matthew: And because of that, Berg Katse can shift between genders. Sometimes it's Berg Katse, sometimes it's Mala. And in the few instances where in Battle of the Planets we see Mala, she is now Zara's sister. Mala Latroz [00:33:42] Ian: being the bad guy means you get to keep your name. They don't change your name if you're the bad guy. Apparently. I, of all the, everyone, she's the only one who keeps it. That's right. Oh my God. Wow. Okay. [00:34:00] Matthew: But I did not make you watch all 85 episodes of Battle with the Planets, and I did not make you watch all 105, 104 episodes of. Gatchaman [00:34:09] Ian: [singing] Gatchaman! No, we, but we [00:34:12] Matthew: did, we did select a few, which, uh, I thought were kind of representative, not necessarily the best episodes, but ones that showcased some of the similarities and differences. [00:34:23] Music: Mm-hmm. [00:34:24] Matthew: One of those was Attack of the Space Terrapin there's lots, lots of space and planet in the names for, um. Battle of the planets. Space robots, space colonies, uh, and also, um, uh, lots of strange locations and strange macha, but here, yeah, it's a giant robot turtle. [00:34:50] Ian: Yeah. Giant, giant robot. Very Gamera like, honestly, you know? Yes. Frank's keeping with his thing. [00:34:58] Matthew: Maybe that's what attracted Sandy Frank to this. [00:35:00] Ian: Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm abused by the difference in the. In the McGuffin because the robots, the way the bad guys are stealing stuff, but what they're stealing is so wildly different. [00:35:12] Matthew: Yeah. In, in Battle of the Planets, it's this made up element that is needed for farms in, uh, in Gatchaman it is a big box of uranium. They're not messing around. [00:35:22] Ian: There's such a difference. Battle plants. Oh no, we can't grow the wheat in Gatchaman. He's going to nuke the city. [00:35:31] Matthew: And we do see that one of their special fighting techniques. The rotor technique? [00:35:36] Ian: Yes. Oh goodness. [00:35:37] Matthew: Also known as the gotcha. Science Ninja Technique Tornado Fighter, they make a a cheer squad human pyramid. [00:35:43] Ian: It is absolute. It's weaponized cheerleading for sure. [00:35:46] Matthew: And they spin around really fast, which allows them to launch themselves with their enemies. [00:35:51] Ian: I am so much more impressed by, uh. I guess, oh, is it Tiny? And Jason, I guess if I'm gonna use the Battle of Planet's names, because they have to be at the bottom of this, can you imagine trying to spin in a circle, synchronize with someone else, with a pyramid of people standing on your shoulders? That is wild. [00:36:10] Matthew: We also watch Giant from Planet Zyr, which in the Gatchaman version is the Hell's Mecca Buddha. Yeah. Where it is a giant Buddha robot. Based somewhere in Southeast Asia who is, um, destroying, uh, a, uh, a city. And again, they're just shifting. They take the location from Earth and suddenly it's another planet. [00:36:38] Ian: Yeah. I, I do love all the images of, uh, the giant robot Buddha spinning its head to fire. Lasers have its eyes, which is its main form of weaponry. Wow. Just kind of stomping through the city. [00:36:51] Matthew: And we saw Save the Space Colony. We saw a clip from that when we learned that Zoltar is afraid of ghosts here. Um, Gatchaman their base in Gatchaman, the Science Ninja team's base has been destroyed, so they have to lay low. And, uh, uh, Berg Katse is using that opportunity to attack a, a tourist city in Battle of the planets. You guessed it. It's a space colony, [00:37:19] Ian: of course. [00:37:20] Matthew: And, uh, in both versions, the heroes pretend to be ghosts and scare Zoltar - Berg Katse. [00:37:28] Ian: That's apparently the universal thing. Everyone can get behind. Person in a sheet. Spooky. Yes. [00:37:35] Matthew: And then we have Peril in the Pyramids. Yes. Where, um, in the Battle of the Planets version, a desert pyramid is stolen from earth. [00:37:45] Ian: Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? It's absolutely that. [00:37:51] Matthew: And they transport it to an alien planet. [00:37:54] Ian: Why? [00:37:55] Matthew: Which, which is apparently Space Australia. Because it was settled as a prison