Forum - View topicNEWS: Sentai Filmworks to Release Gatchaman Fighter on DVD
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Wrangler
 Posts: 1346 |
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It's Battle of the Planets, dammit.
I know it was butchered as heck, but it was one those earlier shows that got me into anime. I think only wrong thing with it was how nasty they were in Japanese original and yet the newer versions Crowds version they take complete left turn. Last edited by Wrangler on Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:13 am; edited 1 time in total |
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NJ_
 Posts: 3009 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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It's actually the other half of Eagle Riders. 
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TheHTRO
Posts: 326 |
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Both of you are incorrect (no offense). Eagle Riders was actually based on Gatchaman II, in which:
.spoiler[Joe the Condor (Joe "Keene" in Eagle Riders), thought to have been dead after his heroic sacrifice is brought back to life as a cyborg. Oh yeah, and Gel Sadra (AKA: "Mallanox") is the new lead villain replacing Berg Katse ("Zoltar" in Battle of the Planets; "Galactor" in G-Force).] As far as I know, this is the first time Gatchaman F has ever been released in North America in any form. You might want to update your article, ANN. [actually reads part of article] Oops. I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know. I only knew about the Gatchaman II part. Until just now, I didn't know there were 65 episodes, with some of them coming from Gatchaman F. The U.S. airing must have been cancelled because of bad ratings or something. Again, I'm very sorry. I really didn't know until now. |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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I wonder how many people commenting on this have actually seen ANY of the original Gatchman TV series?
I've seen Gatchaman Crowds and it's nothing like the original Gatchaman. Yes, you have the bird motiff in a costume or two, transformation devices, and the chest emblem but that's about it. It's a completely new series with the Gatchaman name and ONE of the original voice actors as the alien mentor of the team. That's all it has in common with the 1970s series. It's a cute series, otherwise. I did like the performance by Jessica Cavello as Hajime. It was suitably crazy, eccentric performance of a strange character! As far as the original Gatchaman goes -- third time was the charm with the English dub. The ADV Films dub is by far the best anybody ever did with that series. Forget about Battle of the Planets and G-Force -- this is the definitive English version of Gatchaman. It's also one of the better ADV dubs and I daresay one of the better English dubs of a classic anime series, PERIOD. ADV's casting director, vocal director, and the cast really hit it out of the park with that series. It's worth getting on DVD or Blu ray. (I can't comment on the Blu ray -- I have the original DVD releases with the Alex Ross box art.) It's way better than the 1994 OVAs, too. I didn't care for the redesigns in the OVA not that the OVA series had much of anything new to add... The OVA was basically a reanimated version of the top episodes and plotlines from the original Gatchaman series. The OVA was a wasted opportunity, IMHO. I've seen all of the original series and 10-15 episodes from the second and third. It's not hard to find episodes online but a few years back it was definitely possible to see more of the second and third series online with subtitles. I will also say this -- in a way, the ending to Gatchaman Fighter was repeated in the 1994 OVA series. It's similar... It's sort of like how Re: Cyborg 009 (the feature film) adapted one of the intended endings for the Cyborg 009 series. (Haven't seen the live-action Gatchaman movie... Aside from Yamato and the 2004 Cutie Honey film, I haven't generally cared for live-action adaptations of anime properties. They just fall flat and generally miss the point. It doesn't help that Japanese studios don't have the budget to visually recapture most anime designs or the rhythm of animation in live-action. If there are two things that don't adapt well to live-action, it's superheroes and most 'crazy' animated characters. Gatchaman is both!) Unless you're a completist, I think there's almost no point in getting the second and third series. The majority of people are not going to like the second and third series as much as the first show unless you're completely caught up in visuals and I really don't think they improved the look of the series in the later shows, either. More importantly, the good storylines are in the original series, too. The original series is a landmark, a classic in anime. The designs -- aside from the 1970s hairdo's and clothing -- are great, and the shows has it fill of classic villain, memorable heroes, and some great monsters and mecha designs. It's very well-acted and has one of the great anime theme songs, too. Heck, I use the Gatchaman theme as a ringtone on my cellular! The sequel shows -- not so much. The follow-up villains do NOT match Berg Katse (Galactor/Zoltar/the "Cobra Commander" of the series) and the sequel shows feel like retreads. Nothing new there. The reinventions of the main villains and the mecha fall flat, IMHO. All the good ideas were presented and used in the original Gatchaman. There were better mecha and character designs in the original series, too. There isn't much to commend in the sequel shows. Sure, the linework is cleaner in the sequels since they chose to use a sketchier style of drawing for the original show (which I felt actually worked). The animation itself isn't any better than the original show and I felt that the sequel series' mecha were not as good as what was created for the original series, too. The original God Phoenix and individual G-vehicles are hallmarks of anime design. The follow-up mecha in Gatchaman II and G Fighter? Not so much. They're Power Ranger toys and most of us know how well those are designed! |
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snake-eyes
 Posts: 134 |
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I Loved watching Science Ninja Team Gatchaman on DVD and agree that ADV did the best dub! Battle of the Planets was my introduction to Gatchaman. I ordered Gatchaman II and will get Gatchaman Fighter too! I Loved the 70's! Disco Music, the clothes were Far Out, the hair styles were neat too!
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NJ_
Posts: 3009 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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My introduction to Gatchaman was through G-Force on Cartoon Network in 1995 at a time when they were mostly airing Hanna Barbera cartoons and I wasn't aware of what it really was until Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom was announced in Japan in 2008. I bought the show when Sentai released it on Blu-ray in 2013 and was surprised at how good ADV's redub was because IIRC, this dub was done at around the same time as their Macross redub so it surprised me how good this was and how weak Macross was (though the DVD extras for that show made up for it). The Sentai set kept most of the ADV extras and those were a lot of fun to watch, especially the Battle of the Planets stuff since I wasn't aware of how big that dub was internationally.
