Science Ninja Team Gatchaman

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman

Original Title

科学忍者隊ガッチャマン Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman

Original Language

Japanese

Dubbing Studio 1

TV-R Hollywood

Dubbing Studio 2

Sparklin' Entertainment

Dubbing Studio 3

ADV Studios

Voice Director 1

Alan Dinehart

Voice Director 2

Alan Dinehart, Jr.

Voice Director 3

Fred Ladd

Voice Director 4

Charles Campbell

Translation & Adaptation

Sarah Alys Lindholm
Amy Forsyth
Brendan Frayne
Fufei Zhang
Issei Shimizu
Naomi Kokubo
Charles Campbell
Cyndi Williams
Elena Carrillo
Monica Rial
(ADV Dub)

Recorded

1978
1986
2005

Dub Country

United States

Original Country

Japan

Episodes

105
85
(BOTP/G-Force)

Year

1972-1974

Dubbing History[]

Battle of the Planets[]

Gatchaman was first adapted for English audiences in 1978, after the international license was acquired by Television producerSandy Frank. The acquisition was partly to capitalize on the success ofStar Wars, which was released the prior year.Battle of the Planets differed significantly from its original source material. The adaptation was heavily edited to remove violence and character fatalities, usually through cutting or dubbing explanatory voice-overs. Animation of outer-space was added to give the impression that the Phoenix was flying through space, and that many of the episodes took place on Earth-like planets - another attempt to associate itself withStar Wars. The voice cast consisted mainly of Hanna-Barbera regulars, such as Casey Kasem (Shaggy Rogers inScooby-Doo) and Janet Waldo (Judy Jetson inThe Jetsons). The episodes kept the original score by Bob Sakuma, though new music by American composer Hoyt Curtin was blended in to either fill in gaps where cuts were made or fill in silent moments.

One change, likely to put emphasis on the sci-fi nature of the show, Keyop (Jinpei) became a genetically engineered lifeform rather than a child. Due to slightly defective engineering, he picked up a bizarre verbal tic of stuttering. The character of Zoltar (Berg Katse) was altered to avoid controversy, as Katse was originally a shape-shifting character who had a male and female-half due to being created from a pair of twins. The episodes where his female half appeared were all written off as separate characters, due to being translated out of order rather than a consciousness of Jameson Brewer and other writers knowing the twist.

In order to explain away a lot of the cuts as well as pad the episode length, new animation of a robot character named "7-Zark-7" was animated by Gallerie International Films. Zark would primarily provide narration, as well as light comic relief. As anotherStar Wars influence, Zark highly resembles R2-D2 while having a somewhat campy personality similar to C-3PO. Notionally, 7-Zark-7 ran the undersea monitoring station Center Neptune, from where he received information regarding incoming threats to Earth and relayed that information to G-Force. In addition to Zark, was his robotic pet 1-Rover-1 who would occasionally appear.

As mentioned before, the episodes were wildly out of order, (for instance, the 3rd episode aired was actually the 65th inGatchaman) this is due to Tatsunoko Productions sending them the film reels in that order, and the dubbing team proceeding to translate as they received them. References to previous episodes that had yet to be dubbed had to be written out, or other points of confusion wound up created in the process, particularly over the fate of Mark's father.

In all, 85 sporadic episodes were covered, with the latest being Episode 101. Although it was at one point considered to cover all 105 episodes (by Jameson Brewer's account), Sandy Frank had decided that 85 episodes were adequate for syndication.

G-Force: Guardians of Space[]

During the 1980's, Television standards had relaxed significantly. Sandy Frank, wanting to take advantage of this, partnered up with Turner Broadcasting to create a new more faithful adaptation ofGatchaman, this time titledG-Force: Guardians of Space. Despite this, Sandy Frank was not directly involved with this adaptation, instead opting to leave Turner Program Services to hire people to adapt the series.

Originally, a pilot dub of Episode 26 was produced for Turner by the Media360 group, and dubbed in Atlanta, Georgia using local actors (including futureStar Trek: Deep Space Nine actressFaith Salie). Turner rejected the pilot as it was deemed too expensive to utilize their facilities, and rejected other dub pilots produced by other various studios that they contacted for the project. Turner would then turn toFred Ladd, a pioneer in translating and distributing Japanese animation in the U.S., having previously worked on famous titles such asAstro Boy,Gigantor andKimba, the White Lion. Ladd, through his companies Sparklin' Entertainment and Bruce Austin Productions, put together two "test" pilot episodes chosen by Turner (Episodes 18 & 87), and sent them in for approval.

Within days, Ladd and his company were given the greenlight to produce the adaptation, and work on G-Force began in the fall of 1986. Ladd, along with composer Dean Andre, had only three months to get through dubbing the series and some lapses in continuity with script work occurred in the rushed schedule; The Director Anderson character would usually keep his name, but inexplicably switch to being called "Commander Todd" along with other anomalies noted by viewers.

