In October 1978 as Battle of the Planets, it became the first Japanese TV cartoon series in over ten years to break into American TV. Producer Sandy Frank's team (notably Jameson Brewer and Alan Dinehart) drastically edited and rewrote it to turn it into a Star Wars clone. The Japanese plot has the Gatchaman heroes traveling all around Earth to defend our world from the Galactor space invaders. The American version opts for an interstellar setting, claiming that each episode takes place on a different planet (which just happens to look like Earth). Even for the more permissive syndicated TV market, Gatchaman was so violent by American standards that the 105 episodes were cut to 85, and those were edited so much that new American footage by Gallerie International Films, Inc. had to be created (spaceships flying to other planets, and comedy scenes with a new C-3PO-like robot) to bring the episodes back up to 25 minutes. Even so, Battle of the Planets was so dramatic by American TV cartoon standards that it won a large juvenile following. American anime fandom had just started, and early anime fans won many recruits by pointing out that BotP was actually anime, and by showing bootleg videos of the uncut Japanese episodes. In 1986, as a result of legal entanglements, the American license reverted to Tatsunoko which resold it to Turner Program Services, which created yet another American TV version. G-Force, supervised by Fred Ladd, was a more faithful adaptation of the original Gatchaman, but it sold mostly to foreign markets and was seen by few Americans.

Rhino's DVD editions are designed for anime fans. Vol. 1 contains Battle of the Planets, episodes 1 and 2, plus the same two episodes of the original uncut Gatchaman series in Japanese with English subtitles, plus episode 1 again in the G-Force version with English, Spanish, and Brazilian-Portuguese dialogue tracks. All episodes include the full credits in English. The differences between the three versions is striking! Vol. 2 presents episodes 3 and 4, plus G-Force episode 2. Vols. 3 and 4 are scheduled for a January 2002 release; more will follow if sales justify their production.

For the past twenty years, fans have had to settle for imports of the Japanese untranslated Gatchaman on video and twenty-year-old home-video recordings of Battle of the Planets. Now at least the first episodes of both American and Japanese versions, plus some of the G-Force episodes, are available in a format suitable for serious animation collectors. For those who want only the Battle of the Planets versions as cool space-adventure TV cartoons for the 8 to 12 set, they are available as two-episode, 60 minute VHS videos for $9.95 each.

Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl's DVD cover. © Taku Shouji-Takashi Akaishizawa-Yamamoto Yoko Seisakuiinkai/ Kadokawashoten.

Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl: The Perfect Collection.
OAV series (6 episodes), 1996-1997. Director: Akiyuki Shinbo. 180 minutes. Price & format: DVD $39.95 bilingual. Distributor: The Right Stuf International.

Also available in a video edition:

Yamamoto Yohko, Starship Girl. V.1, The Starship Girl. V.2, Echoes from the Past. V.3, All's Fair in Love and War.
2 episodes/60 minutes each. Price & format: video $19.98 dubbed only.

When anime gets silly, it gets really silly! This is a parody of video games and the high schoolers who become obsessed gamers. It lampoons The Last Starfighter most obviously, but goes on to skewer sports, horror and romance games as well. The main cast consists of rival teen girl fighter aces; wish-fulfillment role models for the girl market, cute eye-candy for the boys, and slapstick comedy for both.

A galactic civilization of the 2990s is divided between two interstellar superpowers, Terra and Ness. To avoid devastating warfare, all "tactical economic negotiation" disputes are settled by symbolic battles between teams of four starfighters. Only teenagers have reflexes fast enough to become top fighters. Terra, which has been regularly losing, decides to utilize time-travel to recruit a team from the Golden Years of the space-battle video-gaming past, a thousand years earlier. The four are reckless daredevil Yokho Yamamoto and her high-school buddies, Madoka, Momiji and Ayano. They quickly reverse Terra's losing streak and start humiliating Ness' Red Snappers team; arrogant Rouge and her sisters Lubrum, Erutron and Lote.