Battle of the Planets (1978) is an animated television cartoon originally produced in Japan in 1972 under the name Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (lit. Scientific Ninja Team Gatchaman). It consists of 85 of the 105 original Gatchaman episodes.

Battle of the Planets casts five young people as the team called, G-Force. Their job is to protect the Earth from planet Spectra and other attacks from 'beyond space'.

The Gatchaman series was edited for US TV broadcasting standards, removing scenes of violence, and replacing the lost time with an R2-D2 type robot named 7-Zark-7 to fill in the plot holes left from editing. The show was a favourite with the juvenile audiences of the time and decades later it continues to bring in new fans. Subsequent seasons (Gatchaman II and Gatchaman F) have yet to be released outside of Japan.

In 1986 the show reappeared in the US as G-Force: Guardians of Space from Turner with a good deal of the original content that had been edited out of BOTP put back in to the show. It followed the plot of the original Gatchaman much more faithfully than Battle of the Planets because of this.

Originally released in comic book form by Gold Key, Battle of the Planets was revamped by the comic book company Top Cow.

The movie rights to Gatchaman were recently picked up by Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

External links

• Gatchaman - Home of the White Shadow
• Gatchaman
• Gatchaman,BotP, G-Force
• Gatchaman and BotP Links List
• Theme Tune (links to TV.Cream.org)