#zendaman

Happy New Year!

Arashi - Believe (Animation PV created by Tatsunoko Production Company)

Yatterman - Sho Sakurai

Tanpei (Original Time Bokan) - Satoshi Ohno

Otasukeman - Masaki Aiba

Yattodetaman - Kazunari Ninomiya

Zendaman - Jun Matsumoto

The Judgement/Trial Machine (it goes back and forth between the two names throughout the series) is a machine that serves as judge, jury, and exicutioner to the Akudaman at the end of every Zenderman episode and serves as a carry over of the punishment gag from Yatterman. It's never explained who actually designed it, though it's possible Toboke made it.

Sorry I've been gone for half a year without so much as a notice! I'll just say that 2016 has turned out to be quite the stressful year for me, and that I still need to deal with a couple of things before I'm up for completely resuming any work on this blog. But I'm at least semi-active again, and I got some news all around!

As most you probably know by now, as part of their 55th anniversary, Tatsunoko has announced Time Bokan 24, the newest entry in the Time Bokan series set to premiere in October. Level-5 (Professor Layton, Yo-Kai Watch) has assisted with the design of the new show and it appears to draw a lot of influence from the original Time Bokan series.

According to Newbokan, large scale tie-in media is potentially being planned, possibly including a video game based on this new iteration of Time Bokan (not surprising, seeing how it's Level-5). I'll be covering info about it in later posts, and hopefully find more information and reveal it here first!

In light of this, and the general response I've received on the matter, I've decided that the original Time Bokan, the show that started it all, will be the first to receive a translation! The subbed version will be done first, and though I got most of the material needed for a dub that will have to wait for a bit. I'll go into more detail on what I've got in store for this series over the next few days as well.

Lastly, I've got tons of unused messages that I need to answer, from addressing Zenderman's Judgement/Trial Machine, the lack of Yatterman Night bios, and possibly more information about Hissatsuman! I also have information about Yatter-Wan, new Time Bokan narrator Shigeru Chiba, and hopefully that blasted Babes in Toyland comparison that I wanted done by last Christmas!

Takao Koyama is a screenwriter and novelist who has worked on various anime such as Gatchaman, the adaptations of Dragon Ball, Urusei Yatsura, and Slayers among others. He's also known for having worked on nearly everything in the Time Bokan series that's not directly Yatterman-related. (ie. the original 77' show, the 2008 reboot, and Yatterman Night)

After his first job as a question writer for the quiz show Time Shock, he joined Tatsunoko Pro. in 1972, where he began his career as a screenwriter for anime. Shortly after contributing to the original Time Bokan, he left the company to become an freelance screenwriter that would write screenplays for many production studios like Sunrise, Toei, and Production Reed.

He still continued to work with Tatsunoko Pro., mostly having resumed Time Bokan series from Zenderman onwards up to Kaitou Kiramekiman. In addition to writing screenplays for episodes, he sometimes had a hand in how the overall story and characters were conceptualized. Koyama was major contributor to the "revival" era of Time Bokan in the 90s, and he was directly responsible for the radio drama Heisei Time Bokan.

Around 1986 he helped formed Anime Scenario House, which later became Brother Noppo, a school where he teaches others how to write screenplays. His dedication to this means that Koyama has effectively gone on hiatus, occasionally screenwriting for an anime from time to time.

Nyaravolta is a talking cat and pet of the Akudaman trio, starting the tradition of having a fourth member that didn't adhere to a set characteristic like the other three. Oddly enough, his name appears to be based off that of actor John Travolta.

The Oshii Sejin (Oshii Alien, sometimes called the Oshii UFO) is a gag robot that originated in Zenderman and continued to appear in later Time Bokan series and spin-offs. It's apparently named after the now famous anime director Mamoru Oshii, who was then a storyboard artist for Zenderman that left Tatsunoko shortly after production.

Accompanied by an accordion chord when it appears, it's usually hopping around singing "Oshii oshii oshii oshii na mo choto~!", and then leaves followed by another, bitter sounding chord.  "Oshii" can mean "almost" or "so close", and  "choto" is a lesser used alternate spelling of "chotto", meaning "a bit" or some variation thereof. There's many ways this phrase can be translated, I see it as "So close, so close, so close, so close, just by a bit!". As such, it popped up whenever the Akudaman blew a chance to defeat the Zenderman.

The Oshii Alien also appeared infrequently in episodes of Otasukeman, most prominently in the ending credits where it's catchphrase was incorporated into the first ending song. Occasionally Sekovitchi will utter it's phrase when something backfires on him.

It also made a cameo in Yattodetaman's 41st episode, "It's the Sixth Anniversary! The Stage Relay!", and the 7th episode of the 2008 Yatterman series.

“オシイオシイオシイオシイもうチョト〜!”

“So close, so close! So close, so close! Just by a bit!”