Battle of the Planets (Vol. 5)

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: Gatchaman Rules!!
Review: Gatchaman is my all time favorite anime series and I am thrilled that now I can own each and every episode on dvd! Having the original Japanese subtitled and uncut Gatchaman episodes is wonderful! Thanks Rhino, please keep up the good work in releasing this anime classic gem. I plan to own all 105 episodes!!

Rating:
Summary: Battle of the Planets on DVD! Transmute! Thank you Rhino!
Review: I must say that I never thought that we would never see this wonderful show on video, much less on DVD!
I remember watching this amazing show when it premeired on my local TV station back in 1978 and loving it! It's one of my all time favorite shows back when we had actual cartoons on TV, not like now.
Rhino deserves applause for bringing Sandy Frank's Battle of the Planets to video. I love this series of DVD's! The video transfers and sound are great! I wish they would have included three more Sandy Frank episodes instead of the original subtitled Japanese Gatchman, I am not a die hard anime fan. And then there are the bloody awful Turner TBS/TNT Networks edited G-Force episodes.
But I'm not complaining. Thank you Rhino! Keep them coming!