America's First Manga: UFO Commander 7?

Like many amazing adventures, this one started in an antique mall. Always on the lookout for diecast Japanese robot toys, one day I found one I didn't recognize. And I don’t want to say I’m an expert or anything, but if there’s one thing that takes up too much of my brain, it’s diecast Japanese robot toys. So I bought the thing, this big-headed orange and green robot man, and found out it was “VALCAN-I” from the Shinsei Mini Power UFO Commander 7 Series, a collection of futuristic robots and vehicles sold in the mid 1970s. Shinsei was and maybe still is a toymaker, selling detailed toy replicas of cars, trucks, construction equipment and other items of interest to kids; the brand was acquired by an Indian corporation in 1985.  

The thing about diecast toys is they’re made of metal, and metal is strong. Dogs might chew on it, kids might bury it in the sandbox, they might get smacked around or thrown or dropped, they’ll lose accessories like fists or missiles, but that toy is going to last, a brightly colored artifact of somebody’s childhood that ends up with all the other childhood artifacts on a shelf with a price tag. Soon I was finding other UFO Commander 7 items in the display cases of other vintage toy stores and out of the way antique malls. That’s where I found my Jeek Tunnelins, which is not a rare skin condition, but another mecha-vehicle member of that UFO Commander armada. The Jeek Tunnelin is, as the name would suggest, a tunnelling vehicle. If your Jeek Tunnelin  works properly, pushing the vehicle forward on its caterpillar treads will engage a gear that turns the giant tunnel boring machine-style cutting head disc. It's pretty cool. 

Over the years I kept seeing various toys at various inflated price points in various antique malls, and then one day I saw something I hadn’t seen before in one of those antique mall display cabinets. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a square little View-Master sized paper pamphlet with the UFO Commander 7 logo and what appeared to be manga-style artwork of the series robots and vehicles. "That," I said, "is coming with me."

My guess was that this would be a little toy instruction sheet, how to fit the missiles into your VALCAN-I or how to operate your BRAIN-III or whatever. You've seen these sorts of pamphlets nestled in among the styrofoam tray inside the diecast toy box, if you're lucky enough to find one that still has the box. Anyway, that was my assumption. And my assumption was wrong.

What this was instead was the legend of UFO Commander 7, the entire saga behind the toy line, the explanation of the UFO "Blue Silver" and how it escaped the destruction of its home planet along with VALCAN-I and BRAIN-III. How the Earth was threatened by the Dragols from outer space, and how three Earth youngsters and a dolphin were selected to join the UFO Commander 7 crew. This isn't an instruction sheet, this is a science fiction epic!  But it's the next page that really stunned me.

This is manga, UFO Commander 7 manga. Japanese manga in English from the 1970s, starring Dr. Purron, our friendly talking, bespectacled dolphin Edison, and three Earth youngsters sporting Cyborg 009 cosplay. 

This is English-language manga, years before Viz and Area 88, years before I Saw It and Gen Of Hiroshima. This is manga in three languages all about the heroes of UFO Commander 7 teaming up to battle the Dragols, and also some VALCAN-I and BRAIN-III comedy relief robo-bickering. 

Writing about classic Japanese animation involves a bit of research. As new information comes to light on old series, we're constantly revising our ideas of "firsts." There always seems to be an older anime series or an earlier anime convention or fanzine. So I'm not going to be the guy who says what we're looking at right here is the first Japanese manga to be published in English (and French and German). But maybe it is.

For one thing, this is a toy pamphlet, not a magazine or a book - buying a UFO Commander 7 toy was the only way to read this. Not unheard of in the toy world, but certainly a difficult way to get the work out to a wider audience. 

But let's face it. These are Japanese comics, in English, being distributed in North America in the 1970s. This is a pretty rare thing for America at the time. If you aren't flipping out about this at least slightly, you probably quit reading this blog a while back.

