Tachumaru

Hi all!

Have you ever wanted to see Tatsunoko characters rendered as cute, costumed animals? Well, now's your chance, thanks to Tachimaru. Details are few at this point, but this appears to be the start of a new campaign that uses animal versions of Tatsunoko characters as its theme.

As this point, only four characters have been introduced, including a penguin version of Ken named Gatchapen.



The other characters include a combination of Gold Lightan and a chicken named Hiyotan, a feline Casshan named Nyanyan, and a rendition of Casshan's robot dog Friender. As Friender is already a dog, there was no need to combine him with another animal or give him a new name, so he's just been redesigned in a cute fashion.

The characters are appearing on the Tatsunoko home page (http://www.tatsunoko.co.jp/), popping up in the rotating items of interest at the top of the page. Gatchapen shows up on two of them, one for the upcoming Honeybee Hutch movie:



And in one advertising the reruns of the 2008/2009 Yatterman TV series:



A short, silent movie featuring Hiyotan, Gatchapen, and Nyanyan can be found on the Tachumaru site at:

http://www.tatsunoko.co.jp/tatyumaru/index.html

In it, we see Gatchapen run toward a cliff...





...and leap dramatically into the air...



What happens next? Well, you'll have to watch the video and see.

James

That was very cute!!! Thanks for showing us, James!

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Hi all!

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Thanks for sharing, James! Those are so cute! I wouldn't mind having one as a pet!

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