One of the most iconic imported cartoons of the late 70s/early 80s, “Battle of the Planets” revolves around a team of five young heroes, the G-Force, tasked with defending Earth from the evil forces of Spectra, led by the menacing Commander Zoltar. It was made using very high-quality and innovative animation techniques for the time and it shows in the rich backgrounds and detailed fight scenes. Starting off with a bit of storytime/artbookposting from a collection of Alex Ross's for this classic series.
>>152800813Hat tip to anon from the Voltron thread for pointing me to this gem.
LET'S RIDE
>>152800813They currently have an ongoing comic series, Gatachaman.Surprised it hasn't gotten a new cartoon yet. There was the Gatchaman Crowds anime a few years back, but that was its own thing.
>>152800813the better G-Force
>>152800838>>152800870Was this the start of the Super-Saiyan craze?
>>152800906Apologies for the RCO watermark and weird Alex Ross border, I don't have time to trim everything. Source is here: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Alex-Ross-Battle-of-the-Planets-Artbook
>>152800875I'm kind of surprised they aren't in COD or Fortnite or something. Team skins, strong visuals, not sweaty all-black skins. Maybe nobody knows who owns the visual rights license for vidya because the original work is so old.
>>152800919
>>152800875A 12 episode otaku-centered show wouldn't fly for gatchaman(or just be crowds), it has to be at least a full year and tatsunoko can barely make shit on their own. Sentai's status also doesn't help matters.
>>152800923Gatchaman (and Tatsunoko) is still very obscure in the WestTvC was the last time they were really relevant and that was nearly 2 decades ago
>>152801120Its barely a thing in japan too.
>>152801058
Long history of the creation of Gatchaman and how it came to America: https://www.battleoftheplanets.info/whatwas.htmlSome fascinating sketches and early art here.
>>152800906>Ross copied the show's art style instead of using his trademark realism, but you can still tell Ross drew thisThat's pretty impressive.
>>152801310Is it true that Alex Ross paints his stuff on glass to give it that translucent glowing look?
>>152800875Huh, they even made individual miniseries for each character in 2025. Big gamble, there.
>>152801117Gatchaman Crowds was weird. I don't think it was a bad anime on its own, but it had nothing to do with Gatchaman.If Gatchaman got a modern cartoon adaption similar to the recent Voltron series on Netflix it would probably become popular.>>152801439The Gatchaman comics are good; my only issue is that they're only using Berg Katse as the villain. Galactor had three generals in the anime and cartoon adaptions: Berg, the blonde kabuki(?) themed lady and the count. Anime and cartoon brought them in after Berg got killed, but it would make an interesting story for all three to be active at the same time.
>>152801597Cullen Bunn said Tatsunoko restricted him to only telling stories within the first series, that he wasn't allowed to do his pitch as a sequel. No telling if he actually watched the end of Gatchaman and knew of the sequels and just wanted to do his own thing, or he originally wanted to do it with all OCs. He didn't elaborate, and also abruptly left the series and Sam Humphries' writing has been more paint-by-numbers and worse.>>152801597We could've gotten a WB Gatchaman cartoon that George Krstic and Shannon Tindle were showrunning, but WB passed it on because they wanted more DC Heroes.Tindle's shared a few character designs but nothing more, sadly.
>>152800813>>152800919It's a shame Ross never shared his concept art for "the Gen 1 G-Force team" we were supposed to meet after issue 12. Sandy Frank burned him and others who worked on the series bad with telling them they were going to have to redesign or get rid of anything Gatchaman and to make those OCs the new team instead.Wilson Tortosa is probably the only guy who might want to talk about that stuff, but the fandom considers the series cringe afaik. Munier Sharrieff died a while back and some rejoiced.
>>152800813For me it's casshern
>>152800875Tatsunoko tried to do a 90s remake but no toy sponsors signed on. Roberto Ferrari (Death by Degrees, Final Fantasy) worked at Tatsunoko in that time and did the designs for that along with numerous other remake plans they had. He got fed up with them being shelved and left the company.The late 90s Gatchaman is considered "secret media" because Tatsunoko only showed their USA fan club the proposal and full concept art and told them to keep it secret.
>>152801231
>>152801439The Mad Cave contract is for 24 ongoing issues, but multiple specials and minis. Bunn hinted that if it did well, it'd be extended but no clue if that'd mean they'd get to tell stories "taking place somewhere in Gatchaman II and Fighter" later. What they're doing in the comic right now is kind of a stretch to fit in the first series, unless there's a mindwipe or reset button when it comes to those alien scientist people being involved.
