1972: The Year Anime Got Groovy

 

It’s 1972! President Nixon's plumbers are plumbing up what we’d call Watergate, while Tricky Dick makes a historic relations-normalizing visit to mainland China. Arab terrorists murder 11 at the Munich Summer Olympics, a three-man Japanese hit squad kills 26 at Lod Airport near Tel Aviv, and negotiators in Paris try to hammer out a Vietnam peace deal. Top American films include The Poseidon Adventure, Blacula, The Godfather, and Georgia dueling-banjos favorite Deliverance, while on TV audiences enjoyed All In The Family, Columbo, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Flip Wilson, Emergency!, Sanford & Son, Maude, the Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H and Kung Fu. Kids tuned in Saturday mornings to watch Scooby-Doo, The Osmonds, Josie & The Pussycats In Outer Space, The Brady Kids, Sealab 2020, and endless reruns of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Meanwhile in Japan, the Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo. Yes, they used to hold the summer and winter Olympics in the same year! Controlled by the US since the end of WWII, Okinawa was returned to Japanese administration. Japanese theaters spent 1972 screening Godzilla Vs Gigan, Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion, two Zatoichi films, and four Lone Wolf & Cub movies, while Japanese TV aired the historical dramas Mito Kōmon and Ōedo Sōsamō, the tokusatsu adventures of Kamen Rider, Lion Maru, Ultraman Ace, and Kikaida, the detective series Key Hunter, and the "Japan's Got Talent" series Star Tanjō! 

 

1972 Japanese film and TV

But here at Let's Anime we are an anime blog, we're here to talk about Japanese animation and what it looked like fifty years ago. 1972 was a year that set Japanese animation firmly upon the path it still walks today, a merchandise-driven, synergistic production-committee collaboration between the publishing industry, the toy industry, the broadcasting industry, and the eyeballs of impressionable children. Right now we're living in the anime ecosystem that 1972 built. 

 

Stars of 1971

Continuing from 1971 were series like the second Q-Taro The Ghost anime, the first Lupin III series, the second Kitaro show and, of course, the longest running animated series of all time anywhere, Sazae-san, brought to you by Toshiba. But let’s keep moving and get into the new Japanese animation happening in 1972! 

 

First up in our list is Astroganger. Fleeing the evil alien Blasters, the extra-terrestrial Maya crash-lands on Earth, falls in love with a scientist and gives birth to a human boy named Kantaro. When the Blasters invade the Earth, Kantaro must defeat them by fighting with Astroganger, a robot made from living metal. This was the first color super robot TV anime, if you can call Astroganger super, which I personally do not. However, let's remember that every anime series is somebody's favorite anime series, and Astrogangar is no exception, being popular in Italy and the Arabic world. This Knack anime series ran for 26 episodes between October 1972 and March 1973. 

 

Seen in Mexico as "Capitan Centella," Moon Mask Rider is based on the groundbreaking tokusatsu hero series Gekko Kamen/Moonlight Mask/Moon Mask Rider, who donned the titular moon mask, fired up his moon cycle, and strapped on his moon six-guns for justice in the name of the Moon on TV in 1958 and soon afterwards in six feature films. The '72 version, also animated by Knack, appeared in response to the success of 1971 tokusatsu series Kamen Rider, itself perhaps influenced by the original Moon Mask. 

 

Onbu Obake aka "Piggyback Ghost" aired from October '72 until September 1973 and was based on the manga by Ryuichi Yokoyama, who created the wartime manga Fuku-chan and was one of the first manga-ka to be recognized by the Japanese government as a serious artist. A Top Craft/Eiken series, Onbu Obake aired on YTV. The Onbu Ghost was born from jade and spends happy days with a kind old blacksmith and a young village girl, encountering a wide variety of Japanese folktales as he becomes pretty much a Japanese version of Casper The Friendly Ghost. In the final episode, Onbu saves the village by holding up a crumbling rock all night alone, before exhausting his powers and returning to the jade from whence he came. Beat that, Casper! 

