December 21, 1966…a day that will live in…er, memory of a seriously fun movie released half a century ago. Filmed in widescreen Toeiscope, this low-budget gem manages to cram approximately 2.4 metric tons of fun into a 73 minute bag. If some drive-in movie distributor like New World Pictures or AIP had bought the rights to this back in the day, it could have become a mainstay on those weekend SF and horror movie showcases like Ghoulardi or Svengoolie (or the local equivalent from wherever you happen to live).
Get the soft subtitled mkv from Nyaa.si or Mega.
(The soft subtitled version is slightly different from the version I released last night, nothing major. The CRC for the corrected version is 66B5A59D).
Or get the hard subtitled mp4 from Nyaa or Mega.
This was a joint project with Love & Care, check out their site for Shotaro Ishinomori’s JAKQ (a longtime favorite of mine) as well as other cool live-action shows like Turboranger. Angel from L&C contacted me earlier this year and asked if I could help them find a raw source for this movie, so they could subtitle it for the 50th anniversary. I remembered that there was a custom subtitled DVD of the film floating around the trading circuit about seven or eight years ago, so I e-mailed various other subtitlers and video traders to see if I knew anyone who had it in their collection. Big thanks to Kaiju from Hi no Tori Fansubs for hooking us up. I’ve done some joint projects with them before, like Dororo (since cancelled after the official streaming and DVD releases), and the P Productions failed pilots for Jaguarman and Leopardman. Check their site out if you like insanely weird stuff like Fireman, Thundermask, Tetsujin Tiger Seven, and of course Ishinomori’s classic Robot Detective.
The script from the custom DVD sub was a little rough around the edges in parts, kinda literal with some rather awkward phrasing. Angel and I gave it a thorough grammatical cleansing; Shourikan provided translation QC, and translated a few missing lines as well. It was lots of fun working with Love & Care, hopefully we will have the opportunity to do more joint projects together in the future.
Shonen King wrote a great review of this movie on his Black Sun blog, you can read that here.
THE SKARO HUNTING SOCIETY 
“Not valid where prohibited by law.”
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Nice! I am totally stealing that joke and adding it to mine. Peanut butter and chocolate…
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Hi, Nanto! First, let me thank you for all of your hard work!
Second, I would like to discuss something with you in private. How can I do it? Maybe, with bakabt account?
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> Hi, Nanto! First, let me thank you for all of your hard work!
Hey, Jarly. You are most welcome!
> Second, I would like to discuss something with you in private.
I’ll e-mail you when I get a chance.
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Nanto, just so you know, The Gatchaman II TV Series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks.
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This phrase made my day xD
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This is great news, I found the Golden Bat TV series to be really entertaining.
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Perfect for my X-Mas Day Movie Marathon!
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Thank you very much Nanto! This looks like its right up my alley =)
I also wanted to thank you for all the cool stuff you blessed us with this year, wish you happy holidays and a healthy and safe 2017!
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That was something extremely awesome! Thanks to all involved for the hard work and love! I found it much more engaging and entertaining than the animated version, as fun as that is.
It’s funny how bits and pieces from this movie seem to be ‘touchstones’ of some kind, as they reoccur in various forms later. The setup, “Young man looking thru his telescope, discovers odd crap in the sky which gets him kidnapped by some Men in Black” easily foreshadows Matsumoto’s Queen of a 1000 Years TV series. The “two-fisted science guys and their secret lab” has shown up so often it’s beyond a stereotype. The three ‘sub bosses’ are archetypes echoed time and again in every single ‘henshin hero’ show produced: Kinda-Werewolf guy, messed-up-face guy and ninja chick. Messed up face guy was AMAZING, like the Japanese Frank Gorshin. If he wasn’t taking his acting cues from the Batman TV show I will eat a sandwich. Well, pop culture is made of many things. 🙂
The Nazo costume is epic. It’s super low budget yet somehow EXACTLY what it needed to be. Golden Bat is just insane. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Eat my Baton of Justice!
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This is great, thanks for all your hard work unearthing these gems.
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Used to watch the anime series in the beginning of 70s here in Brazil, it was called “Fantomas” back then. Last year the whole series was released on DVD.
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This movie was released in Brazil on DVD some years ago!
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