Today I watched a videotape (American, dubbed) of Tekkaman The Space Knight. Not Tekkaman Blade, but the old Tatsunoko Pro series!
My previous exposure to the original Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman series was that I've seen the opening and ending before, and know the theme songs well. I have a copy of the "Tatsunoko Fighter" game for PS1 which is a 2D fighter, in which you pit characters from Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Shinzo Ningen Casshan, and Hurricane Polymer against each other (and there's a new character created for the game). So I had seen some of the main characters before as well. From that, I knew that Tekkaman is cool, his girlfriend isn't good at fighting, and the guy with the big blond afro is really cool! :D
It was labelled "episode one", and was 86 minutes long. I think it was a load of episodes of the original series mashed together. Some of the later parts seemed a little incohesive, as if bits had been missed out of the story. I don't know if that's the case, but that's how it seemed. It might have been written like that originally!
The dub is really bad. So bad it's funny (though not hilariously bad, just smirksome, occasional wincing).
The original soundtrack is intact - I recognise the instrumental of the orginal opening theme used as the opening theme, and another arrangement of it used as the battle theme, and the other pieces of music fit as well, so I assume it's the orignal soundtrack. The end theme is an instrumental of a song that's not the original ending theme, I don't know whether I've heard the song before. I have that feeling but don't know for sure as the end credits did not give much information at all. I feel that the instrumental of the opening theme doesn't have enough impact. My brain fills in the gaps: "Uchuu no Kishi, Uchuu no Kishi, TekkaMa~~~~n!", but without the vocal, the music just builds up without leading to anything.
The artwork is obviously originally character designed by Yoshitaka Amano - now famous for his Final Fantasy artwork and as an artist in his own right, but in the past the character designer for Tatsunoko Pro - all the series I mentioned earlier in Tatsunoko Fighter and things like Gowappa 5 Godam too. The characters keep posing in great action stances, I love it! I love the pose that Tekkaman strikes as he emerges from Pegas, and the teleportation pose that Andro uses (the alien with the big blond afro!). The action throughout hand-to-hand fight scenes is good and fluid, the action scenes in space didn't seem as good, strangely enough.
Oh and the small alien creature "Mutan"... I think it's supposed to be a cute character design? IT ISN'T!
Oh and in this version "Robert Gallagher" went into space, and his nephew "Barry Gallagher" was chosen to become Tekkaman to fight against the "Waldaarians". (Though it sounded to me like RoaldDahlians, so I had images of Oompa-Loompas in my head). He never says "Tek-Setter!" to transform, for some reason. The says "Interlock!" and then the narrator takes over. Apart from the names, it's probably accurate to the original? I can't be sure.
Just like in Tekkaman Blade, my favourite character is probably Pegas. :D
I had a lot of fun watching this, it's one of the best 1970s shonen action series I've seen. I will seek out the fansubs of the first three episodes of the series, and am hoping that the original version is just as much fun. ^_^