G-Force stuck significantly closer to the original script, but was still watered down significantly. Though none ofBattle of the Planets original elements were retained, many of the plots, backstories, violence and deaths were edited or softened. Many silent moments were filled in with a sole repetitive synthesized backbeat, which clashed with the music of the original series. Originally it was intended to create a new score, though this was scrapped due to the cost and time constraints. Although this version was less heavily edited and had a relatively faithful translation, the voice acting, background music and the Americanized character names were all criticized.

Only 85 of 87 episodes were dubbed, skipping Episode 81 due to not receiving Tatsunoko's simple English script for it and Episode 86 due to Fred Ladd already fulfilling the 85-episode quota. Only 85 episodes were able to be sub-licensed through Sandy Frank to match theirBotP amount, though some sources including Ladd himself had wondered if lack of interest from Turner executives in adapting further episodes cut it short. UnlikeBotP, the episodes were mostly received and adapted in order, outside of those two pilots.

The show initially aired for a week in the summer of 1987 as a "test run" on WTBS in America, used to fulfill a contractual obligation so it could be exported overseas. It would later be used as timeslot filler for Cartoon Network in their Super Adventures block through 1995-1997, where it received a larger audience, along with having international dubs based off of it in other countries. It was briefly re-run on the Toonami block in 2000, as part of their Midnight Run, but proceeded to disappear afterwards.

ADV Dub[]

At Anime Central 2004,ADV Films announced that they had sub-licensed the rights from Sandy Frank to do an uncut dub of the series. Between 2005 and 2006, 18 volumes were released on DVD containing all 105 episodes uncut and redubbed by ADV's Houston, Texas based voice cast. The dub was a more faithful translation thanG-Force with no attempts to modify it for a younger audience, retaining all swearing, deaths and violence. Though the dub did contain some creative changes such as 70's slang and profanity.

Sandy Frank's International license expired in early 2007, thus forcing ADV's sets out of print (along with Rhino Entertainment'sBattle of the Planets DVD's). ADV itself would go bankrupt a year later. However, in 2013 ADV's successor,Sentai Filmworks would license the series from Tatsunoko Productions and re-release the ADV dub on Blu-Ray, along with a new dub of the 1990's OVA. In addition, Sentai also owns the streaming rights toBattle of the Planets, available to stream on The Anime Network.

Cast[]

Image	Character	Seiyū	BOTP[1]	G-Force	ADV Dub
	Ken Washio	Katsuji Mori	Casey Kasem	Sam Fontana	Leraldo Anzaldua
	Joe Asakura	Isao Sasaki	David Jolliffe(ep. 1)	Cam Clarke	Brian Jepson
			Ronnie Schell	¿?(eps. 39-40)
	Jun	Kazuko Sugiyama	Janet Waldo	Barbara Goodson	Kim Prause
	Jinpei	Yoku Shioya	Alan Young		Luci Christian
	Ryu Nakanishi	Shingo Kanemoto	Ronnie Schell (ep. 1)	Gregg Berger (eps. 1-60, 85 / test pilot #2)	Victor Carsrud
			Alan Dinehart	Jan Rabson (eps. 61-84)
	Dr. Nambu	Tōru Ōhira		Gregg Berger (eps. 1-60, 85)	Andy McAvin
				Jan Rabson (eps. 61-84)
	Director Anderson	Teiji Ōmiya	Edward Andrews	Bill Capizzi	Marty Fleck
	Red Impulse	Hisayoshi Yoshizawa	Keye Luke	Cam Clarke	John Tyson
	Berg Katse	Mikio Terashima		Bill Capizzi	Edwin Neal
	Leader X	Nobuo Tanaka			Charles Campbell
	7-Zark-7		Alan Young
	Narration	Hideo Kinoshita	William Woodson	Norm Prescott	George Manley

Additional Voices[]

The case of replacement voice actors[]

InBattle of the Planets, David Jolliffe provided Jason's voice for the pilot but opted to not stay on for the series as a regular due to wanting to further his music career. He would still show up in a few guest roles through the show from time to time, though Ronnie Schell (who had played Tiny in the pilot) would fill the role of Jason. This led to Alan Dinehart voicing Tiny.

WithG-Force, the voice acting pool used for the dub was kept small like a "family" affair, with the group of five actors (Fontana, Clarke, Goodson, Berger, and Capizzi) handling multiple roles in a given episode. Unfortunately, while Fred Ladd intended to keep things that simple, he also had to cover for unforeseen circumstances.

In the first case, Cam Clarke was on vacation or out of town for other reasons for about 2 or 3 weeks, missing the recording sessions for a few episodes (The Morpheus Plant two-parter can be confirmed to align with that), leading to Ladd to go with a sound-alike voice actor he never identified in interviews, but who he claimed was the most credible choice at the time and someone who sounded similar enough to Clarke although not exact.