 

Tamagon The Counselor or "Kaiketsu Tamagon" is a goofy, friendly monster who is inordinately fond of eggs. He advises anyone with a problem, asking only eggs in payment - as soon as he's eaten that egg he gets to work. However his solutions usually end in comedic failure and he winds up being chased by his irate clients. This series of 195 5-minute shorts from Tatsunoko aired in Europe as "Eggzavier the Eggasaurus." 

 

Pinocchio, the venerable Carlo Collodi folktale, comes to life in this 1972 Tatsunoko TV series. Pinocchio here is known as “Mock Of The Oak” or Kashi no Ki Mokku, and he faces constant struggle and strife as he makes his way through the world. This was released on VHS and DVD in North America, look for it in the thrifts! 

 

The historical samurai series Akado (Red-breast) Suzunosuke is based on the 1954 manga by Eiichi Fukui and Tsunayoshi Takeuchi, which ran in Shonen Pictorial and spawned a radio drama, a TV show, nine feature films, and this anime series from TMS, which was directed by Isao Takahata and featured key animation from some dude named Hayao Miyazaki. It's about Suzunosuke Konno, an Edo-period boy swordsman learning his chops at the Hokushin Ittō-ryū Chiba Shusaku Dojo. He habitually sports his father’s red breastplate, leading to the nickname and the series' title. 

 

Mon Chéri CoCo is 13 episodes of romantic comedy anime airing from August to November 1972, with animation by Studio Look, Studio Take, and Joke. CoCo was a Nippon TV Video/NTN/TBS production and is based on the manga by Waki Yamato, who'd later create the popular Taisho-period romance Haikara-san. CoCo's star is Coco Charmant, a Paris fashion designer with a French textile-company president father and a Japanese mom from a Kyoto fabric wholesaler background. Coco creates her own new styles in the fashion world while mixing love and friendship. CoCo's production head Shimozaki Jun resigned at the end of August and NTN's animation producer resigned in October, leading us to conclude this early shoujo romance anime was cursed. The CoCo series has only been re-run once and has never been released on home video. 

 

A child of Atlantis, Triton Of The Sea was raised by humans but discovers his true identity and sets forth to battle the empire of Poseidon with his mermaid friend Pipi and his magic sword, turning the ocean red with the blood of his enemies. Seriously, this is a violent show! Based on the "Blue Triton" manga by Osamu Tezuka from 1969, the manga was later renamed to come into line with the TV anime, which only lasted 27 episodes but would return for two 1979 features culled from the show. Triton was directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and the animation was produced by Yoshinobu Nishizaki's "Animation Staff Room," a studio which would become Nishizaki's Office Academy and soon release Space Battleship Yamato. 

 

Based on the folksy, quirky fantasy comics & novels by Finnish national treasure Tove Jansson, Shin Moomin or “New Moomin” is a 1972 Mushi Pro anime series that continued the 1969 Moomin anime, which was produced by TMS until somebody named Hayao Miyazaki decided the show needed tanks in it. Suddenly TMS was out and Mushi was in. The 1972 series lasted 52 episodes and is all Mushi. 

 

Doknojo Gaeru or The Gutsy Frog, based on Yasumi Yoshizawa's six-year run in Shonen Jump, is all about middle schooler Hiroshi who accidentally squashed the frog Pyonkichi onto his sweatshirt. Now Pyonkichi lives on the front of Hiroshi’s shirt and causes no end of kooky comedic situations. This iconic TMS series ran for 206 episodes and was brought back in 1981 and again in 2015 as a live action show. 

 

The '72 TMS TV series pilot "Yuki's Sun" is based on the manga by Tetsuya “Tomorrow’s Joe” Chiba and is about an orphan named Yuki who’s adopted by a new family. This was Hayao Miyazaki’s first solo directorial work. 

Yuki and Pandas

 

In 1972 the Chinese government loaned Japan two giant pandas for the Ueno Zoo and Japan went positively psychotic for pandas. One of the products of this mania we know as Panda ko Panda, a pair of short TMS films about a little girl named Mimiko who befriends both a baby panda named Pan-chan and Pan-chan’s panda Papa. The creative team involved superstars Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, and Yoshifumi Kondo, who used concepts left over from their aborted "Pippi Longstocking" project (I guess Astrid Lindgren heard about the Moomin tanks). 