originally. [00:37:58] Ian: I did love that. It, they, they, they spend so long describing, we sent all the prisoners and their families there, and I. That's a why, [00:38:08] Matthew: and this involves the fact that Spectra wants to mine something from this planet. So they're have their, their secret mining operation, which they're hiding by putting a giant pyramid that never used to be there in its place. [00:38:20] Ian: I need to keep this jar sealed. Luckily, I have Faberge egg to sit on top of it. Why? [00:38:26] Matthew: And meanwhile, um, Keyop is mistaken for, uh. Was by a, a nice lady as her missing little boy in Gatchaman. This place takes, this takes place in kind of a fictionalized Egypt, still on earth. The lady's son is not missing. He is dead and she knows that Jun Pei is not her son. She just wants to mother him for a bit to ease her grief. It's a much more touching story. It's. Most of the action is the same [00:38:58] Ian: in both e in both of them. If I remember correctly, the old lady steals a gun from an a bad guy guard and opens fire on the minions, which is like. Dang lady, I mean at least, at least Gatchaman or GForce cover up their violence with cool sounding things like boomerang darts. She's just opening with an automatic. [00:39:24] Matthew: So we have a couple of minutes left, so we wanna talk about our final questions. One of them is screen or no screen. Do you recommend Battle of the Planets to People? [00:39:33] Ian: I don't recommend Battle of the Planets to people. And I hate to say it, I don't think I recommend Gatchaman to people. They're too weird. [00:39:41] Matthew: I recommend giving them both a shot, I guess, but having the right expectations, knowing why Battle of the Planets is like it is, and I would expect more of Gatchaman. So I would say they're worth a shot, at least for anybody who's interested in retro anime. Makes sense. But then there's another question of revive, reboot or rest in peace. What should happen with this project? Project? Do we want. More of either of these Battle of the Planets or Gatchaman, do we wanna see a reboot? Should they just be left to be what they are? [00:40:11] Ian: Mm-hmm. That's a good question. There's definitely been versions [00:40:15] Matthew: there has, there was GForce Guardians of Space was Sandy Frank's second effort to adapt this, a more faithful adaptation of Gatchaman in the, the late, uh, eighties, [00:40:26] Ian: still space-based. [00:40:28] Matthew: And then ADV released their, uh, translation of Gatchaman. In 2005. [00:40:34] Ian: Hell yeah. [00:40:35] Matthew: And meanwhile, in Japan there was Gatchaman 2 a few year, uh, just in the very late seventies. It was actually a year or two after Battle of the Planets and Gatchaman Fighter, [00:40:45] Ian: We gave him a sword! [00:40:45] Matthew: A year or so after that. [00:40:47] Ian: I love it. [00:40:48] Matthew: But then there's another version, sort of [00:40:51] Ian: Gatchaman crowds is interesting. Gatchaman crowds is not really Gatchaman it's kind of more like. Digimon in the best way. It's, it's Gatchaman in vague theming, but I kind of like it. I don't know. [00:41:09] Audience member: The exes look cool. [00:41:10] Ian: It's it, it looks really cool. It's interesting CG stuff, but it's not quite the same. I think if we're looking at it, honestly though, this doesn't count as a a remake and I could see. Trying to get a new version of the original Gatchaman to work, that kind of darker story is more appreciated. Now. I, I could see it working as a mini series. What do you think, dad? [00:41:32] Matthew: I wouldn't be, wouldn't mind seeing a modern, updated, uh, reboot of Gatchaman. [00:41:37] Ian: Yeah. [00:41:38] Audience member: I would love to see it. [00:41:39] Ian: Oh yeah. [00:41:40] Matthew: And with that, I believe we're out of time. So thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very much for being here at NDK. Being here. At our panel, uh, if you want any more information about the Inter Millennium Media project, go to IMMProject.com. You'll find all of our back episodes and links to every play, every place else you can find us and everything else we're doing online. So thank you very much. And in the meantime, yeah, go find something new to watch.