According to Japanese Showa-era toy research blogger Bakadesubakadesu, there was a UFO Commander 7 manga serial in Terebi-Kun magazine that ran from 1976-77. It's unknown who created the manga, and I have no idea if what we're seeing here is repurposed images from that manga, or if this was drawn specifically for the toy line. What I do know is that I'm digging this artwork, this is perfect adventure manga artwork from this period, the human characters have those gigantic Star Of The Giants eyebrows and the mechanical stuff is sharp and tight, the kind of terrific detail we love to see in our mecha illustrations. 

I don't know how many super robot narratives end with one super robot throwing another super robot at the enemy super robots, but it definitely happens at least once! Maybe this needs a little notation reminding children to not throw their BRAIN-IIIs across the room, those things are heavy and could do some damage. 

Not to worry! The diecast metal from Planet Marvellous is strong, and BRAIN-III has survived the impact with only minor and easily repaired damage.

You can tell the robots are functioning normally because they're bickering with each other like always. Now let's get back to building that underground base, and you, children at home, be careful with your VALCAN-I's space razor!

The immense success of the 1970s Japanese entertainment industry, swelling to a tidal wave of comics, cartoons, films, toys, model kits, and uncounted other pieces of ancillary merchandise, couldn't help but surge past Japan's borders and into the rest of the world. And sure, it's easy to sell merchandise from a property that kids have seen on TV or in the movies. But it speaks to the genius of their toy designers that something like UFO Commander 7 can grab the interest and the allowance money of legions of North American kids without benefit of a TV cartoon. Great toys sell themselves. 

Now get out there, collect all the UFO Commander 7 toys, and help VALCAN-I save the Earth from the Dragols!

Well, maybe it IS spelled "VULCAN" after all. 

-Dave Merrill

Special thanks to Antiques On 11, Severn Ontario!

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1965: The Year Anime Went Beyond The Moon

Right now it's 2025, and that means it's as good a time as any to take a look back sixty years and see what Japanese animation looked like in 1965. Except it wasn't called "anime" back then, the term of art was "terebi manga," largely because a lot of what was showing up on Japanese TV in cartoon form had started as newspaper comics, or weekly comics, or comics in general.  However, by 1965 those lines were beginning to blur.  Mass media marketing began its synchronized attacks upon the spare change of Japan's youth. We're still living in the Dentsu age where animation is but one part of a vast promotional machine, and it all got started in those days of the 1960s. But what did what we'd later call "anime" look like, six decades ago? Well, it kind of looked like this. 

Space was the place in 1965! America and Russia both sent probes to the Moon and Mars, while both astronauts and cosmonauts ventured outside their space capsules for the first time. Meanwhile on TV screens, Tatsunoko's first-ever series Space Ace arrived... from space! Based on Tatsuo Yoshida's manga, Space Ace is a boy from the lost planet Parum who was separated from the rest of his people and landed on Earth. Found by Doctor, uh, Tatsunoko, Space Ace uses his amazing Parum abilities of having a stretchy body, a silver energy ring, and a platinum ray to help his new friends and the Earth. Ace replenishes his energy by chewing special energy gum - candy company Kanebo Harris (now Kracie) was a sponsor, and Ace also appears in the bubble gum commercials that air during the show. Tatsunoko pitched Space Ace to American syndication, but nobody in the US took the bait. I've long heard rumors of an English pilot for this series, but so far all that exist are rumors. 

 

Meanwhile in '65, the TCJ crew responsible for Tetsujin-28 aka Gigantor were hard at work bringing Space Boy Soran to Japanese TV, where it would air from May 1965 until March of 1967. Soran is the son of noted scientist Dr. Tachibana who designed a super bomb and then fled with his family to outer space, as one does. Only Soran and his sister survived the crash of their spaceship. Soran was raised by space aliens who rebuilt him into a cyborg and he returns to Earth years later with super powers and a sidekick, Chappy the Space Squirrel, to search for his sister and also to battle evil, of course. Was Space Boy Soran's space squirrel adventure a little too similar to Osamu Tezuka's "No. 7" manga, and did Soran's production cause Tezuka to forestall production of a No. 7 anime series and instead retool the concept into Wonder 3? Only Galactic Command has the answers.

