Art differences between series

[SparklingNeon]

One of the important factors especially for II, style-wise, was that aforementioned animator drought going on even if they managed to get some people aboard and also outsourced work to South Korea. A lot of people left after Yoshida's death and were kind of scattered to other productions, and there was a lot more work being produced by other studios then. There are quotes by Sadao Miyamoto where he said how he'd be told along the lines of "Gatchaman is something you watch, not make". Basically that people weren't as willing to make it due to the difficulties in the drawing and animating, but of course if nobody's there to be making a Gatchaman, you won't be able to watch one.

He was one of the staff members on the art side that did rejoin for the sequels, to be supervising the animation although it can be seen how variable things would come out; there's an episode of Fighter (the one with Nambu's possessed glasses) that has the Ninja Team looking like they came out of a show like King of the Hill at the start.

There were others from the first series' art/animation side who did return, like Tsuneo Ninomiya and Shigeru Kato, but there are plenty new people including those who'd go on to other productions in and out of Tatsunoko like Shizuo Kawai (though he seems better-known for the "off" episodes of Saint Seiya if you google his name in English or Japanese lol).

[Stardust]

Spectra goons can’t get their faces clocked in, but they surely can smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. Speed can carry a shotgun and run people of the roadway but no no, they can’t show Racer X crying. Tranzor Z’s censorship is fairly reasonable until they decided to refer to poor devleen as something not very nice, which wasn’t even in the original show!

Absolutely this! Like it's wild what American censors allows versus other countries. I think the first biggest change that freaked me out was the astronaut episode. In Battle, Zark tells us the astronauts are fine, they needed medical care, blah blah. In Gatchaman not only are the astronauts killed but they're used as body shields! I was like wow that's a big difference!

And just because we're on the topic of censoring anime for the USA, I always laughed at how they altered Sailor Moon when they brought in the outer senshi. Making Sailor Neptune and Uranus cousins. HA! I never acted like that with my cousins. It actually became a running joke in my art classroom with my LGBTQ students.

[LadyMallanox]

To Neons post, I had heard about the scatter on behalf of Tatsuo Yoshida’s death— I just wasn’t sure how credible that information was so I decided not to present it. “Gatchaman is something you watch, not make” is an interesting statement honestly, I can’t imagine production in the situation they were placed in with the president’s death, changed equipment, and massive loss of staff. It would be like if my IT department lost all of the helpdesk guys and I had to figure out how to pick up the pace even though the most impressive thing I can do is update computer BIOS and drivers.

—

As per stardust’s post, the astronaut episode is a really good example, i could honestly give you a full paragraph about how strongly I feel about that one but i will spare you all the three page essay. Left in short I can see why they censored it (especially with all of the space stuff happening at the time) but I also can't help the feeling that censoring such things doesn't actually do any good by the children the show was made for.

As for Neptune and her uh... interesting relationship with her so called "cousin", the funniest thing about it to me is that there probably would have been more plausible deniability if they didn't do anything at all. Like with devleen, the infinitely better option was... literally just sticking to the original interpretation of the character.

[Bobkat]

I started with Battle, and yes the art style was the big draw in for me.
Later when I went to college, an art college, I met other fans and that's when I was told about Gatchaman. I remember being told I need to watch it, it's very different from Battle. So I did.
I was already drawn to the villain Zoltar on Battle but then I saw how very different he was from Katse. Not to mention the amounts of violence.
In the end, I don't choose between the two. I love them both (Okay honestly Zark can be annoying.) But it's fun to watch the same episode side by side and compare the differences.

Zark can so totally be annoying!!!! You're not alone Stardust - many fans discovered Gatchaman this way.

As far as the editing, there have been many times I've scratched my head at the Battle people. "Why did you cut that out?" The scene would have made more sense if left in and it wasn't violent or anything. The other astronaut episode - Battle did the same exact thing! Zark said the pair escaped. Sorry, little psycho robot - there is no way in !!!!!

[Stardust]

But in Battle they changed the dialogue to we have your astronauts prisoner or something like that. The Gatchaman episode version was much more horrifying.
Lady Mallanox, good point about the space stuff going on at that time. I forgot and I lived through that LOL.
The other thing American censers take out is any slapping. There's a couple of slap scenes in Gatchaman that were removed. I've seen them removed in other anime too. I always wondered why, especially when I felt someone did deserve that slap.

[Cure DragonEagle 255]

I am a Fuerza G Guardianes del Espacio kid. But it took until I learned about Battle of the Planets that I joined the fandom. Battle is fascinating because the process under it was made was very well documented and it helped bring anime into the mainstream. It was a key import for the anime industry.

[LadyMallanox]

I am a Fuerza G Guardianes del Espacio kid. But it took until I learned about Battle of the Planets that I joined the fandom. Battle is fascinating because the process under it was made was very well documented and it helped bring anime into the mainstream. It was a key import for the anime industry.

Tatsunoko’s influence is completely ignored by a lot of current day anime fans, but the anime they made that was brought over here showed that anime was something people wanted.

Plus, the fact that everything they made all the way back to Space Ace is preserved and available in some way shouldn’t go unstated, most 60’s anime are in horrible condition. I think Big X is one that made it to the west, that one’s mostly gone from what I know.

[Cure DragonEagle 255]

Tatsunoko Pro, If I heard correctly, was one of the first studios to REALLY want to be big outside Japan. They really wanted that foreign money. To their credit, they never sacrificed their unique voice to appeal to foreign audiences, they had an iconic vision... Even if their anime had to be edited or modified for the foreign market.

One other thing that doesnt come up often. Tatsunoko Pro really knew how to market their comedies. By trusting local licensees to do the humor for the new market. Samurai Pizza Cat is the most famous example but to me the funniest has to be Chicho Terremoto (Dash Kappei). Absolutely deranged comedy, Spain doing the best dub for once.