>>152801774https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2026-03-13/exclusive-nakama-press-to-launch-new-casshan-manga-on-september-15/.235211Mad Cave's doing a new thing with that too.Speed Racer, Gatchaman, Samurai Pizza Cats, and now Casshern...let's see if Tekkaman is next.
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>>152800813Ah, imported cartoons. Such a fun way to avoid posting anime on /a/.
>>152802960Your presence was predicted but you're very late.
Mad Cave's people seem to have some similar ideas to the Top Cow brass, if different. Other people pointed some out but other things are kind of falling together like pottery.>Blackbirds that are evil Science Ninjas>Some edgy black suit guy called The Raven>Dr. Nambu is lying to the team about a dark secret past that might involve people he trained before or villains before Katse>The prospect of additional ninjas, but Bunn only did that to set up mass useless cannon fodder and those Blackbirds
>>152802974Just wait 'til he sees a Toonami thread and rages
>>152801278>"Sandy Frank! Sandy Frank! Gads about the house all day!"
>>152803143Frank and his VP Phil had a longstanding habit of liking to prematurely announce licensing deals before the ink was even set, they were that confident. Caused a lot of false promises and stillborn projects especially with BOTP like Frank saying they were going to license Gatchaman II as more episodes for it (nope), do a Saturday morning cartoon spinoff (no), and then all the new media promises during the Alex Ross revival era.
>>152802960Yeah, that dub had some well known voice actors like Keye Luke and Alan Young.
>>152802925
>>152800813Wrong board, pal.>>>/a/
>>152800813Sounds cool and I've been on an 80s cartoon run lately. Got any links or megas for it?
>>152804440I get my stuff from torrents, like this is Robotech:https://limetorrents.ws/robotech-season-1-the-macross-saga-complete-480p-english-nosubs-ic-5008825.htmlNot sure if these links will show up here though.
>>152804344
>>152804505Ah ok. I had assumed it may be harder to find since old stuff sometimes is. Thanks.
>>152803286No wonder Spielberg won't return his calls.
>>152804778
>>152802960>>152804372
>>152806239Nice. Ofc it's Princess who gets tentacle-raped (first).
>>152801597>non-japanese GatchamanI'd rather take 10 seasons of Crowds.
>>152801597Weren't all three generals the exact same person who suffered a serious multiple personality disorder? I recall Sandy separated them as siblings who rotated in command.
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>>152806675
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>>152806712dumping the rest since I have to go
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>>152806751
>>152800813Hot take; 1986 G-Force redub > Battle of The Planets even though the backbeat gets annoying.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2mNHQeLrQEThe script in BoTP is mind numbing and the voice acting in both BoTP and the 2005 uncut Gatchaman dub are kind of bad (I like Joe and Berg Katse in the latter though).
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>>152806773
>>152806393https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kMigCTlYw&t=3m39sBut I'm pretty sure anon meant Gel Sadra and Egobrother from Gatchaman II and Fighter.
>>152806393They were different people.
>>152804344PANTY FLASH
>>152807578how dare you refer to Ezra Miller that way
>>152806765It's a shame no one's ripped all of the G-Force dub and uploaded it.There was one guy from Toonzone who bragged about wanting to digitize all of it, but when people even asked out of curiosity if he ever did he'd go off on them and act like they were trying to force him to give up his stash. Same dude freaked out Fred Ladd with his stalkery tendencies for an interview though so it can be said he's a bit off-kilter.
>>152806393No, Berg Katse was the one that was fused twins and would switch between the brother and sister personas.Gel Sadra was a "sci-fi understanding of intersex" child that X mutated into some mannish womanly being, and Count Egobossler was some average guy who surgically altered himself to look like his rich half-brother, imprisoned the half-brother, and came out looking like a Fuhrer Smurf.
>>152800813This show was such a piece of shit I lie and tell everyone my first anime was Star Blazers (Yamato). Keyop talked like a retard you wanted to punch in the mouth.
>>152808608Sandy Frank was on some fucking crank in doing that. Jinpei never talks like that in Gatchaman nor the other English dubs aside from BoTP.Definitely one to watch subbed (or with the uncut dub)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co4_WHDp72Y
>>152808608kek, that and Zark and his robot phone sex was a lot of vintage cringe. You'd probably hate this one obnoxious broad who posts in every retro anispace how BOTP > all, and how censoring and Americanizing it was good because Japanese don't care about their kids' mental health and how she wants Princess to get fucked by both hot guys.