TCJ's Super Jetter is the story of Time Patrolman 723567 who flies from the future in his time-ship Ryusei-go (“Shooting Star”) in pursuit of the criminal Jaguar. Trapped in the 20th century, Super Jetter finds himself using his future powers to battle for justice! This series was commissioned by TBS as an original work rather than adapting an existing property; after TBS found out they'd inadvertently sold all the international rights to Eight Man to ABC Films, they wanted another show they could control exports of. Super Jetter was created by Fumio Hisamatsu, who also did manga for Ultra Seven, Godzilla Vs Mothra, Mighty Jack, UFO Warrior Daiapollon, and Yatterman. The series was originally in black and white but 26 episodes were remade in color for export, screening in Mexico as "El Hijo de Meteoro."

Also from TCJ, starting in June of 1965, was Planet Boy Papi, the story of the boy from the planet Clifton sent to Earth to sell Glico candy - the show was the second after Tetsujin-28 to air in "Glico Theater" time slot -  and fight evil with his powerful Metalizer pendant and the help of a top evil-fighting combo made up of an Arabian wizard, a professional wrestler, and a little girl. We here at Let's Anime were deeply affected by Prince Planet in our youth, and subsequently have written extensively about this series and its English language release as Prince Planet, which was dubbed by Miami's Copri International Studios and syndicated by American International Television.  

Toei's Space Patrol Hopper was sponsored by Daimaru Department Store and later was retitled Patrol Hopper: Space Kid Jun. The titular Jun is an Earthling who got caught up in a conflict involving space aliens. Injured, Jun was rescued by planet Hopper's Space Patrol. The Hopperians, or Hopperites, or Hopperutians, whichever, those guys rebuild Jun as a cyborg using their scientific power, and he becomes a member of their Space Patrol, fighting to protect peace in the universe and on Earth. The terrific Yasuji Mori character designs are all over this show, which is peak mid century design throughout its 44 episodes, airing from February to November 1965.

The year's only Japanese animated theatrical release was also an outer space adventure. Gulliver's Space Journey is a Toei film about a homeless boy named Ted; he and his friends come across Gulliver, you know, the one from Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical novel Gulliver's Travels. Our modern Gulliver is about to take off in his rocket ship to the Hope Star, which has been conquered by robots! Gulliver's Space Journey has an all-star pedigree. The film's screenplay is by Shinichi Sekizawa, who wrote the lost film "Fearful Attack Of The Flying Saucers" as well as cinematic milestones like Godzilla Vs Mothra, Latitude Zero, Destroy All Monsters, and Jack And The Witch. Gulliver's music is by Isao Tomita, who would also score Jungle Emperor for Tezuka's Mushi Pro. 

Key Gulliver animation was by Yasuo Otsuka, with in-betweening and certain scene concepts by Hayao Miyazaki. Ted's voice actor is Kyu Sakamoto, the first Japanese singer to hit number one on the US charts with his hit song "Ue o Muite Arukō", or, as it was incongruously renamed in the States, "Sukiyaki." The English language version, retitled Gulliver's Travels Beyond The Moon, would be released in US theaters by Walter Reade - Continental in 1966, with new music by Milton & Anne Delugg and Darla Hood from "Our Gang" voicing the Princess. The film would continue to play US theaters through 1975, and would be the last Japanese animated film to hit America until 1971's The World Of Hans Christian Andersen.

