I Am Not A Number, I'm A Gatchman

Yesterday I was all proud of my Terminator blog. But when I went to the URL to check it out, the whole thing was a mess. All sorts of different fonts going on, and a whole group of text removed from it’s native paragraph and thrown to the end of the blog. I don’t know what was going on, but I had to manually go into the HTML and clean up all the messy code spewed everywhere. There really isn’t a lesson in all this, just maybe keep an eye on your work and don’t assume the “sys admins” will take care of things behind your back. So, go back to the last blog and read it now, it should make some sense, or at least look pretty.

In the past couple days I've watched a few episodes of The Prisoner. As I've said before it is currently enjoying it's 40th anniversary and the most recent episode to celebrate it's birthday is Living In Harmony on Monday. I was first introduced to the series when I was in High School, about 20 years ago. The one episode that made the most impact on me was this episode. It was my favorite, and after 20 years it still is. What makes it so special? The series is re-imagined as a western. No.6 is now a sheriff who retires, turning in badge, gun and horse. While walking across the country side, carrying his saddle, he's attacked by highwaymen and wakes up in a western village called Harmony. The local Mayor/Judge keeps harassing him to become the new sheriff, but No.6 refuses. He is attacked on a number of occasions but won't even wear a gun. Eventually after threatening to kill an innocent bar maid, Kathy, No.6 relents. This one creepy dude, who has been stalking Kathy and challenging No.6 to a gun fight, finally goes too far and kills Kathy. No.6 gets strapped and manages to kill everyone that gets in his way, except the Mayor who shoots him.

No.6 wakes up on the floor of a deserted bar, wearing his usual contemporary '60s clothes, and sees cardboard cutouts of all the people he met in town. As it turns out it was another trick by the new No.2 (as if there was doubt) who admits he drugged No.6 and had actors playing parts around him, hoping to keep him off balance long enough to learn why No.6 left "The Service," the whole point of the show. I think this episode gets the closest to explaining his motivations. More so than any other episode he shows a reluctance to fight, until an innocent is threatened. My guess is No.6 is the top operative of Her Majesty's Secret Service and he developed moral issues with what he was doing, assassinations and what not, I assume. Since it rare for anyone to leave "The Service", there is a psychological debriefing center, "The Village," to determine why someone wants to leave. No.6 has clammed up and refuses to cooperate, having been kidnapped and all, so a succession of No.2s try each week to break him. I've always had trouble deciding whether the other people populating The Village really live there in peace or are part of "The System." I've always thought it was all part of the act, but that's just my paranoia. I wouldn't trust anybody for anything. In fact, why he doesn't snap and kill his way out is beyond me, except that maybe that has to do with why he quit.

The Prisoner wasn't aired in America until a couple years after the series ended, still in the height of the Vietnam war. When the US Broadcasters came across this episode, a British western about non-violence, they decided to cut it. It never aired, until years later. It was controversial and thought to be anti-war. That could be said about the whole series, but this episode in particular stands out. It kind of reminds me of High Noon, except the exact opposite. Everyone wants to fight and No.6 doesn't. There's even a lynching in the episode as the Mayor/Judge "feeds" Kathy's brother to an angry mob. I always find myself drawn to the rifle rack, next to the front door of the police station, and how easy it would be to just unload on these people and "fix" the town. But, much like the Emperor tempting Luke Skywalker, the easy way out was the last thing No.6 wanted. I wouldn't recommend this one as a first episode because it requires you to know No.6's circumstances prior to messin' with yer mind.

In a previous blog I had discussed Speed Racer and briefly touched on Astro Boy. Something I had failed to mention at the time was just how important Astro Boy is to anime. It lit a torch that passed to Speed Racer, then to Starblazers, Battle Of The Planets, Voltron, Tranzor-Z, ROBOTECH, Sailor Moon, Pokemon & Yu-gi-oh (sadly), Dragon Ball Z, and (not finally) Adult Swim. This is just in America. The explosion that Astro Boy/Tetsuwan Atom ("Mighty" Atom) caused was even greater in Japan. Based on the manga of the same name written a decade prior, to entertain children during the post-war rebuild of Japan, the animated version (in black & white no less, just like manga still is) was first broadcast January 1, 1963. Thus, anime was born. It's distinctive style, an adaptation of the Disney character look, helped Japanese anime became it's own unique entity. And if my math serves me well, that means this year (this New Years, in fact) is Anime's 45 birthday. Tanjoubi Omedeto, Anime.

I am not as old as anime but there was a defining series that began broadcasting around the time I was born. SCIENCE NINJA TEAM GATCHAMAN. Currently it is 35 years old, just like me, and I've been watching a few episodes, to refresh my '70s memory. This series was "retooled" a couple times before coming to America, going by such names as Battle Of The Planets, G-Force, and Eagle Riders. In the past few years the original Japanese version has been released, subtitled, on 18 DVDs, and fairly cheaply from rightstuf.com. So I acquired the first four (4) volumes and began watching. The frame-rate of the series is about twice that of Speed Racer (twice nothing is still nothing) but the detail and character animation is unique for the time. With a room full a people only those that are talking are animated, but several other cinematic tricks are done to make it look like more is going on than the budget allows. And the stories are good, your usual "monster-of-the-week" encounter, but this is one of those series that defined the genre, so it comes off more fresh than it should. I love this series, but it looks dated. If you can handle it, then go get this series.

Gatchaman has an important role in anime. In its 105 episode run it created a legend on both sides of the Pacific pond. The "hero shows" of the time were general about one or two good guys versus evil. This was the first time a team of people, specifically five (5), assembled to fight the bad guys like Galactor. The five of Gatchaman started the trend of The Leader Guy, The Skinny Guy, The Fat Guy, The Short/Young Guy (in English has a goofy voice), and The Female Guy... I mean The Princess. In Gatchaman they wore specific bird outfits. This trend directly lead Battle Team or Sentai live action series we all know and love as The Power Rangers. This is the start of the colored outfits and vehicles and such of the main characters. I'm not going to get into the dynamic of the sixth person introduced later with a specialty color, but who can forget Tommy, The Green Ranger. This genre still stuck to sci-fi anime with such series as Voltron (aka GoLion) and Voltes V, and even to the Magical Girl genre with Sailor Moon. As girled-up and soap opera-like as Sailer Moon was, it followed every convention of the Sentai story arch-types. These types of stories general have secret identities, multi combining vehicles/robots and (sometimes) super powers, was an attempt to emulate the superhero stories of America. At least Gatchaman was, and it sparked a huge trend.

The episodes I watched were The Fearful Jellyfish Lens (my favorite title) and The Indestructible Machine. The latter title is a lie, as thanks to Jinpei, he stole some plans for this cool mech/vehicle thing that transforms into whatever the pilot needs. Stupid Galactor. Gatchaman took that thing out, but the nifty idea in it was the pilot who had to insert a Video Tape into a slot to make it transform. It so impractical its awesome. The Jellyfish Lens episode is about a group of modified Jellyfish with lots of eyes that can combine into a giant blob, with lots of eyes, and reflect the suns rays into deadly laser beams. Cool. Then the God Phoenix (that's Gatchman's ship made from combining their five vehicles) has to take it on. I don't want to spoil the ending, but it involves the Fiery Phoenix, the best anime attack along with Voltron's Blazing Sword. This show rocks. See you next broadcast.