The first in the "Time Bokan" royal comedy series!

Yoru no Yatterman," a sequel to the second installment of the Time Bokan series " Yatterman," has been well received. However, compared to "Yatterman," which has been the subject of remakes and live-action film adaptations, the first in the series, " Time Bokan " (1975), has not been given the opportunity for a second look.

In the fourth installment of " A Middle-Aged Anime Writer's Nostalgic Anime Retrospective," veteran writer Keisuke Hirota takes a look at "Time Bokan" to discover the origins of its appeal.

The year 1975, when "Time Bokan" was broadcast, marked the end of " Mazinger Z " and " Great Mazinger " and the start of the innovative " UFO Robo Grendizer. Getter Robo " was handed over to " Getter Robo G " and robot animation entered its second round. Moving on to mecha animations that did not feature robots, " Space Battleship Yamato " was cancelled in 1975 with low ratings.

In both robot and mecha anime, "seriousness is the norm," and "it is only natural that the main character should die. To make matters worse, it was also in 1975 that Nero and Patrush departed for heaven in " A Dog of Flanders. A gritty sense of tragedy was wafting from the cathode-ray tube.


In "Time Bokan," however, the main mecha suddenly explodes in the opening scene (to be precise, the main title pops out of the explosion). The special weapon of the villain mecha, the Time Guy Cots, is always a bomb, and every time the Time Bokan side wins by sending back a bomb to detonate the enemy.

It was pleasant to see the roughness of the game, in which the bad guy always ends up with a bomb and an explosion. Of course, no one dies in the explosion. While other children's anime leaned more toward the serious side, "It's okay for anime to be rough, just rough!　Hey, you! I felt liberated, as if I had been strongly tapped on the shoulder by an adult. The story is going to explode at the end anyway, so it's okay to just sit back and watch the story up until then. You can just concentrate on the parts you like.


The lead mecha is modeled after the beetle that all boys love. And the mecha used by the Margeo gang that chases after them are based on the Geicoats at their core, but designed differently each time. The mechas that chase after each other with different concepts are the " Chiki Chiki Machine Raging Race. I used to watch it on Tokyo 12 Channel (now TV Tokyo) in the "Manga no Kuni" slot, and "Chiki Chiki Machine" also featured a lot of crashes, smashing through walls and ceilings, and of course, dynamite explosions and self-destructs, and all sorts of wild gags of that kind.

According to the people involved, "Time Bokan" was a story about a race between good guys and bad guys in its early stages, and "Chitty Chitty Machine," which had been broadcast just a few years earlier, must have had a big influence on the series. The magic hand popping out of an empty space, the endless extension of the bellows, and the innocent trust in mechanics and their all-purpose nature are also common characteristics of "Time Bokan" and "Chitty Chitty Machine. The same can be said of "Time Bokan" and "Chitty Chitty Machine," with their innocent trust in the mechanics and their all-around ability. That optimism must have had a great impact on children's view of science and civilization at the time.


However, I had only one complaint about "Chitty Chitty Machine. Milk-chan, the red-hot star, was not very cute. I used to get a thrill out of seeing her in a pinch, even as a child, but she has three white eyes and no chin (to be precise, her neck is hidden by her clothes), and when her face is shown in close-up, I felt a bit discouraged. Even elementary school boys who love mechanical things are concerned about the presence of the heroine. If possible, I want her to be beautiful.

In this respect, the heroes of "Time Bokan" are a male-female pair, and the heroine, Junko, has a moist, sexy scent in her eyelashes and lips (I was later shocked to learn that her set age is 10 years old). When the hero Tanpei becomes friendly with the guest character, Junko yakks at him. Among the female characters in "Time Bokan," many would say that Marjo, a member of the villainous trio, is the most groundbreaking. However, Marjo is more like a prototype to be completed by Doronjo-sama in the second series, "Yatterman" (1977).

Compared to "Yatterman," "Time Bokan" is a bit more lax in its setting, and the main characters, Tanpei and Junko, do not transform, but for some reason wear special costumes on a regular basis. They are neither heroes nor do they have any special moves. The setting is so thin that it is a bit of a stretch to describe it. In the opening scene, the two are hunched over each other on the mechabuton, with a heart symbol floating in the air, but there seems to be no deeper meaning to the scene. In the main story, Tanpei and Junko touch hands and blush on their cheeks ......, but this is too little evidence that they are in love. What exactly is the relationship between Tanpei and Junko?

The ambiguity of the relationship between Tanpei and Junko is what makes it all the more interesting. Junko's existence. Yoshitaka Amano's bewitching character design is a highlight of the film. The heroines after "Yatterman" (of course, the female characters on the righteous side) are cute in their own ways, but Junko's character design leaves me in a quandary. The concept of how realistic the characters should be is wobbly, and that is what makes them so appealing.


I have inadvertently spoken about Junko in a passionate manner. When I review "Time Bokan" now, I can feel the freshness of the first step into a new continent, a step that no one has taken yet, and a fearful one at that. Is this okay?　Is it okay to stay this out of the way?　But we're already on the air. ......No problem, as long as we blow it up first, it'll be fine!　Explode first!　Am I the only one who is cheered up by such desperate courage?

(Text by Keisuke Hirota)

＜Introduction
Dr. Kieda travels back in time to some other era for a trial run of Time Bokan, a time machine that has finally been completed. However, when he returns to the Time Bokan, he finds no sign of Dr. Kieda, but only his parrot, Perasuke, and a jewel called "Dynamond," which is said to be the most expensive jewel in the universe. Dr. Perasuke's assistant, Tanpei, and his granddaughter, Junko, begin a search for him on Time Bokan. However, the villainous trio, Marjo and his gang, also pursue Tanpei and his friends for the Dynamond.