  

A more earthbound series from Toei's 1965 stable is Hustle Punch, which might be the closest Japan ever got to the Hanna Barbera style zany talking animal slapstick comedy adventure formula.  Punch (a bear), Touch (a mouse), and Bun (a weasel) all live in a scrapyard and battle the evil plans of Professor Garigari, a wolf who wants to build his own city over their hometown. This TV show delivered rollicking fun from  November '65 until April '66. Hustle Punch creatives Yasuo Otsuka, Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki would later bring this sort of chaotic amusement to human-being shows like Lupin III.

Fujiko-Fujio's Obake no Q-Tarō becomes animated in a 1965 series broadcast on TBS and produced by A-Production and Tokyo Movie, who would later become TMS. Q-Tarō is a friendly, sometimes timid ghost somehow attached to the Ohara family. Our ghostly star is voiced in a breakout role by the protean talent of Machiko Soga and lives, if that's the right word, to cause mischief. This is much to the chagrin of elementary school student Shōta Ohara, Q-Tarō's best pal. The success of this goofy ghost's adventures caused what was called a "Q-Tarō Boom" which would later inspire, among other things, the ghosts in Pac-Man. The Fujiko-Fujio team would also create Ninja Hattori-kun, Kaibutsu-kun, Perman, and Doraemon, which is to say they're behind some of the most popular cartoons in Japan, and in some cases, the world. The 1971-72 Q-Tarō series was broadcast on some US television stations as "Little Ghost Q-Tarō."

Perhaps the biggest star of 1965 was Mushi Pro's Jungle Emperor. Based on Osamu Tezuka's 1950 manga, the TV series was the first color animated series produced for Japanese television. The story of (stop me if you've heard this one before, Disney) how the son of the king of the jungle returns to regain his rightful place as leader of the animals, this show was animated by Tezuka's Mushi studio and began airing in October of 1965, Wednesdays 7-7:30pm on Fuji-TV. The animation may have been simplistic, and the character designs cartoony even by Tezuka standards, but the epic scope of the series, punctuated by Isao Tomita's grand soundtrack, elevates Jungle Emperor into legendary status. 

NBC Films helped to finance the production and exported the series to America as "Kimba The White Lion." Consequently, the series episodes didn't feature continued storylines, violence was toned down, and as the corporate history states, "particular care was taken in the depiction of black people." Absent NBC financing, Mushi's 1967 sequel series "Go Leo" was more faithful to the original manga storyline. Go Leo featured continued stories and more violent content, and subsequently did not air in America until 1982. 

1965 brought us some impressive milestones, but also some confusing missteps, in the shape of Mysterious Thief Pride. Otherwise known as Dr. Zen And The Magic Machine, this weird Tele-Cartoons Japan series of five minute shorts stars the titular thief Pride and his canine companion. Pride & Co. commit zany robberies while being pursued by boy detective Doublecheck, his big pal Broken, and their honeybee fairy friend Honey. Airing on Fuji TV at 6:10pm, this series was in black and white, but was colorized and dubbed for export under the "Dr Zen" title. It's unclear if this series ever made it to air on North America. And why would it?
 

 

1965 continued anime's path towards lucrative property licences and blizzards of toy tie-ins, into increased international audiences and full color productions, a year 1966 and 1967 would build upon in new and exciting ways. Other shows of 1965 include warring-states period boy ninja Fujimaru Of The Wind, the Tezuka cyborg Big X, the live-action/animation hybrid Bibi The Alien, and of course Wonder 3, the Tezuka adventure of a bunny, a duck, and a horse, sent here by Galactic Control to save or destroy the Earth. 

 

Sixty years later, what remains of 1965? They're making another Jungle Emperor. You can still buy Obake no Q-Tarō merchandise, TCJ still exists as Eiken and still has animated shows on the air every week. Sponsors still build ad campaigns around TV animation and studios like Toei, TMS and Tatsunoko continue as major players in the biz. 1965 helped build the pipeline that fed the superhighway that laid the rails that blazed the trails that brought us to today, a world where kids of all ages around the world still watch Japanese animation. Next up: 1975!

