Unlike many of Tatsunoko's other
early series and series pitches, Gatchaman did not have a traditional pilot or any known animation tests done. The
program went directly from the planning stages into the production of
the first episode. The exact reasoning for this is unclear. Perhaps
there there time constraints, or maybe everyone was confident it would
work right from the start. "There was no pilot film
made," recalls Ippei Kuri, "We presented various drawn pictures and
scenes to help introduce the characters." Clearly these were enough to
sell the show to the sponsors and get it going, but this move was
especially odd considering the importance that Tatsuo Yoshida placed on the
project.
Sadao Miyamoto took on the task
of animating the footage that would be used in the opening credits.
He wanted to make certain the show started off with the correct,
realistic look Tatsuo Yoshida wanted. Chief Director Hisayuki
Toriumi recalls, "Miyamoto joined Tatsunoko around the time
of Decision. He came over to instruct the young animators
in the office. The power in the work from the crew at Tatsunoko
was largely thanks to Miyamoto." Miyamoto's animation also
acted as a guide to other animators on the show and the look
they were to strive to duplicate.
Miyamoto gives the credit to the
creator though, "Tatsuo Yoshida was responsible for all the
original character designs and all the original drawings. I did
my best to adapt (Yoshida's) extremely detailed very shadowy, realistic
drawings. But in order to make these acceptable or easier to animate,
easier to make move, I was responsible for cleaning up the images
- tightening up the lines. But other than that, I tried to retain
as much of the original images as possible."
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An early promotional image |
"What made Gatchaman a trendsetting animation compared to other shows in the 1970s,
things like Devilman and so forth, was its realism." continues Miyamoto, "We worked very hard to make it a realistic
show. We wanted the audience to feel as if they were taking part
in what was going on in the screen. We wanted you to feel like
you were right there. That's what I consider to be the most distinctive
feature of the series."
The visual appearance was extremely
important for Gatchaman to be successful. It was a favored
production within the studio and nearly any expense that could
be spared to make the show look better was allowed. This included
more production time, larger budgets, a larger staff and a dramatic
increase in the actual amount of animation that was done for the
show.
Ippei Kuri remembers the
animation cel count of the average Gatchaman episode ranged
between 4,500 to 6,000. This was a substantial increase from the
normal amount used to produce a half hour program (which could
range into the mid to high 3,000 region). Sadao Miyamoto provides
more detail, "Basically, the corporate side of Tatsunoko
was responsible for assigning the budget to the production side
- as in how many cels would be allowed to use per episode. The
average was about 5,000 or so in Gatchaman's case. This
was very much Tatsuo Yoshida's baby. He wanted it to be good so
he assigned a decent budget to it and he approved things like
'Okay, you can run 7,000 cels per episode in this particular one.'
We did have time constraints however and this was not always
the case."
Effects were also a big part of
the program. Various eye-grabbing effects from airbrushed cels,
to live-action plates, to experimental lighting and photography
techniques were refined in earlier Tatsunoko works, but used here
to give Gatchaman its own identity. Sadao Miyamoto explains,
"Ninety-five percent of the helmets, at least the visors
and stuff was airbrushing. A lot of the smoke effects, the shines
on the mechas and the effects on the visors were all done by airbrush.
Something else was the realism of the explosions. Back in other
animation productions you would see a spiky little plume coming
out from the center. I wanted something that was more realistic
and more involving, like a real explosion if you'd actually seen
one. That was something we focused on in Gatchaman."
