Tangent - Tekkaman Blade/Teknoman on DVD!

About darned time ... looks like starting at the end of May Media Blasters/Anime Works is releasing Teknoman on DVD. This is Saban's 43 episode mid-1990's English adaptation of the super-slick 49 episode 1992 Tatsunoko Production Star Knight Tekkaman Blade, itself a remake of the 26 episode (cancelled in mid-story) 1975 Tatsunoko series Space Knight Tekkaman. In short, it's a hacked down dub of a spiffy-keen remake of a cool unfinished Tatsunoko hero show. You might have realized by now that the key reason this is anywhere near on-topic is because of the Tatsunoko connection -- they're the folks who animated most of the footage you see in the ROBOTECH TV series, as well as all the Sentinels animation.

It's funny, there are people I've known who can't stand ROBOTECH for all its changes and edits who recall Teknoman with a certain fondness, though I expect it's largely because they haven't watched it in an age that they see it through such rose-colored glasses. Seeing how it's a Saban release I expect to see a lot of references to death and killing cut out, and ... well, look at the numbers, Teknoman is six episodes shorter than Tekkaman Blade, so I figure a lot of footage was left on the cutting room floor. In fact, I don't have to figure -- you can read all about the edits made here. Personally, I'm gonna wait patiently for the uncut/subtitled/remastered Tekkaman Blade DVDs they say are coming down the pipe later this year, unless I can find a heck of a deal on the Teknoman sets. Mind you, the Teknoman discs are already a pretty good deal, 14 to 15 episodes per $60 pack, and that's average retail price, but still ... having watched Saban's Dragon Ball Z episodes where people go to "the next dimension" and cities that are being annihilated are "deserted because it's Sunday," um, yeah, I might still want to wait for the uncut Japanese version ...