 

Nagagutsu Sanjuushi aka The Return Of Pero aka Ringo Rides West aka the second of Toei’s Puss In Boots movies is a kiddy version of a spaghetti western as Toei mascot cat Pero finds himself chased all the way to the Old West! Outlaws are trying to take over frontier Go Go Town for their own evil ends and Annie's inheritance stands in their way. Will Pero and the mysterious Kid With No Name aka Jimmy save the town? 

 

Hellhound Liner 0011 Henshin! Tsutomu lives in the world of the future and his only friends are dogs. When those dogs are killed by outer space alien invaders in an assassination attempt on Tsutomu’s father, there is only one response - to rebuild those dogs into transforming robot combination spaceship cyborgs and destroy the planet of devils! This is a kids’ movie? This IS a kids' movie, a Toei Manga Matsuri favorite delivering rocket-powered robot monster-destroying excitement at 24 frames a second. Don't miss it! 

 

"Anime Document München e no Michi" or Anime Document: The Road To Munich is a combination animation/live action documentary series about the Japanese Men's Volleyball Team as they prepare for the 1972 Munich Olympics. This series, the second time animation was used in a "documentary" format on Japanese TV, aired on TBS from 23 April to 20 August 1972, was sponsored by Fujiya (the Peko people), and was part of a plan to bring greater recognition to the men's volleyball team, who would go on to take the gold in Munich! That's the power of anime right there. 

 

A princess in a magical land, Chappy longed to visit the human world and when her brother Jun provided a convenient distraction at just the right moment, Chappy and Jun came to Japan! There, she found the human world to be full of pollution, traffic accidents, and bad people. Chappy, Jun, and mom and pop try to get along in our modern world without revealing their magical secrets. If you count Marvelous Melmo, Toei's Magical Chappy is the sixth magical girl to appear in Japanese anime, and aired from April to December 1972. 

 

Tatsunoko Productions' legendary animated series Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman premiered at 6:00 pm on Sunday, October 1, 1972 and gave us 105 bird-ninja starring episodes. Operating under the orders of the International Science Organization, Gatchaman fights to defeat the gangsters, robots, monsters and villains of Berg Katse, who leads the evil Galactor Syndicate controlled by the mysterious Sosai X. This immensely successful franchise would encompass a feature film, scads of merchandising, two sequel TV series, 90s and 00s reboots, a live action film, and international if slightly edited success under the title Battle of The Planets. 

Gatchaman's muscular realism would provide a template for a decade's worth of Tatsunoko hero adventure as the studio brought forth similar adventure programs like Shinzō Ningen Casshan, Uchū no Kishi Tekkaman, and Hurricane Polymar. I've lost count of how many times this show has been made available in America - televised as BOTP, dubbed again as G-Force, Gatchaman II and F shown as Eagle Riders, on VHS and DVD as BOTP, and on DVD and Blu-Ray as Gatchaman. 

 

Not content with the cataclysmic climax of his parent-disapproved "Shameless School" manga, up and coming manga superstar Go Nagai continued to push boundaries with his next popular series, Devilman. Notorious crybaby Akira Fudo lives with foster parents and endures abuse by bullies until one day he merges with the demon Amon and becomes Devilman, sworn to battle the awakening devils that seek to exterminate mankind. This Toei TV adaptation of Nagai's manga began airing in July of 1972, barely a month after the manga began appearing in Weekly Shonen. The comic's nihilistic violence was toned way down in the anime, but it still took decades to see any sort of English-language appearance of the character, who would return to the anime world in two 1980s OVAs and a 2018 Netflix series. 

Mazinger Z, the super robot, was built out of Chogokin-Z by Juzo Kabuto to battle the forces of Dr. Hell, in much the same fashion as creator Go Nagai forming Dynamic Pro to battle those who would abscond with licensing rights to his creations. Just before Dr. Kabuto's murder by Dr. Hell’s agents, Kabuto reveals Mazinger Z to his grandson Koji Kabuto, who then pilots Mazinger Z through 92 episodes of a Toei TV anime series airing from December 1972 until September 1974. Based on the manga by Go Nagai, Mazinger Z spawned armies of toys, battalions of merchandising and legions of sequels and imitations that infest Japanese popular culture to this day. 