The production of Gatchaman was intense, rushed and seemingly never-ending. "I looked over
everything," adds Hisayuki Toriumi. "Others would work on individual
stories, but I always oversaw them. As many as three scripts would be
going on at one time and (they) were always shown to other directors to
make sure it all fit together with what was already established. At
times, I'd take over and say how I wanted to see something done. To
start each episode the director would work closely with me to
establish what the episode would be about. Then we'd have the
storyboards done." The time to produce a single episode took about
three months and the production overlapped several stories and episodes
at any given time, so the staff was constantly busy for the entire time Gatchaman was on the air.
|
Ken
and Jun's typical early series appearances |
Even though so much was put into
the start of the series and the realism of its characters, Gatchaman's beginning had a completely different look than
it did at the end. This was partially due to the natural time
it took the artists to get used to drawing the characters, but
also because a stable of topnotch animators like Masami Suda and
Tsuneo Ninomiya were given more opportunity to show what they
could do. Both had been at the studio for a long time but were
each coming into their own by the time Gatchaman began
production. A friendly rivalry developed between the two to see
who could produce the most interesting and realistic scenes, and
Gatchaman fared all the better because of it.
"It was difficult for a lot
of the animators to work with the degree of realism this show
required." Sadao Miyamoto recalls, "However, they were
motivated and very enthusiastic about it. I had very many high-level
animators on my staff and many of them have gone on to become
very famous. A lot of it was due to their own motivation. They
were very willing to put out what it took to get this thing put
together."
By about a third of the way through
the series, it had picked up its "look," which kept
getting more and more detailed as the series progressed. Not only
were the animators more comfortable drawing in a realistic style,
the direction by Hisayuki Toriumi was becoming more confident
and cinematic. "I enjoyed Japanese films more than foreign
ones, but there definitely were influential elements from things
like 2001 and Planet of the Apes. There were all
kinds of influences from old movies. Tatsuo encouraged all of
us to see a lot of movies and he went all the time to see what
was new." he remembers.
Tatsuo Yoshida was swamped with
work early into the Gatchaman series and he left a lot
of the decisions up to Hisayuki Toriumi. As time went on, Tatsuo
made fewer and fewer changes. Toriumi says, "After about
episode seven or eight, he would only do it if he had time. Someone would
peek into his office and ask, 'Want to see it?' Mostly he would
correct facial expressions." Most of the upper staff was
trusted to make the right decisions regarding the show and were
left alone. Even though Gatchaman was his pride, Tatsuo
ran a studio where anyone could make creative suggestions. Ippei
Kuri points out, "I got to have a say in things and make
characters too. Everyone was trusted and the general air was very
good. It really was a first-class place." Miyamoto agrees,
"Yoshida had a major hand in inspiring the staff to set up
things, he was very good at getting them inspired to create this
project."
When Gatchaman started,
there were no plans made for its end. It was simply going to stop
when the sponsors, studio and/or lack of audience decided it would.
So when the end of the first year approached, Tatsunoko, Fuji,
their partners and Gatchaman's fans were all looking for
more. So it was decided to continue production for a time. "There
was no real planning on when things were going to start or when
they were going to end," recalls Miyamoto. "I started
off working on Gatchaman as a freelancer. I figured as soon as
it looked like the series was going to end that I was going to
go off, you know, 'Goodbye! I'm going somewhere else!' and they
grabbed me, like 'Come here, you're not going anywhere! We've
gonna do this for two years.' So I was with it for two years.
Basically, there wasn't any long-term planning as to how long
these things were going to last."
|
Ken
and Jun's typical late series appearances |
By the latter half of the series,
the more flat and cartoon-looking characters that had begun the
run were gone, replaced by versions that had real depth and emotion
to their appearances. "Tatsunoko's characters depended on
the delicate nuances of their faces." Hisayuki Toriumi once
said. The detail in the linework and facial expressions were amazing
to watch, and something that directly led to the popularity of Gatchaman.
The writing and the characters
were also given the amount of time they needed to develop and
present more interesting facts and details. Early unconnected
storylines yielded to more intricate and intertwined stories that
spanned large amounts of time. The length of the program allowed
for many different angles to be explored, left alone and brought
back to explore or resolve again months later. For instance, we
knew Ken's father was missing early into the run of Gatchaman.
Hints and teases were revealed every once in a while, until the
plotline was finally settled in episodes fifty-two and fifty-three. Joe mentioned
that his parents were killed by Galactor agents in episode eighteen
and this plot was dealt with again several times until its major
events finally took place in episode eighty-one.
