Rating: 
Summary: Good Show, Bad Layout
Review: "Kaguta Ninja Tai Gatchaman" ("Science Ninja Team Gatchaman") is an anime series that debuted in Japan in 1972. It was about a team of 5 kids (4 teenagers and a preteen) that fought the evil Galactor organization, which was bent on world conquest. Sandy Frank brought the series over to the U.S. in 1978. Due to Standards and Practices restrictions at the time, a lot of violence had to be cut before the series could be dubbed into English. To fill in the time and gaps left in the story, new footage was animated of an American-made character, 7-Zark-7, a robot (which looked a lot like R2D2 to capitalize on the "Star Wars" craze at the time) that watched over the team from Center Neptune (an underwater base; don't ask), and his robotic canine companion, 1-Rover-1. Zark's job was, through voice-overs, to assure the audience that nobody died, or, if a plane got blown up, a robot was at the controls. Oddly, for a character that was created to censor things, Zark had a lot of sezual conversations with Susan, his robotic love interest on Pluto, over space radio. The fact that Susan sounds like a phone sex operator, and that Zark's antennae spring to full erection when she talks to him, makes this even more hilarious. Whereas Gatchaman was entirely Earth-based, BotP often had the kids going to another planet that looked exactly like Earth. I think you can see where this is going. In addition, the kids got name changes - even those that already had English names! Ken, Joe, Jun, Jimpei, and Ryu became Mark (as in Hammill), Jason, Princess (as in Leia), Keyop (WTF?), and Tiny Harper. The voice casting wasn't that great. Casey Kasem (Mark) sounded nothing like a teenager. In total, 85 of the 105 episodes got "the BotP treatment" (though not exactly the first 85 episodes). Personally, I think that this dub is so bad, it's unintentionally funny. Later, Turner did their own dub of Gatchaman, called "G-Force". The voices were better, more violence was retained, and there was no Zark. However, the characters were renamed again. This time, the names were extremely stupid: Ace Goodheart, Dirk Daring, Agatha Jun (Aggie to her friends; the only sensible name), PeeWee, and Hoot Owl (Hootie). Again, 85 of the 105 episodes were dubbed, but they weren't exactly the same 85 episodes that made it into BotP. One annoying (or hilarious, depending on the person) thing about "G-Force" is that they often added a repetitive, pulsing techno beat in the background. I crack up whenever it comes on, and it comes on multiple times per episode. It's so totally out of place, yet I enjoy it. Anyway, this DVD contains 2 episodes of "Battle of the Planets" as the main feature and the 2 corresponding episodes of "Kaguta Ninja Tai Gatchaman" and 1 episode of "G-Force" as special features. The BotP episodes have the original 2.0 mono track and a 5.1 remixed track. The Gatchaman episodes have the 2.0 mono track only and the option of English subtitles. The "G-Force" episode has the original English track as well as Spanish and Brazilian dialect Portuguese tracks. I think that Rhino was trying to offer a way for us to view all 3 versions of the show, but, by including only 1 episode of "G-Force", they totally messed it up. The format is 2, 2, and 1. So, Volume 1 contains Gatchaman and BotP episodes 1 & 2 and "G-Force" episode 1, Volume 2 contains Gatchaman and BotP episodes 3 & 4 and "G-Force" episode 2, etc. It makes no sense. We didn't need the Spanish and Portuguese tracks. This is America! They should have put those tracks on the foreign DVD releases. Without those extra tracks, there would be enough room for a second "G-Force" episode, and that would keep the right episodes paired together. Overall, I recommend this disc and the others in the series. For those of you that have never seen "Battle of the Planets", this will give you an idea of the censorship on American television in the late 1970s. For those of you that are buying this to relive your childhood, be warned: your love of "Battle of the Planets" is probably based on nostalgia only; you might find the series to be completely retarded now.
Rating: 
Summary: Zark! (The Herald Angels Sing!)