 -Dave Merrill

 
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Robotech II: The Sentinels?

 

When the anime series Robotech came to the rescue of syndicated American TV in the mid 80s, its success created an audience eager for more, and producers Harmony Gold were ready to capitalize on that desire. The trouble with continuing that story was, well, Robotech was originally three different Japanese television shows, all with their own writers, artists, production teams, schedules and budgets, all completed before “Robotech” was even a trademark. Harmony Gold’s role in rewriting, editing, and repackaging the material, while not insignificant, was still less work than coming up with an entirely new series from scratch. Which is probably why HG’s first Robotech sequel took the easy way out. Robotech The Movie was a dubbed and rewritten Megazone 23, amended with some Southern Cross footage and some dialogue intended to fit the whole business in with the Robotech storyline. The result, immediately suppressed after test screenings, was an incoherent mess.

However, Harmony Gold’s next shot at a Robotech franchise opportunity took a completely different approach. New characters and mecha were designed, new storylines were composed, the production team constructed a galaxy-spanning epic that would reveal the mysteries behind the foundation of the entire Robotech saga. And the final result was… also an incoherent mess.

 

pre-production trade advertisement for Robotech II

But in 1988, all we fans knew was that show that had brought a lot of us into Japanese animation now had a sequel titled “Robotech II: The Sentinels,” and that this sequel had finally been released on home video, and that we were about to watch it at our local anime club meeting. Then we watched all 74 minutes of that video and we finally knew the truth, which is that Robotech II: The Sentinels is terrible.

Rather than being assembled, rewritten and recut from disparate elements, The Sentinels was conceived and commissioned from the ground up by Harmony Gold. Yet, due to production problems and various financing crises, The Sentinels we eventually wound up with was, ironically enough, also assembled, rewritten and recut. Production on Sentinels began even as the original TV series was airing. However, HG’s 65 episode plan ran into problems when on September 22, 1985 the Plaza Accord was signed, which among other things revalued the Japanese yen against the US dollar. What had at one time been cheaply produced Japanese animation was now significantly more expensive to produce. As a result, the price tag on The Sentinels ballooned and sponsor Matchbox pulled out, leaving Harmony Gold with a mere three episodes of usable footage. This, along with material from the original Robotech television series, is the Sentinels video release we were given. 

 

either too much hair, or not enough hair

Robotech II should have been an easy slam dunk, even with the show’s self-imposed goal of showing what happens to the Macross Saga characters after the events of that series arc while also providing connective material to the Robotech Masters (Southern Cross) series and laying the groundwork for the New Generation (Mospeada) batch of episodes. Had it been planned from the start as a direct-to-video special, it might have worked. Fans loved these characters and were ready to see more of their adventures. That is not what we got. 

 

 
What Robotech II delivers instead are once beloved characters redesigned to avoid copyright issues, because Macross copyright partners Studio Nue and Big West had not and would never sign off on any Robotech sequels starring their Macross IP. This results in scenes of the new-look Rick Hunter and retooled Lisa Hayes preparing for their wedding alongside their friends Slightly Off Lynn Minmay and Is That Claudia Grant, I Guess It Is. Yes, this wedding is taking place ten years after the end of the Macross Saga, because good space station caterers are hard to find, maybe. 

 

 

Comedy relief is provided by the hilarious little-kid antics of Little Dana Sterling and Little Bowie Grant, who apparently are the only ten year olds left alive on Earth. These domestic scenes are intercut with events across the galaxy on the planet Tirol, the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, who at this point in the story are on their way to Earth to make the Robotech Masters TV series a thing, and who have left their planet in the hands of an elderly man with an amazing beard. 

 

some of the amazing beards of Robotech II

 

A disturbing proportion of Robotech II: The Sentinels is devoted to middle-aged bores lecturing everybody in various contrived accents while sporting a startling variety of facial hair choices, epitomized by Tirol’s chief scientist Kabel as he wrinkles his elderly brow in confusion as their planet is invaded by the robot panthers and humanoid, phallus-dangling mechanoid destroyers of the Invid. You might recall the Invid as the Earth-invading baddies from Robotech The New Generation. 