English versions

Mazinger Z was dubbed into English in the 1970s (by M&M) and again in the 1980s as “Tranzor Z” by 3B. In 1973 Devilman and Mazinger Z would team up to star in the fine art film Mazinger Z vs Devilman. Koji Kabuto and Mazinger Z would return in the 2009 series Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact! and in the 2017 feature film Mazinger Z Infinity.

 

cinema at its finest

 

And that's 1972, without which we would not have Tatsunoko adventure, Toei super robots, Devilman Crybabies, Gutsy Frogs, or Astrogangers. What would that non-'72 world look like? Popular culture would have to limp along without bird ninjas or super-mechanical heroes, toy companies would be bereft of robot toys, Japanese PTAs would have to find something else to complain about. Fifty years later, however, we still live in the world that 1972's anime created, our feet firmly planted in that strong 1972 foundation. Now, choose your soundtrack: "Ziggy Stardust" or "Exile On Main Street"! 

 -Dave Merrill

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Net world, please consider joining our Patreon!

1978: Anime's Greatest Year?

(portions of this column were originally presented early Sunday morning at AWA 2018. Thanks to all who battled through their hangovers to attend.)

So, 1978. Let me tell you about 1978. First off, it was still the 1950s sometimes, thanks to Sha Na Na, Grease and Happy Days. On the other hand, we had three Popes that year! Jimmy Carter brokered Mideast peace and signed the Panama Canal treaty. The Cowboys won the Super Bowl, the Yankees took the World Series, and M.A.S.H. and Little House On The Prairie weren't even half over. Me, I was eight years old, and if there was one thing I loved more than pestering anyone with a car to take me to see Star Wars again, it was watching cartoons on TV. Sadly, apart from Bugs Bunny re-runs, that Fantastic Four show starring Herbie the Robot, and of course, Super Friends, our network cartoons were all dreck like Fangface, Web Woman, and Galaxy Goof-Ups.

Meanwhile in Japan, lucky shoujos and shonens were literally wallowing in an ocean of colorful, wild, and occasionally ridiculous pop culture, as Japan's entertainment machine kicked into overdrive spewing out Pink Ladys and Ultramen, Chogokin super robots and Micromen and Space Invaders, all part of a nation's creative output... including an anime industry that just might have hit its peak in 1978. 

Seriously? 1978? Japanese animation as we know it has been a thing for more than fifty years. Why would I do something so silly as to pick a year and claim it's the greatest? Well, okay. I freely admit this is a foolish, subjective endeavor designed primarily to let me cheerlead for some of my favorites, using forty years of hindsight as leverage. But even skeptics have to admit 1978 brought new works by some of Japanese animation's greatest talents and sequels to some of anime's greatest properties. Japan's class of '78 cartoons proved popular around the world and many of these shows are still watched today. We're still feeling their impact forty years after the fact.

1977 hadn't quite stopped yet

The year started out with an advantage thanks to all the terrific anime that carried over from '77. The Leiji Matsumoto-created super robot series Danguard Ace continued to show Ichimonji Takuma and Captain Mask battle Leader Doppler and his army of monster robots. Candace White Adley struggled from heartbreak to heartbreak in the landmark shoujo anime Candy Candy. The "Robot Romance" series of Tadao Nagahama began with Voltes V, which we'll be seeing released here on DVD soon from Discotek Media.