Review: After years of waiting, "Battle of the Planets" has finally reached DVD! Now, you can re-live those weekday afternoons from the late 70's, when you raced home from school to catch the daring exploits of Ken, Joe, Jun....er....Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop, and Tiny! (Yay!)As you surely know, "Battle of the Planets" was the title given to Sandy Frank's re-working of the Japanese "Gatchaman" series. The violence of the original series was toned (way) down and new animation was made to compensate for the edits. In order to capitalize on the then-current Star Wars boom, "7-Zark-7 (an R2-D2 clone) was created and appears in most of the new footage. "Zark" served as the team's coordinator, the show's narrator, and he would explain away plot holes that occurred due to the large amount of film that was trimmed away by the producers. The picture quality of the Battle of the Planets episodes is very good! For a show that must have been mastered from 16mm prints, the images are fairly sharp and the colors are good. (In the 70's, syndicated TV shows were all 16mm - only networks used 35mm). Episodes that originally had teasers before the opening credits are complete with the teasers! The production values of BOTP are quite high. Obviously, the producers spent a lot of money getting this show made. The voice actors used in the making of BOTP were the best in their field at the time. Casey Kasem, Janet Waldo, Keye Luke, and Alan Young are all professionals and must not have come cheap. They handle the (sometimes silly) scripts very well and really enhance the series. Compare the voice work on this series to other shows of the same era (like Force Five) to see how good it is! Another thing BOTP has going for it is the music. In addition to the original music composed for Gatchaman (by Bob Sakuma), Sandy Frank employed the services of Hoyt Curtin. Mr. Curtin, mostly known for his classic Hanna Barbera scores (like Jonny Quest & The Flintstones), composed BOTP's theme music and other incidental music cues used throughout the series. The fully-orchestrated scores are stirring and memorable. Overall, this DVD set is a great value! In addition to two classic Battle of the Planets episodes, you get the original Gatchaman episodes the BOTP episodes were based on. You also get one episode of the mid-80's "G-Force" series. You can now see Gatchaman in all of its various forms! The Gatchaman episodes are a nice addition to the set and really enhance the collection. As you obviously know, Zark is nowhere to be seen, and the stories tend to be more intense than the cleaned-up BOTP episodes. For someone who doesn't have warm and fuzzy memories of Battle of the Planets, you'll probably prefer Gatchaman. Generally, the Gatchaman episodes look great, but there are a couple of problems with the presentation of them... First of all, the mastering is a bit suspect in places. Some scenes appear dark and murky. While I expect less than 100% print quality for the 16mm BOTP episodes, Gatchaman was originally mastered in 35mm for Japanese network television, so the picture quality should be better. When Gatchaman was released in Japan on LD and DVD the transfers were excellent. I only wish Rhino employed the same quality control here. The other weak aspect of the Gatchaman episodes is the English translation. While it does allow the viewer to follow the action fairly well, it seems more like a fan-produced work than that of a professional. The person who prepared the translation obviously had a good Japanese-to-English dictionary, but not a very good understanding of the Japanese language itself. As a result, the translation is stiff and unnatural. It lacks nuance and style. (There are also a few places throughout the episodes that weren't translated at all...) The second "bonus" on each disk is one episode of the mid-80's version of Gatchaman, "G-Force". Unless this is the version you grew up with, I doubt you will watch it much. While the episodes themselves are less edited than BOTP, the production values are extremely poor. The voice "actors" used here are laughably bad and they seem genetically incapable of showing any kind of emotion at all. The "music" employed in this series sounds like it was composed by someone on a cheap Casio keyboard. And if you can't get enough of the show's monotonous electronic theme, you're really in for a treat - the same theme music is used throughout each episode...! Watching an episode of "G-Force" is like a stamina contest. Congratulations if you succeed! ... decry the Sandy Frank version of Gatchaman. This is unfair as Battle of the Planets and Gatchaman should be treated as different series. You will not enjoy BOTP if you keep comparing it to Gatchaman. Sure, lots of it was edited out. The new animation is crummy compared to the animation used in the original. The stories seem sometimes childish. But that's not the point. Battle of the Planets is a nostalgia treat for most of us who grew up during the 70's. Watching these DVDs is a real blast from the past and if you liked the show then, you will still like it now!
Rating: 
Summary: BUY IT ONLY FOR THE ORIGINAL GATCHAMAN EPS. BOTP [STINKS]!
Review: as an avid fan of anime, i watched the original epidsodes of captian harlock,cyborg 009, space cruiser yamato (star blazers for the uninitiatied!) and gatchaman back in the day. i was disgusted how american distribitors like sandy frank and saban (who aired gatchaman f1 as the kiddified eagle riders several years back) would butcher gatchaman from it's original content. at least carl macek allowed as much depth and violence in robotech as possibly allowed. same goes forsunbow's star blazers. back to gatchaman or "battle of the scammers" this was not meant to be aired as some kiddy show but i guess frank tried to capatilize on the popularity of star wars at the time.
with goofy names like princess and the original jar-jar binks of
animation 7 zark 7 some poorly drawn r2 d2 ripoff. HA HA! you must purchase this disc just to see what was left on the cutting room floor, contrasting of the three series; BOTP,G-FORCE AND GATCHAMAN. there's one scene where mark/ken tries to rescue the captured astronauts, in the botp version; they weren't shown at the end but zark narrates; "the astronauts have been rescued and are safe thanks to g-force, on the g force version; they were "put to sleep/unconscious....and in gatchaman, they were killed by galctor/spectra but they're corpses were used to trap the unsuspecting leader of gatchaman. casey kasem and keye luke are very talented no doubt, but i wasn't happy with this shoody repoduction of one of the best classic anime series since mach go-go (speed racer). thank god for rhino realeasing the original version for a very low price courtesy of amazon.com enjoy! (0=
Rating:
Summary: BUY IT ONLY FOR THE ORIGINAL GATCHAMAN EPS. BOTP [STINKS]!
