Gatchaman and BOTP Spinoffs/Tributes Week

Not that long ago we had a thread talking about different cameos of Gatch in Yatterman and Spiderman, among others. This week I'd like to look at actual Gatch spinoffs, as well as 'tributes'.

By now, we are all familiar with Gatchapin:





But did you know there are animated drawings as well of the Science Ninja Team Gatchapin?



There is no animated series yet, but I'm waiting!

Additionally, there was a short-lived Tatsunoko Babies series:



Don't ask me why the Tatsunoko Babies are singing. ???

Then there are the NTT commercials:



And the Megas SLR S-Force episodes:



And of course, the Nurse With Komugi ep:



There are also some 'unofficial' tributes in the form of fan art. For example, here is a Swan cameo from a Simpsons opening:



And some fan art Simpsons Gatch:





These are chibi style Gatch done for an Eagle 5 Brothers video game:



Muppet Gatch fan art:



Sonic the Hedgehog goes Gatch:



And by our very own LBorgia, Order of the Gatch!



And last, I had to show this shot of Gatch teddy bears... too cute!




Anyone have other images to share?

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Of course Gatchapin and the chibi style gatch is too cute.

The singing babies cracked me up

The one set looks like gatch bunnies which seems strange, not sure what to think there.

What are the NTT commericals?

I love how Marge's hair goes right through the helmet

Sonic gatch style is an interesting concept... I do like Sonic

LB, your pics are awesome

Oh, gatch teddy bears are really cute too! :cute:

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"They say the Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg, but that must have been Galactor's fault too."

Thank you for all those spinoff captures TJ and LB.

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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

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Ahhh... thanks for all those links

The bunny ears just annoy me I guess, but seeing Nambu/Anderson with pink hair...

I really like the look of the NTT commericals... nice job

Ooo... I forgot about PARK CLEAN

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"They say the Titanic sank because it hit an iceberg, but that must have been Galactor's fault too."

Thanks for the Yatterman link, Cain! I hadn't seen that one either!

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Does "Heroes del Espacio" count? This is a spanish language dub of a thing made by the korean animation company that worked on Gatchaman 2, and is a sort of hour long compressed version of Gatch 2. It's all very recognisable, but doesn't use the same animation.

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."

I do have a copy on tape, but I don't have any way to get screenshots from it as I don't currently have a working VCR. The quality of the tapes I have is also very bad. I seem to recall that Gel Sadra is grown from a dark haired boy rather than a blonde girl though.

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."

Hi all!

The only place I've seen screengrabs from Heroes del Espacio is in the photos section of the Yahoo! Groups Gatchaman Club site, originally posted back in March of 2002. Here are those images, along with the captions that went with them:


Marco with his Dad, and falling underwater


Marco is force-grown by X


A shot of X, and the exterior of his base.


The Snack "Yumi?!?"


The Ninja Team watches some TV


Jinpei Pan...


Dr. Pandora tries to kill X.


Gel Sadra/Marco finds out the truth about himself.


Marco tries to kill X.


The Ninja Team finally kill X.


The Ninja Team is victorious.

The video contains some footage that appeared in Gatchaman II, but most of it is original to this production. Visually, there are numerous points of similiarity to Gatchaman II, but many of them are slightly askew to what we're used to. The biggest, of course, is that Gel Sadra is now a young boy named Marco. Other changes are less obvious, like Pandroa wearing a low-cut version (Particularly in the back) of her standard dress, colored in reds instead of blues.

Much of the stories condensed into these videos follow similar territory to their Gatchaman II counterparts, but with unusual changes. these changes include Gel Sadra attacking X with the Iron Demon Dragon from Gatchaman II #38 and the Ninja Team defeating X by using the Tornado Fighter. Then there's stuff that you really wouldn't expect, like the fantasy sequence with Jinpei dreaming he's Peter Pan and the little girl from Gatchaman II #6 is his Wendy, and a redoing of the scene in the Snack Jun from Gatchaman #67, where the Ninja Team beats up the jerks who are badmouthing them.

All I know is that, after the first time I watched this, all the switching back and forth between what was familiar and what wasn't made my brain hurt.

The known facts regarding Heroes del Espacio are few, but here's what we have. The visuals were made at some point by a Korean studio. This is evidenced by the sporadic appearance of Korean text in the course of things, and by a few frames with Korean text that appear at poorly done edit points, such as these:



These visuals were brought over to Spain, where they were dubbed into Spanish and released on at least 2 bargain videotapes, the covers of which looked like this:



Tatsunoko was not directly involved in the production, and was unaware of its existence until they were provided with copies of the material around 2001 or 2002.

Beyond that, all we've got to go on is speculation, and this part should be treated as such.

It is assumed that the studio that produced the visuals is the same Korean studio that Tatsunoko farmed out some of their production work to. This assumption was made because that studio would have had access to the production materials used in making Gatchaman II, and could easily have dug them out to make this. This was the same supposition that Tatsunoko made when they saw the videos.

It is possible that this was taken from a new version of Eagle 5 Brothers. Eagle 5 Brothers was the Korean title for the original Gatchaman series when it aired there in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, there was a sudden wave of Eagle 5 Brothers merchandise that appeared in Korean stores, much of it with listings for the network that was airing the series, all of which seems to indicate that the series was on the air in some fashion. As all of that merchandise was based on Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter, it seems reasonable that the series airing at that time was not the first series. As no videos from that broadcast of Eagle 5 Brothers have surfaced, it's currently impossible to tell whether that series was actually Gatchaman II, if it was this new material, or if it was a rerun of the original series. That the Heroes del Espacio videos appeared in Spain within a couple of years of this Korean Eagle 5 Brothers surge adds to the suspicion that a newly created Korean series was the source for this material.

We know that there were two videotapes worth of material dubbed into Spanish, but that doesn't mean that this is all that was made. Were these condensed from a TV series that aired in Spain? If so, how many episodes were there? The two known videotapes are labeled 1 and 2, but were there any others? They wrap up the story at the end of volume 2, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have released more.

We may never know all the facts relating to Heroes del Espacio, but I think it's safe to say that, on the Gatchaman family tree, it'll always remain that weird cousin that no one wants to invite over for the holidays.

James