The second case involved Gregg Berger's departure around episode 60 or so. At the time even in 1986, Berger had started to become a popular voice actor who wound up running into conflicts over his schedule and dubbing jobs, which led him to leave theG-Force production. Fred Ladd hired Jan Rabson to take over for Berger, specifically choosing Rabson as another sound-alike instance but for a more permanent recast. Rabson stayed as Hooty, Brighthead, and other roles for the remainder of the production.

G-Force Pilot (Media360)[]

It is currently unknown exactly how many otherG-Force pilots were produced pre-Fred Ladd, and if they were kept by their companies, but a fragment exists of this version.

Image	Character	Seiyū	Dub Actor
	Ken Washio (Lucas)	Katsuji Mori	Don Spalding
	Joe Asakura (Jason)	Isao Sasaki	Barry Stoltze
	Jun (Rachel)	Kazuko Sugiyama	Faith Salie
	Jinpei (David)	Yoku Shioya	John Ferguson
	Ryu Nakanishi (Quintin)	Shingo Kanemoto	Doug Paul
	Dr. Nambu (Professor Nicholas)	Tōru Ōhira	Barry Stoltze
	Berg Katse (Commander Zol)	Mikio Terashima	Doug Paul
	Leader X (Commander Tiros)	Nobuo Tanaka	John Ferguson
	Narration	Hideo Kinoshita	Doug Paul

Character Names[]

Each respective adaptation of the dub would rename the characters, excluding ADV which retained the original Japanese names. This was done so as to differentiateBattle of the Planets fromG-Force.

Notes[]

• According to Australian anime historian Kelly Patrick Lannan, an early alternative English dub titledThe Gutman was said to have been produced as early as the late '70s, although little is known about this version except that it had 39 episodes.^[2] According to his summary, Lannan himself had no clue of its origins, and its existence was first brought to light inBiB TV Programming catalogs listing it as a license from Tatsunoko Productions and Yomiko Advertising. The most common theory for its existence is that it was an early English-language test dub that was directly commissioned by Tatsunoko-Yomiko themselves, before the sale to Sandy Frank; it is possible but not verified that the studio could have beenFrontier Enterprises, who had dubbed previous Tatsunoko productions for sale in Australia (Space Ace,Gazula, and others) and was also responsible for many in-house English productions of that period. However, outside of the the program catalogs, it cannot be determined if this dub ever aired.
• In 2002, Frank created a 70-minute compilation film editing several different episodes ofBattle of the Planets together. Surprisingly, scenes of civilian violence and death were included in this edit. Although most of the original voice cast was left intact, 7-Zark-7 was redubbed by David Brent Egan.
• The voice actors other than Casey Kasem, Ronnie Schell, Janet Waldo, Alan Young, Alan Dinehart, and Keye Luke were only ever listed in the credits forBattle of the Planets. The knowledge of the other actors comes from records at Sandy Frank Entertainment. In contrast,G-Force's dub was more straightforward in being a small cast.
• Due to Sandy Frank owning the International Rights to the show outside of Japan until 2007, most foreign dubs were based onBattle of the Planets, so in other-words are dubs of a dub.
• Fred Ladd was previously offered to produceBattle of the Planets by Sandy Frank, though he declined citing location conflicts (Ladd was based in New York, while the show was dubbed in California), as well as a lack of confidence in the initial lip-sync writer Frank had hired before Jameson Brewer's involvement.
• Frank was looking to doing a new redub ofBattle of the Planets in 2003, with voices provided byOcean Productions's Vancouver-based talent pool. The series would have compacted the 85 episodes and 20 unadapted episodes into 52 episodes, as well as having 7-Zark-7 rendered in CGI. These plans were scrapped due to cost concerns.

Transmission[]

G-Force: Guardians of Space

Date(s)	Channel	Country
1987	TBS	United States
1995-1997; 2000	Cartoon Network

Video Releases[]

Battle of the Planets

Distributor	Year	Format	Contents	Region	Country
Rhino Entertainment	2001-2003		Eps 1-38	1 NTSC	United States
			6 Volumes 2 Special Editions
Playback	2004		The Complete Series	2 PAL	United Kingdom
			15 Discs

G-Force: Guardians of Space

Distributor	Year	Format	Contents	Region	Country
Rhino Entertainment	2004		The Best of G-Force	1 NTSC	United States

Gatchaman

Distributor	Year	Format	Contents	Region	Country
ADV Films	2005-2006		The Complete Series	1 NTSC	United States
			18 Volumes
Sentai Filmworks	2013		The Complete Series	A DVB-T
			14 Discs

See Also[]

• Gatchaman: The Movie
• Gatchaman (OVA)
• Eagle Riders
• Gatchaman Crowds

References[]

External Links[]

• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman at the Internet Movie Database
• Battle of the Planets at the Internet Movie Database
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia