Gaiking: The Movie Collection

Just as advertised

Super pumped for the original Gaiking to come out here! Some folks are mad this isn't the entire TV series and what we get here are several episodes edited into 3 feature length movies to sum up the entire series. Fact is, its better than nothing. The amount of money to license an entire 1970s TV series and subtitle/dub, to put out on DVD when honestly only a few hundred fans in North America would buy it, is economically stupid on any businesses part. So Toei themselves had the right idea to sell their back catalog, which is to turn their old shows which have no chance of being released here in their full form by turning them into them into films (ala what Sunrise and Bandai did with the Gundam movie trilogy a while back, which folks dont argue about cause that's how they were released in Japan too). This is the first in several old anime turned into movie releases by Toei, which will also include Captain Harlock and others in the future. So basically if you want to see this, it's your only shot North America, so I'm rejoicing to even get to see it on DVD here.

When I was a young boy, there was this cartoon TV show that would be on Monday through Friday, and it was called Force Five. But each day was a different show of characters, Monday was Dangard Ace - Tuesday was Starvengers, Wednesdays was Spaceketeers, Thursday was Grendizer, and lastly - Friday was Gaiking. These shows would form a nucleus of shows that I would watch religiously over and over again.When I saw this movie collection, I could not hold back the excitement and I rushed into purchasing it.I have watched it a couple times so far and even though there are some errors that I immediately picked out, it still is like going back in time and being that little boy again. I am very thankful this movie collection exists and that I have it.Very grateful for this purchase.

I remember first seeing Gaiking as one of the Shogun Warriors toy robots released in the mid 70's. I had no idea that it was based on actual TV series until Force Five:Gaiking was released in the early 80's. The anime is action packed, the video transfer is brilliant, and the sound is pretty good. The dubbing is different from what I remember, but at least everything is left legit by having it take place in Japan, than somewhere in America (In the Force Five version, Mount Fuji was called Mount St. Helens). I would highly recommend this to all fans of Anime, old and new. Like Space Cruiser Yamato (Starblazers), this is a piece of Anime history that should not be overlooked!! Check it out!!!

I love Gaiking, I grew up with it. But I made the mistake of thinking this movie set would be on par with the vastly superior TV series published here by Discotek. Instead, this 3-pack of Gaiking movies features what might be THE worst English dub (no Japanese audio here, sorry) I've ever heard in my life, and that's saying something. I mean, it's so bad. It's soooo bad. It sounds like something some students did as a home video editing project for their junior high video editing class, which is to say it sounds like something I'd have done when I was 13. It's terrible. The animation is also pretty spectacularly bad as well, but chalk this up to early 70s Japanese animation techniques. It's terrible in a charming, low budget way. The voice acting, however, is bad bad. Like, "you hate your children and let them watch this DVD set" bad. I took one for the team so you don't have to. Avoid at all costs.

Alright so 4 all of you who watched this as a kid do not buy this if you wanna hit that nostalgic mark. Now don't get me wrong everything is here all except for the original voice acting, I know the original wasn't high in its field of voice actors but in all honesty the original crew was much better.

The die-hard anime fans out there that are either objecting or hesitant about purchasing these feature compilations need to understand that it was the original Japanese studio Toei themselves who had all these TV anime dubbed and compiled into features in the first place. Many of these shows had filler episodes and I believe this feature format is actually the best way to attract these old shows overseas, as you get the real essential elements of each series, while remaining faithful to the essence of their original series, so they are not sanitized or Americanized in any real way at all. Toei themselves planned out how each series was to be edited for the features. So for all the die-hard anime fans out there, this is really as good as you're going to get. The voice acting in the dubs aren't perfect, but at least, because its Toei themselves putting these out internationally and not a local licensor, you know the scripts never really stray from the original Japanese ones.As for those who grew up with Gaiking on Force Five, I think all the Force Five series have had their rights reverted back to Toei. I dont believe the company that makes them even exists anymore. There's no way they will ever be released officially on DVD. Besides, each of the Force Five series only had 26 episodes produced among them, so they are incomplete with no conclusion, which these features will have. Besides, Toei themselves feel these international feature compilations are superior to the original Force Five dubs.I would advise all the die-hard purist anime fans out there to read this interview with the person in charge of the company that did all these dubbed feature compilations for Toei. I think he makes an excellent case for the rationale of why Toei went with this approach. It's on the website Sci-Fi Japan and titled "Classic Anime Gets Star Treatment!"Besides, the original target age of Gaiking and most of the other series Toei are putting out these international dub feature compilations when they first aired on TV in Japan were children. I think this format will be a better way of attracting a few new younger fans outside the anime die-hards, without them being given it in a way that's sanitized or overly Americanized.