>>152808744It was an "Alien accent" in the pilot script that Jameson Brewer co-wrote, and Alan Young ad-libbed the stuttering and bleeps and they just went with that for the rest of the series. Keyop was basically meant to be some alien genetic experiment but they made him sound defective.
>>152806065Oh I really love this one
>>152806770The colors on these are so damn cool.
>>152806726He looks evil here.
As I recall, the "Americanized" version Sandy Frank did was wildly different from the Japanese original.He added shots of their ship flying through space so they could claim it was taking place on different planets (the original was totally Earthbound), made the enemy troops into robots or androids so it was OK to slaughter them wholesale, and made the Big Bad ambiguously androgenous.I think he also added 7-Zark-7 and had him voiced by Wilbur, Mr. Ed's owner.
>>152808744I've seen Sandy's dubwork on movies like the Gamera series (via MST3K). The man went out of his way to Americanize every name and voice he could.
I would love to watch G-Force (the 80s adaption) one day but I know it's lost media since the ADV dub exists and the Gatchman 90s 0VAs absolute peak!
>>152803750Oldfriend here, I still haven't forgiven /a/ for not giving a damn when Casey Kasem died
>>152811872There are some G-Force episodes on the Internet Archive, but still many missing.The Rhino "Best of G-Force" set had some damaged VHS masters used for the sources, so who knows what shape the rest of the tapes are in if Tatsunoko's held onto them.>>152811325The script revisions were all by Jameson Brewer and the other writers, who were supplied Engrish scripts by Tatsunoko and decided to just do their own thing with dubbing. Since Frank mistook Gatchaman as a "space" show, the order did come from above to tie it into space however they could with that cheap space travel footage. Zark and the "Ready Room" filler was made because all the violence edits would make the episode runtimes uneven.
>>152812503Thankx will check out the internet archive eps
>>152806778I'm sure he learned it later, but Yoshitaka Amano was heavily inspired by Neal Adams and American superheores when designing Gatchaman, so it's funny that the Japanese work that seems to resonate the most with him is one that's basically inspired by American superheroes.
I rather America not get their hands on this. We never follow the source material. Look at Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, GridMan and Metal Heroes. But if they must... Just dub it and leave it be.
>>152813320>Just dub it and leave it be.Even then you'd get cheeky "dubbers" making the characters speak nonsense that was never in the script. Nobody in America can leave the fuck alone.
>>152813320Power Rangers hired Koichi Sakamoto in season 3, and he ended up getting so much experience and well regarded that he eventually went to Japan(despite never working in the TV/movie industry there before and starting in America) and became a big Tokusatsu director and stunt coordinator. A lot of that came from how Sakamoto was coming up with unique plots and stunts for the American series. Supherhuman Samurai Syber Squad was actually fairly faithful and ended up inspiring the anime later to the point the name is even homaged in the title.
>>152800813HATE Alex Ross, only cause I had the misfortune to go to art college with him (American Academy of Art Chicago) where he was such an arrogant fucking prick. He had to be referred to as "Alexander" and he looked down his nose at everyone.The boy could draw though, it was like magic, he'd wave his hand over the paper and it was beautiful. (Except oil painting, it drove him nuts cause he couldn't master it right away.)I'm sure he's grown out of that stage now but the way he treated people back then was horrible and I'll never forget it.
>>152811325All that Zark and space footage was there just to replace all the violence that got cut out.
>>152813714I mean the guy painted Kingdom Come at 25 and you're ranting about him online. Clearly one of you guys won in this and you seem like Salieri.Prodigies are often arrogant with how their egos get inflated
>>152804505Is that the original broadcast version.
>>152800813It was one of my absolute favourite cartoons as a kid.
>>152808562Details wrong.Katse was a brother/sister set of twins who X fused into one entity who changed genders every year, making him/her an outcast and rope for recruitment with X teaching him how to control his gender switching and making him his frontman.Gel Sadra was a random girl kidnapped from a sinking cruise ship and aged into adulthood. The only gender bending was that X made her pretend to be a man but she was biologically female, just muscular.Egoblauser was a corrupt European dictator's bastards who worked as a guard while his mom was a servant. When his dad murdered his mom after she tried to save her son from being tortured when he stood up to the equally evil prince, he killed his dad, imprisoned his half brother, and dyed his skill blue to divorce himself from his family/humanity. He then got approached by X for a partnership, which is a big part of Fighters, as it's the only version where the bad guy isn't Galactor.Gel Sadra being intersex comes from the bullshit Eagle Riders pulled to have X turn Gel into Egoblauser rather than keeping the two separate and is why only a limited number of Fighter episodes got adapted into Eagle Riders