The 90s OVAs were weak but Sentai's recent redub of those were pretty good and so was the 1978 movie dub with the movie itself being okay for a condensed retelling of the first show. As for Crowds, the first season was okay but I really wish Sentai had gotten the Director's Cut of the finale since I heard that episode was needed to understand the ending. I have yet to buy & watch Insight but it's good to know that they have episode 0 for that. As for II & Fighter, of course I'm buying them because just like with the first series, I have waited a long time for releases of these and though I've heard mixed things about them (and even spoiled myself with some key moments), I'll watch and judge for myself if they're bad or not. |
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ValkyrieZeroZeroOne
 Posts: 432 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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The article also incorrectly states that Sentai has previously released Gatchaman II. That series won't be released until April 18.
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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There's a story behind the Macross dub at ADV. They did an interview for ANN with Carl Macek some years before he died. He was at ADV for a while -- around the time they were handling their releases of Robotech on DVD and went on a kick of acquiring the rights to do subs of Mospeada, Southern Cross, and later Macross after AnimEigo's rights to that series lapsed. Of course, ADV used AnimEigo's restoration of the 16mm film dupes that Harmony Gold used to create Robotech in the first place! Anyhow, somebody at ADV basically wanted to show up Carl Macek and produce the "ultimate English dub" of Macross. Personally, I think it was a wasteful exercise considering Robotech wasn't THAT far off the main Macross storyline for the first 36 episodes which WERE adapted from Macross line-to-line for most episodes AND at any rate Robotech was what most people were familiar with and THAT'S what they wanted in English! This is what purists don't understand... People get attached to certain dubs OR prefer them to Japanese casts in some instances. I for one am NOT crazy about the Japanese voice of Goku (Dragonball Z) because frankly it's a woman and the voice is very high-pitched. In that case, I definitely prefer Sean Schemmel (for audio that is not screeching to my ears and definitely gets across the point that Goku is an innocent, dopey guy in English!) and I'm not a huge DBZ fan. I'm not going to shout down people who like the Japanese version better, either! The anime faithful were just not going to spend money to get an English dub of Macross... Most of the guys who really wanted Macross already got the AnimEigo subtitled DVDs... (I heard they sold close to 10,000 sets... of the full series.) Heck, one of the complaints about the ADV Macross was that they DIDN'T use the restored Japanese audio from the AnimEigo release! The Japanese audio on the ADV release sounded tinny!!!! (At least it sounded that way to me and I HAVE both releases!!!) At any rate, the last time Macross was released on DVD(-R) in the US a few years back they DIDN'T bother to include the ADV dub on the discs. They were sub-only. I don't think that last release sold particularly well, either. It was an Amazon-exclusive... I already had the show but the DVD-R pretty much sealed the deal for me not even bothering to search for the Amazon listing!!! [For anybody waiting on Robotech or Macross coming to Blu ray in the States... Not gonna happen anytime. HG is consumed with producing the live-action Robotech which is pretty much why there hasn't been any follow-up on ANIMATED Robotech since 2007. Straight from the HG rep -- they don't feel the US market is strong enough to support a release of Robotech on Blu ray. Translation from me: Harmony Gold wants another company to fund a high-definition remaster of their show!!! Chances are IF Sony does actually produce a Robotech live-action film in the next 5 years, THEN the show may get a BD release... after Sony pays to prep it for HD!] To put it plainly -- ADV FUBAR'd their Macross dub. It was handled wrongly... I seriously doubt ADV Macross had the same voice director as the Gatchaman dub and the cast was certainly different. The Gatchaman cast was perfect and the voice director "got" the show. I didn't agree with some of the main casting choices for Macross and love her or not as the original Minmay Mari Ijima was just not fluent in English to act that well. I really felt as controversial as this may sound to people that the voice acting was better in Robotech AND the characters were cast better for the 1985 dub. If there was one main character who I felt had a better English speaking voice for the Robotech dub, it was Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijo. I really felt Tony Oliver was a better matchup for a guy who was SUPPOSED to be a hotshot stunt pilot who ultimately became a fighter pilot. (Hotshot pilots are as a general rule VERY arrogant. Check out the biographies of any significant American fighter pilot and you'll find that's generally true as a rule.) I like him as Lupin III as well. He has the right vocal quality for that character. I don't pretend he sounds anything like the Lupin Japanese actors but that's NOT the point -- it's capturing the "attitude" of the character and frankly Lupin SHOULD sound like sort of a wiseass as far as I'm concerned! The original Japanese voiceover artist for Hikaru I felt was a bit too mild and I was thrown by hearing Edward Elric in ADV's Macross dub... It just didn't work for me. Oddly enough, ADV's Roy Rocker sounded like the Robotech Roy Fokker... Weird -- I'm pretty sure they DIDN'T reuse Dan Woren as Roy Fokker but the ADV cast member sounded close to him! |
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NJ_
Posts: 3009 Location: Wallington, NJ |
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Actually someone who bought the set confirmed that it is included so Harmony Gold simply didn't promote it and nobody knew and also, the Robotech episodes on those discs were the original broadcast version and not ADV's remaster, which they had re-released a couple of times up to that point.
I'm not so sure about that, a few weeks ago it was announced that a Blu-ray release was coming to France from Kaze and that it would include both French & Japanese audio (source). It's most likely an upscale of the old masters since France is also Harmony Gold territory and I don't see Japan giving up their own Blu-ray masters for this. |
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