Set in the near future in Tokyo, Japan. The evil terrorist organization Galactor has declared war on the world. The group possesses more advanced technology than governments and occupies over half of the planet. Dr. Kozaburo Nambu of the International Science Organization gathers together 5 superhero ninja agents, known collectively as Gatchaman, to stop Galactor.
This was one of the first anime’s I ever saw, when I was a kid. Of course, the Americanized version was called “Battle of the Planets”, and was changed for the US Audience to include a new robot called “7 Zark 7” – who was a blatant rip off of R2D2 from Star Wars. The scenes with Zark were badly done and often times they were the Same Scene week after week, with different dialogue added. The rest of the show was very cool.
This live action movie was pretty good, but as a lot of critics have already stated, not great.
I wish it would have stuck to more of a sci-fi/action, instead of crossing into more drama. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the story was good, but it got really slow toward the end.
Another thing that I missed in this live action, where the capes. Yes, the team have capes in this movie, but they’re not cut to resemble wings, as they were in the anime.
Now, they have different names, than in the American cartoon.. so here’s a list for you.
| American | Japanese | Role | Bird | |
 |
Mark | Ken | Lead | Eagle |
 |
Princess | Jun | unknown | Swan |
 |
Jason | George | 2nd Command | Condor |
 |
Tiny | Ryu | Pilot | Owl |
 |
Keyop | Jimpei | Tech Ninja | Swallow |
Unfortunately, the movie was not released in English, so you have to see it with subtitles. The good news is, it’s available on Amazon and other online retailers. https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=gatchaman&index=blended
