Starzinger (SF西éŠè¨˜ã‚¹ã‚¿ãƒ¼ã‚¸ãƒ³ã‚¬ãƒ¼, Esu Efu SaiyÅ«ki SutÄjingÄ, lit. Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger) is an anime series that aired in Japan from 1978 to 1979. In the United States, it was referred to as Spaceketeers and was part of Jim Terry's Force Five series. In the United Kingdom, it was referred to as Sci-Bots on VHS releases. In Latin America, it was known as El Galáctico.
In 2009, William Winckler Productions produced three, all-new, English dubbed movie versions edited from the original series. Producer William Winckler, known for Tekkaman the Space Knight, wrote, produced, and directed the films, which were seen on broadband in Japan. An English dubbed movie version was made and released to DVD in America in 2011, and it was also directed by Winckler. A new U.S. DVD release of the Winckler films by Shout! Factory was released on August 20, 2013.
Story
The story revolves around the Princess of the Moon, Aurora and her three cyborg companions (Kugo, Djorgo, and Hakka) who must travel to the Great King planet and restore the Galaxy Energy in the year 2072. The universe was becoming more and more unbalanced as the Queen of the Great Planet grows older. Their adventure includes battling the starmen who are transformed from the unbalanced minerals and planets.
Concept
Starzinger was essentially a sci-fi space opera retelling of the shenmo fantasy novel Journey to the West, a Chinese literary classic written by the Ming dynasty novelist Wu Cheng'en. The sci-fi twists were designed by Leiji Matsumoto based on the Terebi Magazine manga with art by Gosaku Ohta.
Staff
- Directors: Yugo Seirikawa, Kozo Morishita, Kazumi Fukushima
- Creator: Leiji Matsumoto
- Screenwriters: Tatsuo Tamura, Michiru Umadori, Sukehiro Tomita
- Design: Masaki Suda
- Animators: Masaki Suda, Satoshi Kamimiya
- Music: Shunsuke Kikuchi
Characters
Adaptations
In March 1979, a movie was aired reusing footage from the first segment of the series. The movie was more or less a summary.
The last nine episodes of the actual series was re-branded as "SF Saiyuki Starzinger II", though when shown outside Japan it was treated as one continuous series. It was never intended to be anything more than re-marketing of the last few episodes, since it was aired immediately after the first sixty-four episodes were shown in June 1979. The 65th episode began instantly in July 1979 with all the galactic energy restored in the storyline.
Internationalization
Starzinger was aired in the early 1980s in Latin America under the name of "El Galáctico" (The Galactic), as part of the four-series show "Festival de Robots", which translates to "Festival of Robots". The other shows were "Steel Jeeg", "Gaiking", and "Magne Robo Gakeen".
In North America, it was aired as "Spaceketeers" as part of the package show Force Five. As the "Journey to the West story" is not well known in the region, the characters were renamed to reference the Three Musketeers. To also fit into the Force Five time slot, the show had to be edit-squeezed into 26 episodes. The U.S. version puts them on a mission to the Dekos Star System, which contained evil powers changing peaceful creatures to evil mutants. The Force Five version not only just produced 26 episodes, but this English language version of the series never reached their conclusion.
Twenty-four episodes of the original 73 also aired in Scandinavia (mainly in Sweden) under the original name Starzinger. A listing of what episodes were cut out can be found at: Warfists Starzinger site in the episode section.
Home Media
VHS
UK
Trivia
- It was aired every week on Sunday from 7PM to 7:30PM.
References
External links
- Official page of Starzinger I
- Review of Sci-Bots
- Starzinger (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
Posting Komentar