Review: ADV's "Gatchaman" DVD Boxset

[August]

Read the full review of this classic kaiju/superhero anime series at http://www.henshinonline.com

[Saruman]

Awesome show, though I am pissed that I bought the first two volumes and then the next day was back and they had put out the box set. I wasn't happy about that and I still have not been able to find the third DVD.

Easily one of my favorite cartoons, it had everything and the stories were simply awesome.

[Enshohma]

Grabbed the last Box set and was extremely happy to finally see the original Japanese episodes, filled with little bits of extra violence that was not in the US versions, most notably Turner Broadcasting's "G-Force" which was my first introduction to it. The Japanese audio is amazingly presented and found myself falling in love with the Science Ninja Team's exploits all over again. With that said though, I must agree with August that the extra features on the 3rd disc wasn't all that great and the new English dubbing is hard to stomach. Its truly a bizarre contrast to the Japanese originals, despite all the wacky 1970 designs, they still treated the material very seriously...and it works! Kaiju fans may be disappointed to find that the monsters of the show is, for the most part, piloted war machines...but there's just something strange and undeniably cool when a giant flying mummy and robotic turtle ship are killing masses of people in the same vine as "Gamera 3" or "GMK". Can't wait to see episode 25 "The Magma Giant, Emperor of Hell" with a molten lava monster with the face of Jesus Christ!