 

Can this marriage be saved?

Here the foundation is laid for their future Earth attack as the bickering husband-and-wife team of Regent the tadpole-faced slug man and Regis the human-faced slug lady argue and whine their way through scenes which will have audiences thinking about couples counseling or divorce lawyers. Occasionally the slug man talks to a giant brain in a tank, merely one of many Robotech II scenes where dialog is spoken by people without mouths, or people wearing masks, or people with things obscuring their mouths, or people with their backs to the camera, so as to avoid the trouble of animating lip movements.

I watched and enjoyed the original Robotech TV series, and I can assure you that this show was not a success because of giant slugs talking to giant brains. Robotech was a success because it featured transforming robot fighter planes, well-animated action scenes, and cute girl singers. Robotech II: The Sentinels has none of this. All the returning characters are uglier and have stupider hair, and the new characters are also ugly and also have stupid hair. Popular Robotech singing star Minmay gets one song, which she’s forced to share with a brand new character that Robotech II never gets around to introducing. Other familiar Robotech characters are reduced to standing around asking plot-furthering questions, arguing their way through board meetings or sporting what appear to be gimp fetish masks, as we see Zentraedi commander Breetai wearing as he walks Lisa Hayes down the matrimonial aisle.

 

There’s very little Robotech mecha in Robotech II, which might have influenced Matchbox’s decision to yank the plug. The only transforming mecha we see in Robotech II are training flights flown by Alpha fighters, and all the other various Invid destructo-bots and mecha-dogs aren’t what we’d call toyetic. The Sentinels' mechanical design was by Tatsunoko’s in-house mecha design team Ammonite, previously seen mecha-designing shows like Starzan S and Southern Cross. Ammonite would create a slew of original mecha for Robotech II, and several designs would be repurposed for future projects like Red Photon Zillion, an ecological solution that proves every dark cloud has a silver lining.  After 74 minutes of confusing edits, flashbacks to Robotech episodes, a scene where some anonymous captain is profoundly and court-martially  insubordinate to Major General Rick Hunter, ponderous arguments between different sets of boring old guys, and Tirol’s beardo wizard staring into computer screens as robot dogs destroy his planet, viewers may cheer any hope of redemption. 

 

 
Of course, Harmony Gold would wring every bit of profit they could from the remains of this abortive series. Robotech II first got a home video release from Palladium, the Robotech RPG people, choosing for their cover art one of the Invid’s swinging-dick robo-marauders. Is there a better way to sell a Robotech sequel than  images of a scary dong robot? Later Streamline Pictures would offer a Robotech II VHS with distribution from Orion Pictures. A slightly altered version would appear on A&E’s Robotech The Complete Set DVD box, along with other sequel projects like Robotech The Shadow Chronicles and the Robotech version of the Mospeada OVA “Love Live Alive.”
 

yup, that robot has a wang

Robotech II: The Sentinels achieved its greatest success in other media. Del Rey would roll out the entire Sentinels story through five novels, while three different comic book companies released Sentinels-based comics and Palladium released a Sentinels RPG. Perhaps one of these ancillary media iterations dares to tell the audience exactly who the Robotech Sentinels are. This video never does. 

 

Robotech is a franchise that spawned novels, comic books, games, a large toy line, and a fandom that continues to this day.  What it hasn't spawned is a satisfying sequel, in spite of the efforts of Harmony Gold and a myriad of creative hopefuls, and in defiance of all the 80s nostalgia, remake obsession, and reboot mania that Hollywood can muster. Currently Sony Pictures is churning through the third attempt at making a live-action Robotech film. All we can say to this is good luck, go easy on the beards, and don’t put Breetai in a gimp mask.

-D. Merrill

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