Forum - View topicREVIEW: Science Ninja Team Gatchaman DVD 1-2
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Is that an Alex Ross illustration on the cover? I know he did art for the American comic, but I'm suprised ADV would go to him for the DVD covers.
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TranceLimit174
 Posts: 958 |
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Yes they are. Apparently he did those illustrations specifically for the release.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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Ross is been a huge Gatchaman fan, who has actively supported new Gatchaman material coming to the US. I'm not surprised they picked him up. It certaintly ranks as the best box art of the year. |
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6171 Location: USA |
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Well, I definitely have to own this one!
I grew up watching the 'Battle of the Planets' version when I lived in Florida. I couldn't wait to get home to watch this. Came on at 3pm. Then I moved to NY and that was the last I saw of the series. 'Star Blazers' sort of became the new 'BOTP', for me but I wasn't feeling it. I wanted my dosage of 'Mark', 'Jason', 'Princess', 'Tiny' and 'Keeyop' . Oh, and let's not forget '7-Zark-7', '1-Rover-1, 'Susan', 'Voltar' and the 'Luminous One'. The dubbing was in my opinion top notch. Hey they had 'Casey Cassem'.  I hadn't even heard of 'G-Force' until some years later. When I saw it was I appalled. But finding out about the true version, I never would have imagined that the show went that long 105 ep. that's a lot! But the first 'Tetsuwan Atom'/Astro Boy' beat that ending at 193 with the 80's series ending at 52. But let's not forget season 2 and 3 of 'Gatchaman'. But season 1 wins.
Hey it may be dated but it's probably still worth checking out if you're a fan from that genre or even curious. A lot can be owed to that series. And I must admit 'Alex Ross' is a god! If anyone knew how to get a gorgeous composition where the characters look the way they're supposed to, it's him! I've recommended the boxset to our library so we have it in our collection now. This gives students an opportunity to see a piece of "anime" history. I've had the chance of reading a number of positive reviews on this series. Not including this one. Also, many of the animated shows that we see now can also owe their inspirations and parodies to 'Gatchaman' and other sentai and robot shows of the 70's and 80's. Such shows like 'Dexter's Laboratory', 'Megas XLS', 'Samurai Jack', 'Life as a Teenage Robot', 'Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!', 'Teen Titans' as well as others. 
But the review I felt was fair. |
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areaseven
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1486 Location: Makati, Philippines |
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Quite frankly, I disagree with Key's criticism of the animation quality. If you were around 33 years ago, you would've thought, "Wow! That anime has the best animation out there." You simply can't compare it to newer titles because the animation styles are completely different.
BTW, do not trust ADV's TV-PG rating. Even by today's standards, most of Gatchaman's episodes merit a TV-14 rating, as the series progressively becomes darker and more violent. Especially within episode 103 when spoiler[Joe gets killed]. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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That's another question for those numerous bonus discs. You think ADV will make a featurette about Battle of the Planets?
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Treeloot
Posts: 140 |
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The animation grade is how good the movement is, not how good the art is. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18179 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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The differences in animation styles are irrelevant unless one is rating the series on how good it was for its time - and that's not what I am doing here. It's simple fact that both animation quality and storytelling in anime have advanced dramatically over the past 35 years, so even an exceptional effort from 33 years ago might be equal to only an average - or even below average - title now. Gatchaman is certainly nowhere near in league with a title like Paranoia Agent or Elfen Lied; heck, it's not even in the same league as a DBZ or Naruto. In general most TV series dating from the early '80s or earlier don't match up well to series from the past decade when it comes to technical merits. Does that mean they're bad series by comparison? Heck no! Despite the ratings I gave it, I really like Gatchaman. But let's be realistic here about quality issues. |
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Ryusui
 Posts: 461 |
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The thing that's kept me from going for this thus far has been my experience with ADV's other attempt at dubbing a classic series: Saint Seiya. Wooden dialogue, mispronunciations galore, the general feeling that the ADR director was either asleep or drunk at the wheel the entire time...about as listenable as your average 4Kids dub (for different reasons, but you get the idea).
So with Saint Seiya as the fool's-gold standard, how does Gatchaman's dub stand up? |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18179 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Never seen Saint Seiya, so I can't compare, but this is a quite respectable dub job. I daresay the English VA for Ken actually embodies the role better than the original. The only quibble that I could see anyone who isn't a hard-core purist reasonably having with the dub is its use of accents on some characters. (It seems to be a rule in anime dubs that all ground flight controllers for spacecraft have to have Texan accents, for instance.)
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