#zendaman

[marauderstiltheend]

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

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.

[timebokanman]

[timebokanturnip]

Zenderman Character Biography: Judgement/Trial Machine

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.

Speaking in a deep monotone voice, the machine goes over the Akudaman gang's prior course of actions and determines the cause of failure. Unlike Dokurobei's methods of punishment, this machine is designed to single out one member of the Akudaman trio to blame for their failures, although these rulings can be just as unfair at times and all three members occasionally got punished together.

A notable feature of the Judgement / Trial Machine is it's red gavel which it loudly bangs when summoning the evil trio. It also comes equipped with treads and an arsenal of guns and claws. With that said, most of these features are seldom seen and only prominently displayed on the toy of the machine and when it appears in the game Bokandesuyo as a boss.

Nyaravolta was never subjected to any punishment and even controlled some of the torture devices, possibly because he really didn't do anything during the Akudaman gang's escapades. But for the last punishment on the show, Toboke ensured that the cat would get his dues by being shot out of a cannon alongside Muujo so they would both "ascend to the heavens".

In the penultimate episode, the Judgement Machine drops the monotone voice and gets furious when the Akudaman don't show up. This is because they did succeed for a change, having finally found the Elixir of Life and also defeating the Zenderman's Zender-Gorilla.

In the following finale, the conclusion has the Akudaman reduced to babies due to said Elixir and summoned by an increasingly impatient Judgement Machine. When it saw what happened to them, it was so enraged that it blew itself up and sent the infants flying towards a log in the midst of rapids.

[timebokanturnip]

Time Bokan Turnip Has Returned! (Sorta)

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!

The bad news is that my posts will be infrequent compared to daily like before. The earliest I might return full time is possibly when Time Bokan 24 premieres in October, but I can't guarantee that. I am busy studying and also cobbling together resources to make it possible to make a Time Bokan translation or even these posts. I thank you all for the support, and again I apologize for the absence and hope I can continue to deliver as much as I can about the entirety of the Time Bokan franchise to the West and beyond!

[timebokanturnip]

The Writers of Time Bokan: Takao Koyama

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.

Koyama's contribution to the Time Bokan series was immortalized with a reoccuring appearance as a huge cameraman, whose face was always obscured, that followed Reporter Sasayaki in Yattodetaman. Koyama didn't voice himself there, but he did eventually when his cameraman persona appeared in the first Royal Revival OVA (simply saying "I'm Koyama.")

[timebokanturnip]

Zenderman Character Biography: Nyaravolta

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.

He made himself known to the gang in the basement of their mansion, where he provided them with the funds (specifically koban coins) to build mecha bodies for their Sharekobe Mecha to travel through time. Muujo immediately takes a liking to him and adopts Nyaravolta as her pet, much to her lackeys' envy and annoyance. From there on out he assists the Akudaman gang in their scheme to find the Elixir of Life, mostly by spying on Dr. Monja for clues to the elixer's location in time.

Nyaravolta is shown to have an obnoxious and sadistic personality. He takes sheer delight in clawing people's faces and laughing at the misfortune of others, and more often than not is the one who controls the devices that punishes whichever Akudaman member is considered at fault for failing. While he travels with them in their Sharekobe Mecha, he hardly follows them outside of it, preferring to nap until a mecha battle ensures.

He's always on good terms with Mujo, constantly clawing or tricking people, mostly Toboke, on her behalf, and he even goes out of his way to obscure her body when she winds up naked. However, he still takes pleasure in watching her and the rest of the trio get tortured at the end of each episode. Nyaravolta himself was exempt for these punishments until the 50th episode, where Toboke tossed him into a cannon with Muujo.

                           (spoilers ahead, view at your own risk)

In truth, Nyaravolta found the lake containing the elixir long ago and had actually lived for thousands of years due to a sample he obtained. However, the elixir's effect wasn't infinite, and by the end of the series he was in need of more. He used the Akudaman trio to locate the lake for him, and had no intention of letting them have any of the elixir.

Having found it in the penultimate episode, he stored some of the elixir in a bamboo container and later blew a hole in the trio's supply so they wouldn't have any. When they discoverd his treachery, he attempted to run off in the Sharekobe Mecha, only for the Zenderman and the Zender-Gorilla to stop him.

After he was defeated, the Akudaman trio then took his container away from him and drank the elixir. Shortly afterwards his immortality wore off, and he instantly withered up and died. Notably, this is one of the few moments in the entire Time Bokan series where a character is actually killed off.

Despite clearly dying, he makes cameos in Bokandesuyo's intro and Bokan Go Go Go's story for the Akudaman gang. Maybe they got another cat that happened to look like him?

[timebokanturnip]

Time Bokan Gag Robot: Oshii Sejin / Oshii Alien

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.

[timebokanturnip]

Visit Original Link

“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!”

The Oshii Alien / UFO rubbing in the Akudaman’s failure.