Review: as an avid fan of anime, i watched the original epidsodes of captian harlock,cyborg 009, space cruiser yamato (star blazers for the uninitiatied!) and gatchaman back in the day. i was disgusted how american distribitors like sandy frank and saban (who aired gatchaman f1 as the kiddified eagle riders several years back) would butcher gatchaman from it's original content. at least carl macek allowed as much depth and violence in robotech as possibly allowed. same goes forsunbow's star blazers. back to gatchaman or "battle of the scammers" this was not meant to be aired as some kiddy show but i guess frank tried to capatilize on the popularity of star wars at the time.
with goofy names like princess and the original jar-jar binks of
animation 7 zark 7 some poorly drawn r2 d2 ripoff. HA HA! you must purchase this disc just to see what was left on the cutting room floor, contrasting of the three series; BOTP,G-FORCE AND GATCHAMAN. there's one scene where mark/ken tries to rescue the captured astronauts, in the botp version; they weren't shown at the end but zark narrates; "the astronauts have been rescued and are safe thanks to g-force, on the g force version; they were "put to sleep/unconscious....and in gatchaman, they were killed by galctor/spectra but they're corpses were used to trap the unsuspecting leader of gatchaman. casey kasem and keye luke are very talented no doubt, but i wasn't happy with this shoody repoduction of one of the best classic anime series since mach go-go (speed racer). thank god for rhino realeasing the original version for a very low price courtesy of amazon.com enjoy! (0=
Rating:
Summary: An AMAZING cross-culture comparison
Review: Even if you never watched Battle of the Planets, you should get this set just to see how vastly different the Japanese version was from the US version. It is jaw-dropping how much they felt the had to "sanitize" - things that Japanese children could handle, that US children could not. [...]Both episodes on this DVD set are very eye opening, and would be a great discussion point for any aged viewer, to talk about just why those changes were made and if the awful stereotypes that resulted were perhaps worse than the "violence" they removed.
Rating:
Summary: Go Gatchaman!
Review: Finally after first airing 30 years ago I get to see one of my favorite anime shows of all time...uncut! To think I kept passing this DVD up because the thought of watching the butchered, 7-Zark-7 version would have made me sick to my stomache. Then finally I read the back. What? Original corresponding Gatchaman episodes? Yesss! Don't get me wrong, Battle of the Planets was good for introducing me to the Gatchaman series. But that's about it. The animation may look dated in comparison to todays anime, but understand that in 1972 when it first aired it was state-of-the- art. Don't beleive me? Another popular show that year was Mazinger Z (US Tranzor Z). Need I say more? Thank you Rhino for bringing this show to DVD and giving it it's just rewards. Now I can finally toss out my worn out, 3rd generation VHS tape. Keep em' coming!
Rating:
Summary: Time to throw the bootlegs in the trash!!!!
Review: Finally.....Battle of the Planets on DVD. Ah, life is indeed good. I haven't seen the original episode in 15+ years and I'm salivating just thinking about it. Sure, it was originally Gatchaman. However THIS was the show WE grew up on. With spectacular animation, incredible music, and emotional plots to boot Battle of the Planets created a lasting legacy now realized in the ultimate DVD format. I hope Rhino does it justice.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Having fond childhood memories of "Battle of the Planets", I eagerly purchased the DVD. I never had a problem with 7-Zark-7 when I was a kid, but now he makes me cringe. However, I still prefer "BOTP" over the "Gatchaman" episodes that are also on the DVD. I found the "Gatachman" characters extremely unlikable, especially "Ken" (Mark on "BOTP") who was particularly abrasive. My dream version of "Gatchman"/"BOTP" would be if Sandy Frank productions reassembled the original "BOTP" voice cast and dubbed the "Gatachman" series into English WITHOUT changing the plot or adding an innane robot to annoy us. As far as the "G-Force" episode included goes, well... the voice talent had none, the character names were [bad], and the music sounded like it had been dubbed from a bad porno. You may be wondering why I gave this DVD five stars and an "Excellent!" title - well, "BOTP" made me feel nostalgic and it's really nice to see what Sandy Frank cut out ("Gatchman"). Now if only they'd make my "dream version"...