While Gatchaman tended
to focus on Ken and his life for the first half of the run, Joe's
backstory dominated the second half. Ippei Kuri remembers, "Ken
was the one we considered to be the hero. He was probably less
attractive though as he was felt as being a little too serious.
But as an outlaw and a nihilist, Joe had cool charm and was favored
over the hero. Even though Ken is the perpetual hero, he didn't
have that certain something. The drama turned over to Joe - people
connected with him very well. It might have been that Joe's personality
became more appealing unconsciously. When people get older, they
are filled with wonder and feel closer to characters they can
better identify with. Therefore, the aim turned towards Joe."
One of the more intriguing plot
elements, Berg Katse's ability to change sexes, wasn't something
that was decided upon in the early planning. Ippei Kuri discusses
the reasoning, "That would have been hard to plan from the
very beginning! Mikio Terashima's voice acting helped to form
the basic impressions of the character. Katse was something of
a court noble - one with an image of power that doesn't actually
do anything and who wouldn't engage in actions personally. Regarding
that, we thought there should be an air of femininity. Katse sometimes appeared in women's clothes
and in fan meetings back then they thought that due to our 'intricate
planning,' the true form of Katse might be revealed to be a woman."
"In the art department at
Tatsunoko we soon had a meeting to discuss everyone's responses,
because we sometimes think we may make incorrect choices," continues
Kuri, "We quickly caught the interpretations of the fans' voices and we
reversed to take things in that direction. The task of establishing
this new angle for Katse was put mainly to Hisayuki Toriumi. I was responsible for setting up Joe's situations and that of
Katse switching sexes was his- but both became major portions of the
latter half of the story."
Not only did this odd change of
Katse's character register well with fans, it made him one of
the most interesting and remembered villains in animation history.
Tatsunoko's writers took his transformations to one more extreme
- he wasn't able to fully control when he changed. This added
the element of a tortured existence to the already fragile psyche
with which Katse operated.
The reaction to Gatchaman at the time in Japan was completely favorable. Children loved
the show in the beginning but the audience increased to pull
in older viewers towards the end. The realistic style of animation
and the decidedly unchildlike plots of the later stories were
more than enough to capture the interest of adolescents. Being
able to draw more than its intended audience was a major achievement
for Tatsunoko and one that won them even more praise and a tighter
bond with their broadcast partner, Fuji Television.
Gatchaman showed its last
new episode on September 29, 1974 leaving the stunning
number of one hundred-five original half-hour episodes. With one
new episode a week, Gatchaman had been able to deliver
and perform as Tatsuo had hoped. It would come to be a memorable
show, a classic in Japanese animation which still routinely makes
the lists of top animated programs in the country. To this day
Gatchaman is a well-respected and remembered program and
it continues to generate public interest and reverence for Tatsunoko
Productions.
Even before it completed airing,
Tatsunoko was already considering selling Gatchaman internationally.
In March 1975, they attended the MIP (Marche International de
Programmes) conference in Cannes, France where they presented
their works to that point for sale to any interested television
producers around the world. It is generally remembered that Gatchaman was available for pickup in 1975. Whether anyone from America
looked at it at that point is unknown, but certainly it was never
purchased. The same holds true for the 1976 and 1977 MIP conferences,
where Gatchaman went unsold again.
However, Gatchaman had
been seen in April 1977 by an interested American television executive.
He didn't take any action at the time, but when the unforeseen
and unprecedented reaction to the May theatrical release of Star
Wars hit the industry, this TV executive remembered the exciting
heroic Japanese show that Tatsunoko Productions had offered. If
he hadn't, a generation of American youngsters may have had nothing
more exciting to watch on weekday afternoons than Scooby-Doo reruns.
Next, Coming to America...
Special thanks
to Gatchaman producer Ippei Kuri, chief director Hisayuki
Toriumi, animation director Sadao Miyamoto, animator Yoshitaka Amano, past Tatsunoko President Koki Narushima and Battle of the Planets producer Sandy Frank for
their invaluable information and assistance.
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