In Japan's movie theaters, Space Battleship Yamato came cruising back with the July release of the film Farewell To Space Battleship Yamato: Soldiers Of Love, or, as the English-language text on the promotional material dubbed it, Arrivederci Yamato. After 1974's tepidly-received Yamato TV series and a vastly more successful 1977 release of a compiled Yamato movie, the question was, could producer Nishizaki turn Yamato into what today we call a "franchise?" He could, and did. Farewell To Space Battleship Yamato: Soldiers Of Love was a hugely successful epic gotterdammerung of a film in which the revived planet Earth is menaced by the Comet Empire and the crew of the Yamato must defy orders, save Teresa of Telezart, and make the ultimate sacrifice. Produced at breakneck speed by top tier Japanese animation talent like designer and collaborator Leiji Matsumoto, director Noboru Ishiguro, and character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Farewell is a terrific film that delivers an entire new civilization's worth of space vehicles to threaten our heroes, gives the Comet Empire that monumental, shuddering Hiroshi Miyagawa pipe organ theme, and still delivers Yamato style outer space romantic mysticism in a 151-minute epic that makes every minute count. North America received Voyager Entertainment VHS and DVD releases of this film, but as of now it's out of print.

Sure, we all wept at the (spoiler!) climactic sacrifice of the Yamato and her crew at the end of Arrivederci Yamato. However the Yamato would return in October's TV version of the Comet Empire story, Space Battleship Yamato 2. In this series the Yamato's tragic end isn't quite so tragic or final, as we see an expanded version of the film that gives more screentime to our crew, allows space dictator Desslar a chance at redemption, and finally standardizes the Yamato's formerly lackadaisical mechanical design. This show and the first Yamato TV series would be packaged in foreign markets as "Star Blazers" and air in US markets in 1979, a crucial series for many a North American anime fan (like me). Available on DVD as part of Star Blazers and currently out of print.

Harlock, Herlock, whichever

Japanese audiences were experiencing Leiji Matsumoto overload in 1978. Danguard Ace was still on the air, the Yamato was battling the Comet Empire in theaters and on TV, and March would see the first episode of one of Matsumoto's most iconic series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Harlock and his forty fellow space pirates defy the evil plant women of the Mazone, who return to Earth after millions of years to lay claim to their ancient-astronaut home. As we mentioned before, this terrific TV series is currently available on streaming video and in a Discotek DVD release, and Harlock would go on to star and co-star in feature films and TV series for decades to come. 

Not enough Leiji? Enjoy his April '78 science-fiction Journey To The West pastiche SF Saiyuki Starzinger – localized here as Jim Terry's Spaceketeers - or settle in for a ride on the Galaxy Express 999. Leiji Matsumoto's wistful meditation on life, death, and everything in between as seen through the eyes of a young boy travelling to Andromeda to get an immortal machine body, Toei's Galaxy Express 999 TV series first aired in September of 1978 and ran for 113 episodes. As we discussed earlier, this series is currently streaming and soon to be available on DVD from Discotek.

Harlock wasn't the only space captain zipping around '78; Golden Age SF writer Edmond Hamilton's 1940s hero Captain Future launched in November for 52 episodes of Toei-produced interplanetary adventure. These reasonably faithful pulp adaptations were thankfully updated with 70s era mechanical design and starred the titular Captain Future, Curtis Newton, and his shipmates the android Otho, the robot Grag, Simon "The Brain" Wright, and Space Girlfriend Joan Randall as they battle the evil forces that threaten to wreck the solar system. A big hit in Japan and Europe, the series has seen home video releases in almost every format and almost every region, with the exception of (sigh) North America.

Gatchaman II

Tatsunoko's Science Ninja Team Gatchaman series first aired in '72 – the cast's giant flared jeans are a dead giveaway - for 105 episodes of science ninja vs international criminal action. One of creator Ippei Kuri's most iconic creations, Gatchaman would get a theatrical compilation film in July, just in time to get audiences ready for the October start of the sequel to Gatchaman, Gatchaman II. The missing Condor Joe (spoilers!) returns early on, and the new show wastes no time getting back to battling robot monsters and evil Galactors. 1978 would also be the year that the '72 Gatchaman series would be edited, rewritten, dubbed by an all-star cast of American voice talent including Alan "Wilbur" Young and Casey "American Top 40" Kasem, and reach syndication in America as Battle of The Planets. Packed with action, great characters, and stunning mechanical mayhem, BOTP grabbed Americans by the eyeballs and turned them into what we now call 'anime fans.' Both BOTP and Gatchaman have had several iterations of home video release in North America, and the entire mythic Gatchaman cycle of Gatchaman, Gatchaman II, and Gatchaman F is available on DVD from Sentai, right now for the bargain price of eighty dollars.

