Eagle Riders

Eagle Riders is an combined adaptation of Gatchaman II (1978-1979) and Gatchaman Fighter (1979-1980), the two sequel series to the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.

Synopsis

The Earth is under siege from an extraterrestrial group called Vorak lead by the mysterious Cybercom. The Global Security Council looks into the matter and calls upon Dr. Thaddeus Keane, who leads the Eagle Riders, a superhero team consisting of five members who have previously provided the Earth a great deal of help. Dr. Keane assured the council that the Eagle Riders will prevail against the alien threat that's upon them.

Dubbing History

Due to Sandy Frank owning the rights to Battle of the Planets, Saban pitched Eagle Riders as a completely unrelated series rather than a sequel. In order to adhere to Saban Entertainment's strict censorship guidelines, which forbid any explicit references to death, the show was heavily edited and re-written, arguably more so than the editing done to Battle of the Planets. The dub featured new music composed by Shuki Levy and Haim Saban.

Although the dub starts off as a relatively straight dub of the first sequel, Saban quickly began skipping episodes and cherry-picking whichever ones felt "safest" for them to translate, as well as airing others out of order. Much like Sandy Frank and Battle of the Planets dubbing order, this was due to Tatsunoko sending the film reels out of order. Character deaths were generally covered up or cut out, entire episodes were dropped while others were spliced together, and Saban's dubbing effort proved very inconsistent as the writers stumbled to get themselves out of plot holes they'd created.

One notable example of the inconsistent changes made to the series is the removal of Mallanox (Gel Sadora)'s origin and transformation, which originally happened in the premiere episode of Gatchaman II. Instead, it is said in the first episode that Mallanox was created by Cybercon (Leader X), then it's changed in a subsequent episode where he's referred to as the son of Lukan (Berg Kattse from the first series). Even later in the series it reverts back to the original backstory that Mallanox is in fact an artificially-aged Nancy Aikens (Sammie Pandora), the missing daughter of Francine Aikens (Sylvie Pandora). As a result, Mallanox is initially referred to as male, then as female, still speaking in a masculine voice when in costume. It's important to note that even in the original Japanese version, Gel Sadora was voiced by a male actor, thus the character's gender is often a source of confusion.

In an attempt to cover up the villains death at the end of Gatchaman II and to try to merge the two series closer together, the footage is edited so that Mallanox is transformed by Cybercon into the villain of Gatchaman Fighter, Happy Boy (Count Egobossler) - so titled due to Mallanox's habit of laughing constantly. The cutting and pasting only increased once the dub reached Fighter, with episodes spliced together and some scenes from later episodes being put into earlier ones with rewritten context.

The final 8 episodes of Gatchaman Fighter were never translated, due to the objectionable content involved. Instead, the 15th episode of Gatchaman Fighter served as the series finale, offering no closure for the storyline. All in all, 65 of a combined total of 100 episodes (52 for Gatchaman II, 48 for Gatchaman Fighter) were adapted. The series only aired for 13 episodes in the United States, while it aired in its entirety in Australia.

Cast

Character	Original Name	Seiyū	Voice Actor
Hunter Harris	Ken Washio	Katsuji Mori	Richard Cansino
Joe Thax	Joe Asakura	Isao Sasaki	Bryan Cranston
Kelly Jenar	Jun	Kazuko Sugiyama	Heidi Lenhart
Mickey Dugan	Jinpei	Yoku Shioya	Mona Marshall
Ollie Keeawani	Ryu Nakanishi	Shingo Kanemoto	Paul Schrier
Dr. Thaddeus Keane	Dr. Nambu	Tōru Ōhira	Greg O'Neill
Dr. Francine Aikens	Dr. Sylvie Pandora	Miyuki Ikeda	Lara Cody
Mallanox	Gel Sadora	Masaru Ikeda	R. Martin Klein
Happy Boy	Count Egobossler	Kōji Nakata	R. Martin Klein
Cybercon	Leader X	Nobuo Tanaka	Peter Spellos
Narration		Shūsei Nakamura	¿?

Additional Voices

Notes

Sandy Frank originally approached Tatsunoko Productions about also adapting Gatchaman II for a sequel Battle of the Planets series, though these negotiations went nowhere.
Sentai Filmworks has expressed interest in acquiring both Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter and giving them a proper uncut dub as was done by them with the first series, movie and OVA. However, due to complicated legal entanglements, it's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
- As with all Saban productions, Eagle Riders was sold to the Walt Disney Company in 2001 after Saban sold the company and the Fox Family Channel to them.
- On December 20, 2016, Sentai Filmworks announced the North American release of the Gatchaman II Complete Series DVD set for April 18, 2017. However, it will be subtitle only.
Richard Cansino, Mona Marshall, Lara Cody and R. Martin Klein would dub for the 1994 OVA a year later. Mona Marshall would reprise the role of Jinpei, while Cansino took the role of Joe, Cody voiced June, and Klein voiced Berg Kattse.
Richard Epcar cites this dub as one of his favorite animes.

Transmission

Date(s)	Channel	Country
1996-1997	Network Ten	Australia

External Links

Gatchaman II at the Internet Movie Database
Gatchaman Fighter at the Internet Movie Database
Eagle Riders at the Internet Movie Database