Tekkaman Blade — BrandWiki

Tekkaman Blade

type	ova
title	Tekkaman Blade II
director	Hideki Tonokatsu
producer	Kyouko Okazaki Shuuji Uchiyama
writer	Hiroyuki Kawasaki
music	Takashi Kudoh
studio	Tatsunoko Production
first	July 21, 1994
last	April 21, 1995
runtime	30 minutes
episodes	6

Space Knight Tekkaman Blade (宇宙の騎士テッカマンブレード) is a 1992 Japanese anime television series produced by Tatsunoko Production and Sotsu Agency. The series was directed by Hiroshi Negishi and written by Mayori Sekijima and Satoru Akahori. The story follows an organization called the Space Knights and their war against aliens known as the Radam. The Space Knights are assisted by Takaya Aiba, who has the ability to transform into an armored warrior known as Tekkaman Blade.

The first series, of 50 episodes (including episode 0), aired in Japan from February 18, 1992, to February 2, 1993, on TV Tokyo. This was followed by two specials. A sequel series called Tekkaman Blade II, which is set ten years after the first series and follows the events of the second Radam invasion, was a series of six Japanese original video animation (OVA) releases from July 21, 1994, to April 21, 1995. A video game based on the series, titled Uchū no Kishi: Tekkaman Blade, was released in Japan on July 30, 1993. The original series was released internationally, including North America, and was dubbed in English as Teknoman.[1] In the English-dubbed versions, the series was heavily cut compared to the original Japanese version and shortened from 50 to 43 episodes.

Plot

Tekkaman Blade

Episodes

Tekkaman Blade

Tekkaman Blade was broadcast in Japan on TV Tokyo and 50 episodes were aired between February 18, 1992, and February 2, 1993.[13] It uses four pieces of theme music: two opening themes and two ending themes. The first opening theme is "Reason" by Yumiko Kosaka, which is used from the first through twenty-seventh episodes. The second opening theme is "Eternal Loneliness" (永遠の孤独) by Yumiko Kosaka, which is used from the twenty-eighth episode onwards. The first and second ending themes are "Energy of Love" and "Lonely Heart" respectively, both performed by Kosaka.

In 1995, the series was dubbed in English by Saban Entertainment for UPN Kids, under the name Teknoman. Their dub featured a new theme song and background score by Shuki Levy and Ron Wasserman (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, X-Men, Dragon Ball Z).[14] The American broadcast version was heavily cut compared to the original Japanese version and shortened from 50 episodes to 43. Saban's dub also aired in Australia during 1995 and 1997, on Network Ten's Cheez TV morning cartoon block.

The series was licensed by Media Blasters Entertainment, through its AnimeWorks label in 2006, with separate boxsets for Teknoman and Tekkaman Blade.[15]

The rights to the edited Saban/UPN Kids TV dub version of Teknoman was owned by Disney Enterprises thru BVS Entertainment, after Disney acquired the Fox Family/Fox Kids Worldwide franchise in 2001, while Media Blasters/AnimeWorks owns the rights to the International dub of Teknoman in 2006, after they released this dub, along with the uncut Tekkaman Blade on Region 1 DVD.

The character names were altered for the English-dubbed Teknoman release: Blade's "D-Boy" nickname was dropped in favor of "Blade" (in the edited UPN TV version, it was changed to "Slade") and his full name "Takaya Aiba" became "Nick Carter". Similarly, "Commander Heinrich von Freeman" became "Commander Jamison", "Noel" became "Ringo Richards", "Aki" became "Star Summers", "Milly" became "Tina Corman", "Levin" (an effeminate male in the original Japanese version) became the female "Maggie Matheson", "Honda" became "Mack", and "Miyuki" became "Shara". The "Radam" were now called "Venemoids" and their leader "Omega" became "Darkon".

In January 2016, the series was released as a remastered Blu-Ray boxset in Japan. The set contains all 50 episodes of the first series and all 6 episodes of the second series, as well as the OVA specials from the laserdiscs, an unreleased episode entitled "Virgin Memory", and a new video interview with Toshiyuki Morikawa.[16]

Specials

These OVA specials were originally included in the Crystal Box laserdisc set and later included as special features for the DVD and Blu-Ray releases.

Tekkaman Blade II

Tekkaman Blade II (宇宙の騎士テッカマンブレードII) is a six-episode original video animation (OVA) that was released in 1994 by Tatsunoko and serves as a sequel to the Tekkaman Blade anime series. The series was originally licensed by Urban Vision on VHS in 1998 and later released on DVD in 2001,[18] before later being picked up by Discotek Media in 2012 for an uncut home-media release on DVD and Blu-Ray format, with English dubbing and subtitles as options.[19] The series aired on Starz Encore's Action Anime programming block in 1999.[20]

Merchandise and other media

Merchandise

Model kits based on the series released in Japan by Bandai throughout the show's run, as well as model kits by B-Club, who also made models of the second series. Various Tekkaman Blade action figures have been made over the years, such as Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Evil receiving Figmas by Max Factory, a figure of Tekkaman Blade and Pegas was released by Bandai, as well as Bandai also making figure of the series under their Armor Plus line and more recently, Tekkaman Blade received a Riobot figure from Sentinel Toys, with Tekkaman Evil set to receive a Riobot figure at a later date. Orange Cat Industry, a company based in China acquired the rights to produce model kits based on the series and it was re-released in Japan by Wave Corporation.

Video games

In 1993, BEC published a video game based on the first anime for the Super Famicom (SNES) in Japan.[22] The game has Blade going through various levels in a shoot-em-up-like style where Blade uses his Tek-Lancer to attack, while the boss battles (save for the last fight against Tekkaman Omega) have a 2D fighting game like approach to them. In the year prior, another game which published by Yutaka was a platformer for the Game Boy.[23] In 1994, a real time strategy game based on the first series and sequel OVA for NEC's PC-9801 entitled Tekkaman Blade: Orbital Ring Dakkai Sakusen was released. The game was published and developed by Matrix.[24]

In 2005, Tekkaman Blade debuted in Super Robot Wars J[25] for the Game Boy Advance, an entry in the long-running Super Robot Wars series of crossover strategy RPGs involving various mecha franchises. However, its inclusion in the game caused controversy amongst fans as the show itself has only one proper robot in Pegas, while the title character and a majority of the cast don powered armor to do battle. The first series would later return in 2007's Super Robot Wars W[26] while also featuring the second series, the latter of which made its SRW debut.

Tekkaman Blade would be featured as a playable character in 2010's Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars for the Wii as one of the five new characters added to the game's roster. In addition, Tekkaman Evil was also planned to appear in the game's roster, but was ultimately scrapped from the final game.[27]

On November 26, 2021, the series was announced to be making a collaboration with the game Iron Saga, a mecha crossover game for mobile devices.[28]