 Gatchaman AKA Ken Washio, leader of the Science Ninja Team Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman or simply Gatchaman, is an anime animated television series originally produced in Japan in 1972 (lit. Scientific Ninja Troop Gatchaman) by Tatsunoko Productions. It consists of 105 episodes,
The series is centered around five young superhero ninjas trained to stop Galactor, a terrorist group, from trying to wipe out the world's resources. Galactor is led by an androgynous person named 'Berg Katse' in the original or 'Zoltar' in the American dub.
The series was follwed by two sequel series, Gatchman II and Gatchaman F. Furthermore, the original series was remade as a condensed OAV series in 1994.
The original series was translated and severely edited as Battle of the Planets. The series was translated a second time with far less cutting as G-Force in 1986, but with widely panned soundtrack. The 2 sequel series were translated as Eagle Riders in the 1990s, with changes to audio, character names, and removing the characteristic-beeping speech impediment by Keyop, the youth of the Gatchaman team.
The main characters featured always wore either teen fashions with numbered T-shirts showing their rank in the team, or caped battle uniforms styled after various birds. They also used various signature weapons and mecha style vehicles which each had a more mundane looking disguised form. Each character was known by several names thanks to changes made in Translation to English in each of the various series'.
| Original Japanese | Battle of the Planets | G-Force | Bird Uniform | Weapon | Mecha
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| Ken | Mark | Ace Goodheart | Eagle | Razor boomerang | Airplane
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| Joe | Jason | Dirk Daring | Condor | Pistol | Race Car
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| Jun | Princess | Agatha June | Swan | Yo-yo | Motorcycle
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| Ryu | Tiny | Ollie | Owl | Piloted the team Mecha, "Phoenix"
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| Jinpei | Keyop | PeeWee | Sparrow | Bolo | Dune Buggy
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