Rating:
Summary: The Gatchaman Episodes Are A Blast
Review: I agree with the consensus of previous reviewers on these two episodes and the Rhino DVDs generally, so I'll be brief. I'm an anime fan. I bought this DVD to check out the Gatchaman episodes, pure and simple. And yet I also remember winter afternoons long ago, rushing to the TV to turn on Battle of the Planets the instant I got home from kindergarten. (I usually got home about five minutes after the show started, which may be why the BOTP opening doesn't stir my memories the way it does for some of the other reviewers.) I'm not going to player-hate on BOTP. It's true -- the voice acting is good, and so's the background music. If only Cartoon Network's translated _Mobile Suit Gundam_ had such production values! But for all that, it's hard to make the nostalgia work, once you see how much Sandy Frank messed with Gatchaman. And as another reviewer pointed out, you can't blame all the changes on '70s children's TV, either; Star Blazers (another late-70s US translation of an anime series) was way less of a sell-out. 7-Zark-7 is cringe-making and boring, and the "robot controlled planes!" "alien planets that look just like Earth!" schticks are hard to put up with. I wonder if little kids would tolerate them today. Audiences have changed. The later English incarnation, "G-Force," is crippled by voice acting that blows chunks. The characters also have lame-o names like "Dirk Daring" (for Joe/Jason), what the heck is that about? I found "G-Force" unwatchable. Enough of that, on to the strong positives. Gatchaman is hot stuff! It's not Hamlet, but it's a fun, imaginative series. Amazing to think that such a stylish anime is thirty years old -- even older than Star Wars. Have you ever noticed how flat-out _gorgeous_ our heroes' costumes are -- especially Ken, Jun, and Joe's? What a visual triumph! Think how easy it would be for thirty-year-old bird costumes to look dorky today. But instead they're stirring; they're the bomb. Jun as G-3 is one of the most elegant anime heroines ever. The Phoenix (God Phoenix in Gatchaman) looks awesome as well. In lots of ways, this was the very first SF anime series, and it exercised a massive influence. So it's no surprise that some of the plot and character developments are a little creaky; but they come off as archetypal rather than tired. Or so I found. The toughness and samurai/ninja ethos that permeate Gatchaman are a real shift from U.S. culture. People sometimes get slapped when they disobey or screw up, and revenge for a loved one's death is presented as a normal and acceptable motive for a hero. Four stars. If Rhino would start putting three Gatchaman episodes on a DVD, it'd be five stars. Go go go Gatchaman!
Rating:
Summary: The Gatchaman Episodes Are A Blast
Review: I agree with the consensus of previous reviewers on these two episodes and the Rhino DVDs generally, so I'll be brief. I'm an anime fan. I bought this DVD to check out the Gatchaman episodes, pure and simple. And yet I also remember winter afternoons long ago, rushing to the TV to turn on Battle of the Planets the instant I got home from kindergarten. (I usually got home about five minutes after the show started, which may be why the BOTP opening doesn't stir my memories the way it does for some of the other reviewers.) I'm not going to player-hate on BOTP. It's true -- the voice acting is good, and so's the background music. If only Cartoon Network's translated _Mobile Suit Gundam_ had such production values! But for all that, it's hard to make the nostalgia work, once you see how much Sandy Frank messed with Gatchaman. And as another reviewer pointed out, you can't blame all the changes on '70s children's TV, either; Star Blazers (another late-70s US translation of an anime series) was way less of a sell-out. 7-Zark-7 is cringe-making and boring, and the "robot controlled planes!" "alien planets that look just like Earth!" schticks are hard to put up with. I wonder if little kids would tolerate them today. Audiences have changed. The later English incarnation, "G-Force," is crippled by voice acting that blows chunks. The characters also have lame-o names like "Dirk Daring" (for Joe/Jason), what the heck is that about? I found "G-Force" unwatchable. Enough of that, on to the strong positives. Gatchaman is hot stuff! It's not Hamlet, but it's a fun, imaginative series. Amazing to think that such a stylish anime is thirty years old -- even older than Star Wars. Have you ever noticed how flat-out _gorgeous_ our heroes' costumes are -- especially Ken, Jun, and Joe's? What a visual triumph! Think how easy it would be for thirty-year-old bird costumes to look dorky today. But instead they're stirring; they're the bomb. Jun as G-3 is one of the most elegant anime heroines ever. The Phoenix (God Phoenix in Gatchaman) looks awesome as well. In lots of ways, this was the very first SF anime series, and it exercised a massive influence. So it's no surprise that some of the plot and character developments are a little creaky; but they come off as archetypal rather than tired. Or so I found. The toughness and samurai/ninja ethos that permeate Gatchaman are a real shift from U.S. culture. People sometimes get slapped when they disobey or screw up, and revenge for a loved one's death is presented as a normal and acceptable motive for a hero. Four stars. If Rhino would start putting three Gatchaman episodes on a DVD, it'd be five stars. Go go go Gatchaman!
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