Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - Adaptations and Changes

Adaptations and Changes

The original series was shown in Japan. Later, it was exported to other countries. In Taiwan beginning in 1977, it was known as Ke Xue Xiao Fei Xia (「科學小飛俠」/“科学小飞侠” kēxué xiǎofēixiá, Scientific Flying Fantasy Warriors), which aired on the China TV network and was repeated several times; then on American television in 1978, in heavily edited form, as Battle of the Planets (BOTP for short). The series was shown again on American television in 1986 and 1995 in a newly translated form as G-Force: Guardians of Space. While this version cut out much less of the original and had a much more faithful translation, the voice acting and the background music (not to mention the Americanized names chosen for the characters) were widely panned. The two sequel series, Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter were combined into one and translated as Eagle Riders in 1996, with yet more changes to audio and character names.

ADV Films released an uncut version of the series in the USA with an all-new English-language 5.1 dub, on DVD starting on June 14, 2005. This release included all 105 episodes, with all footage left in. The dub aims to be a faithful translation, without attempts to sanitize the show for younger viewers (meaning there is profanity and utterances of the word "kill"). All violent scenes have been left in as they were in the original Japanese broadcast.

In 2007, Sandy Frank's long-term contract with Tatsunoko Productions (owners of the Gatchaman franchise), which gave it all domestic U.S rights to the first Gatchaman series (along with its English adaptations) lapsed, which leaves both the Battle of the Planets and G-Force adaptations in limbo, with ADV Film's uncut English dub (long since out of print) being the only one readily available on the market. In addition, ADV's sub-license with Sandy Frank that allowed them to release its uncut dub during 2005–2006 has also expired, and ADV itself ceased operations in September 2009. It is not known if any U.S companies currently own the domestic rights to the Gatchaman series.