it's kid-tested

Lupin III, hands down the world's greatest second-story man, safecracker, confidence trickster, and all around thief, made the jump from Monkey Punch's manga and a few hundred TMS produced TV episodes to the big movie screen in his 1978 feature film debut, directed by Mushi Pro vet Soji Yoshikawa and released by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. Known in some circles as "Mystery Of Mamo," this very 70s film is a wild roller coaster ride around the world as Lupin battles the possibly immortal Mamo past sight gags, 2001 references, spaghetti western homages, Clark Bar comic book ads, and the kinds of sleazy, lustful TV Lupin behavior that Hayao Miyazaki would totally abandon when directing the next Lupin III film. Mamo's long-lost English dub is now available on the Discotek DVD along with four (!) other English dubs.

The title can be literally translated into English as "Here Comes Miss Modern", "Here Comes Miss High-Collar" ("haikara" a Japanese portmanteau of "high collar"), or "Fashionable Girl Passing By," but in Japan they call this series Haikara-san ga Toru. In 1977, Waki Yamato's original Shoujo Friend manga series won the first Kodansha Manga Award. The Nippon Animation adaptation of Haikara-san ga Toru began airing in March of 1978, taking us all the way back to Tokyo in 1920, where teenager tomboy Benio Hanamura is always getting in trouble and advocating for new-fangled modern ways. 

here comes miss modern tree-climber

Though opposed to arranged marriages, she's engaged to the dreamy young Army captain Shinobu. Benio tries to sabotage the engagement but finds herself falling in love in spite of herself. Can their romance survive war in Manchuria, amnesia, and the Great Kanto Earthquake? A new anime film of Haikara-san was released earlier this year and Eleven Arts licenced it for North America, so look out, here she comes!

Hiromi Oka leaps from the pages of the sports shoujo manga classic Aim For The Ace by Suzumu Yamamoto, joins her high school tennis club and finds the tennis superstar inside that only the challenge of Ochofujin and the Demon Coach can bring out. This October '78 remake of the amazing 1972 Aim For The Ace series didn't feature 1972's Osamu Dezaki direction or Akio Sugino's character designs, but that's OK, they were working on the terrific 1979 Aim For The Ace movie. None of Aim For The Ace is commercially available in English in any form. Why is this? Somebody make it happen.

New Aim For The Ace

April 1978: Tadao Nagahama and an all-star cast of anime geniuses (Masaki Tsuji, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Yuki Hijiri, etc.) continues his "Robot Romance" series with Fighting General Daimos. Kazuya Ryuuzaki, a young karate champ/astronaut, returns from deep space along with his sword-slinging Afro-sporting copilot Kyoushirou to find Earth under attack from space aliens fleeing the destroyed planet Baam. As befits the star of an anime show, only Kazuya can pilot the transforming truck-robot Daimos to battle the invaders. His thirst for vengeance is derailed slightly when he falls in love with the Baam princess Erika. Can their romance survive the struggle between two worlds? Animated by Sunrise under contract to Toei, this show packs a one-two punch of super robot destruction and soapy love story melodrama that totally satisfies. Daimos eventually aired in the Philippines, Italy, Poland, and even in an edited compilation video titled "Star Birds" that was released on home video and a few airings on Pat Robertson's CBN cable network.

from a Fighting General Daimos children's storybook

Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island has enjoyed many cinematic adaptations, and the world of anime is no exception. There have been one, two, at least three separate Japanese cartoon versions of this seminal pirate adventure story. Unquestionably the best Japanese anime iteration – the one without talking animals, anyway - is the October '78 TMS Treasure Island series, directed by genius Osamu Dezaki. This is what he was doing instead of remaking Aim For The Ace, I guess. Treasure Island aired in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Columbia, Taiwan, the Arabic world, and after circumnavigating the globe, finally reached the English language audience via YouTube with TMS subtitles.

