Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Gatchaman: The Movie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 18, 2015

There’s a certain degree of prescience in the description of Gatchaman: The Movie included by Sentai Filmworks on the back cover of this new Blu-ray release, one which emphasizes the peril of a planet under attack by terrorists (this review is being written in the wake of the horrifying attack on Paris, though of course that's just the latest "skirmish" in this ongoing battle). But even that seeming precognition isn’t the sum total of how forward thinking at least some elements of the Gatchaman franchise in general and this film in particular were. As was discussed in our Gatchaman: Complete Collection + OVAs Blu-ray review, the original series’ emphasis on ecological issues and environmental protection was part of the then nascent movement in the 1970s which also gave birth to such phenomena as Earth Day. But with “climate change” or “global warming” or whatever you want to call it (if indeed you want to call it anything) regularly making daily headlines and coming up in various talking points among the bevy of candidates currently running for the American presidency, Gatchaman seems positively psychic and perhaps more “relevant” than ever, if, that is, one can accept its inherent Good versus Evil simple mindedness and a certain clunkiness in exposition and even animation style. Gatchaman: The Movie was (kind of like the original series itself) initially called Science Ninja Team Gatchaman: The Movie, a perhaps incremental difference that at least tends to highlight the series’ emphasis on technological gizmos aiding in that eternal fight against villainy, whether that be the typical refuge of a bad guy (i.e., world domination) or more supposedly ephemeral aspects like whether the polar ice caps are melting leading to a global “sink or swim” moment.

Fans of the original Gatchaman: Complete Collection + OVAs may feel a bit (or maybe more than merely a bit) of déjà vu as they watch Gatchaman: The Movie, and for good reason. In a gambit which was perhaps less ubiquitous in 1978 than it is today, the film version simply assembles footage from the original series together, with a few newly animated bridging sequences. The film therefore will serve mostly as a “been there, seen that” for longtime fans while perhaps offering newcomers a quick and easy entrée into the universe of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.

The film fairly quickly sets up the quintet of heroes as well as the galactic terrorist organization with whom they’re struggling for control. To quote from my original Gatchaman: Complete Collection + OVAs Blu-ray review:

The five Science Ninja Team members each have a bird totem which figures into their character (and costume). Ken is the leader and is also known as The Eagle; Joe is The Condor; Jun is The Swan; Jinpei is The Swallow; and Ryu is The Owl. This quintet is mentored by super- scientist Dr. Nambu, who also schools the five in various battle techniques. The original series is notable for its rather graphic violence, something that was expurgated from its various American incarnations, at least in part. Nambu also served as a surrogate father figure for Ken, whose biological father disappeared under mysterious circumstances but whose presence ends up being a major plot development later in the series. Joe, like Ken, was raised by Dr. Nambu, but his parentage is perhaps more problematic, tracing back to Galactor. Jun and Jinpei were orphans recruited by Dr. Nambu, but Ryu actually has an intact family unit, though that aspect never becomes a major issue in the series. On the villain side of things, there's the enigmatic Leader X (Sosai X), a superpowered being who has a coterie of human minions, including the putative human leader, Berg Katse.

The film ends up being a triptych of sorts which presents three major arcs culled from the series. There’s the so-called Turtle King storyline, one which artfully introduces a lot of backstory elements while also tangentially working in some of the environmental aspects that came to define the series, at least in part. Things then skip ahead somewhat to the episodes which introduced the Red Impulse group. This particular storyline offers some solo time for Ken, who has typical heroic desires to bring down the bad guys, but who can’t help but feel their advanced technologies are kind of cool. Joe becomes the focal character for the final major “installment”, one which involves the team foraging into Galactor’s “home territory”.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the fact that Gatchaman was frankly never that dense of a property from either a narrative or a character standpoint, Gatchaman: The Movie suffers a bit from this at times pretty heavy redaction. The film makes perfect sense, at least in terms of how the story elements follow each other, and so the editors have done a great job of trimming extraneous material to deliver a fairly sleek and brief cinematic version of some elements of the tale. But somehow a bit of the charm and whatever minimal character development the original series offered feel like they got left on the cutting room floor somewhere along the way.

Gatchaman: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gatchaman: The Movie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1. My comments in the original Gatchaman: Complete Collection + OVAs Blu-ray review hold largely true here, with a couple of exceptions. The palette is still at least relatively healthy, and in fact perhaps a bit more consistently saturated with more solid densities than were on display in the television version. On the flip side, alignment issues still offer blurry moments, probably more so than in the series if only because the film is shorter and so these moments tend to seem more numerous when they do crop up (see screenshot 7 for one example). The film has a healthy looking if somewhat variable grain field, and the presentation looks very organic, if fairly soft quite a bit of the time.

Gatchaman: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unlike the original series' mono soundtracks, Gatchaman: The Movie provides robust DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes in both English and Japanese. The mixes sound largely if not completely identical save for the voice work, and surround activity is quite consistent and well done in the many action sequences. Dialogue is also rendered very cleanly and is generally well prioritized, though occasionally some lines or portions of lines can get slightly buried in noisier moments. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to warrant concern.

Gatchaman: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aside from trailers for other Sentai Filmworks releases, there are no supplements included on this Blu-ray disc.

Gatchaman: The Movie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is fans of the original Gatchaman series may want to pass this film version by, for it offers less rather than more as it attempts to digest a rather large number of episodes down into a manageable feature film format. What's here is enjoyable enough, but there's a certain something missing from this iteration. The series may in fact feel padded a lot of the time (a proclivity it shares with a number of other vintage anime), but the feature film may have jettisoned a bit too much information. Newcomers on the other hand may find this a perfect, relatively brief, introduction to the series, and as such (and for this group), Gatchaman: The Movie comes Recommended.