Treasure Island never looked so great

1978 started its journey with the New Years Day premiere of Perrine Story, the 1978 Nippon Animation series based on the Hector Malot novel Sans Familie. Young Perrine struggles to make her way from one end of Europe to another to find her estranged grandfather and experience the clash of class and race at the tail end of the 19th century. Nothing explains the power of Japanese animation quite like its ability to entertain regardless of viewer demographics, and it's when you are on the edge of your seat hoping Perrine and her weakening mother and their long-suffering donkey Polikare can muscle their wagon up the muddy 19th century roads through the Alps, well, that's when you realize the true power of anime. I defy anyone to fail to be moved when that donkey makes a reappearance later in the show, which sadly is unavailable commercially in English.

Perrine, Baron, and Polikare, the donkey who drank too much

Sanrio, the Hello Kitty people, spent the 1970s branching out into other media, including the shoujo manga magazine Lyrica and a series of animated films, including 1978's Ringing Bell, a 47 minute film based on a children's book about a cute little lamb named Chirin. Devastated when his mother is killed by a wolf, Chirin swears eternal vengeance, and ironically is taught to be a violent survivor by the very same momicide-committing wolf. Chirin grows to learn the world is a terrifying nightmare of unending conflict. You know, for kids! Released on American VHS by Columbia in the 1980s and recently revived on DVD by Discotek, Ringing Bell is a beautifully animated film that illustrates perfectly how even the most talented of artists can completely misjudge their audience.

don't be fooled by that Ringing Bell box art

Between April and October of 1978, viewers were treated to what many believe is the best Japanese anime series ever made, Future Boy Conan. Based on Alexander Key's 1970 dystopian YA SF novel "The Incredible Tide" – yes, he's the guy that wrote "Escape To Witch Mountain" - this Nippon Animation series was produced by the anime dream team of Yasuo Otsuka, Isao Takahata, and Hayao Miyazaki. Remember that world war we had back in July 2008, the one that saw the use of super powerful magnetic weapons more powerful than atom bombs? After the world is thrown off its axis, the survivors of a flooded Earth struggle to rebuild civilization, represented by the polar opposites of the techno-fascist Industria and the peaceful, agricultural High Harbor. We first meet our hero, the titular Conan, living a bucolic, shark-fighting life with his grandfather alone on Lonely Island. The world, or what's left of it, intrudes when the girl Lana washes up on shore, with soldiers from Industria in hot pursuit. To protect Lana, Conan leaves Lonely Island and finds both friends and enemies in a world still reeling from the great disaster. Future Boy Conan is filled with adventure, action, humor, intrigue, disaster, and redemption; it's the kind of broad-appeal anime property that's made its creators famous the world over, and of course is commercially unavailable in English.

my Conan frame-tray puzzle

Naturally, being on the other side of the world, I had no idea these cartoons even existed. But it wasn't so terrible, back in 1978. For instance, one summer night our whole neighborhood kid gang were dropped off at Cobb Center Mall to see a movie. This was back in the day when parents felt perfectly confident in leaving their 8 and 9 and 10 year olds unsupervised at movie theaters. We all got out alive, so I guess it was OK. Anyway the movie was a rollicking sci-fi actioner titled Message From Space, and we all agreed it was pretty awesome, almost as good as, if not as good as, that other space movie with the Death Stars and the light sabers. I spent years looking for Message From Space, back when my only hope was to catch a late-night UHF TV broadcast. I'd find out it was directed by the guy who made Battle Royale, and that it starred faded Hollywood royalty and top-of-the-line Japanese movie stars, that Shotaro Ishinomori was one of the writers, that it was a sci-fi updating of the Hakkenden legend, and that there was a followup TV show starring a space ape. You can judge for yourself with the DVD from Shout Factory. 

So was 1978 anime's greatest year? I think I've presented a pretty solid case, and I didn't even mention Invincible Superman Daitarn 3 or that Pink Lady anime series. But to be honest, who's to say 1977 or 1979 or any other year might not be just as great? In a field that continues to produce amazing work year after year, who knows what classics lie ahead? All I know is, I'll probably be watching.

-Dave Merrill

1978 says "So long!"

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Net world, please consider joining our Patreon!

your bird ninja update

If you're like me, you grew up watching Battle of The Planets. Well, actually, I preferred Star Blazers. It took a while for me to really understand what was going on with those 5 bird ninjas and their struggle against Galactor. Actually, what it took was finally catching the original 1972 Tatsunoko Japanese version, the tremendously popular Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Created by manga pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, Gatchaman was a wild, colorful SF reimagining of his early 60s adventure series "Phantom Agents," remixed with space aliens, supercars, giant mechanical monsters, and all the bell bottom jeans the 1970s could provide. Gatchaman would return in the 1978 sequel Gatchaman II and its followup, 1979's Gatchaman Fighter. 

The success of Star Wars brought science fiction to the attention of every media executive in America, and Tatsunoko's earlier export Speed Racer had given the studio a beachhead in America. However, since the 1960s, new standards for children's television had prevailed in the US, so TV producer Sandy Frank's Gatchaman iteration Battle Of The Planets was chopped, channeled, rewritten, repainted, lowered, and had a new, vastly inferior transmission installed. And that's as far as I'm going with that car metaphor.

industry ad pitching BOTP to US TV markets

At any rate it's a terrific titan of 70s anime, featuring super monsters, colorful heroes, lots of kid-friendly action, anime melodrama, muscular, fairly realistic character designs, and a great Hoyt Curtin musical score. As dated and clumsy as the BOTP dub can be at times, the greatness of the original show still shines through. The series inspired a wide range of American merchandise, including model kits, lunchboxes, Gold Key comics that are not worth $20 each, sorry, and various magic slate and frame tray puzzle toys.  

Once 1978's Battle of The Planets had run its syndication course, the entire series was re-dubbed by Fred "Astro Boy" Ladd for Turner, under the new title G-Force. This new, uncut version of the series (1986) featured goofy character names ("Ace Goodheart") and new, synthesized, incessant, maddening background music. The series was shown a few times on the various channels of the Turner cable network before vanishing mysteriously.

In the 1990s Saban (you know, the Power Rangers people) took the second and third Gatchaman series (Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter) and dubbed them under the title "Eagle Riders". This fairly nonsensical dub worked its way into syndication and vanished opposite a late-decade wave of newer, more popular anime imports like Sailor Moon.

Once DVDs made their appearance, Rhino Video produced six volumes of Battle Of The Planets - each release featuring two BOTP episodes, two subtitled Gatchaman episodes, and one G-Force episode.

Four years later,  anime localizer A.D.Vision released the entire 105-episode Gatchaman series, with new, accurate dubs AND subtitles, in DVD box sets with extras. Suddenly anime fans could not only enjoy the entire Gatchaman series as it was intended to be seen, but anime con panelists could spend an hour discussing the show, and then go to the dealers room and purchase an officially licensed, uncut, super-high-quality edition of the actual show under discussion, in order to demonstrate that the original series, while more violent than typical American cartoons of the period, was not the blood-drenched gore-fest popular imaginations would have you believe. The series continues to live on in the American video market: ADV's successor Sentai Filmworks has released the TV series and its compilation film on Blu-Ray and DVD. The 1990s OVA remake, the abortive CG film, the live-action film, the Zip! "Good Morning Gatchaman" shorts,  and kinda-sorta-sequels like Gatchaman Crowds remind us all that the bird ninjas continue to thrive in the Japanese cultural landscape. 

Chinese-language Gatchaman II book

Gatchaman was one of the first American anime releases to have a substantial fandom built around it; when I got into anime fandom in the 1980s, Gatchaman fans were there already, publishing APAs and writing fan fiction, cosplaying and drawing fan artwork and swapping 13th generation copies of the last 5 episodes of Gatchaman F. It's an enthusiasm that's mirrored in the culture at large; Battle of The Planets inspired two completely separate American comic book releases and continues to be a minor cultural touchstone among former 70s cartoon kids, wide-eyed with wonder at a future that gives us both Battle Of The Planets and Gatchaman and Gatchaman II and soon, Gatchaman F. 

-Dave Merrill

(this post has been modified from its original 2007 form to fix links and include updates circa 2017)