Muteking, The Dashing Warrior

Muteking, The Dashing Warrior (とんでも戦士ムテキング) is an anime television series produced by Tatsunoko Productions for Fuji TV. It ran from September 7, 1980, to September 27, 1981. Twelve-year-old Rin Yuki loyally supported his father when the world laughed at the scientist for saying that Earth was about to be invaded from outer space. But Rin did not expect to become personally involved—until he met Takoro, the strange young "deputy sheriff" from another world who was on the trail of notorious space criminals. There were only four Kurodako Brothers, but they plotted to use their alien science and natural shape-changing powers to become the secret masters of Earth. With Takoro's help, Rin became the mighty super-hero, Muteking, to foil their schemes.

The series was televised in Italy under the title of simply Muteking.

An English dub of episode one was also made, apparently in an unsuccessful attempt to sell the series to the United States. In this one-episode dubbed version (which has been posted on YouTube in three parts), Rin Yuki is named "Scooter Loon," and his father is renamed "Linus Loon."

In 2019, Tatsunoko announced a reboot of the series titled Muteking the Dancing Hero that aired from October 3 to December 19, 2021.

Staff

 * Original story: Tatsunoko Production
 * Executive producer: Kenji Yoshida
 * Planning: Ippei Kuri, Shigeru Yanagawa
 * Producers: Ippei Kuri, Tomoyuki Miyata
 * Production supervisors: Minoru Uchima, Minoru Uno, Tsuneo Tamura
 * Scripts: Shigeru Yanagawa, Kazuo Sato, Akiyoshi Sakai, Seiya Yamazaki, Takeshi Shudo, Yu Yamamoto et al.
 * Episode direction: Hiroshi Sasagawa, Masayuki Hayashi, Koichi Mashimo, Yutaka Kagawa, Shinya Sadamitsu, Yoshizo Tsuda, Hidehito Ueda, Kenjiro Yoshida, Kazuo Yamazaki, Masakazu Higuchi et al.
 * Character designs: Ippei Kuri, Akiko Shimomoto
 * Mechanical design: Kunio Okawara
 * Key animation supervisor: Sadao Miyamoto
 * Key animation director: Shizuo Kawai
 * Art director: Kikuko Tada
 * Music: Koba Hayashi
 * Produced and distributed by: Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. / Fuji Telecasting Co., Ltd.

Cast

 * Rin Yuki: Kazuhiko Inoue
 * Takoro: Yumiko Uzaki
 * Dr. Dankichi Yuki: Isamu Tanonaka
 * Koharu Yuki: Kazue Komiya
 * Sonny Yuki: Rokuro Naya
 * Mitchi: Takako Tsutsui
 * Nubon: Takemi Nakamura
 * Takokichi: Toru Ohira
 * Takomaru: Shigeru Tsuji
 * Takosaku: Shin Aomori
 * Takomi: Makoto Kōsaka

Reboot
In 2019, Tatsunoko announced a reboot of the series titled Muteking the Dancing Hero that was going to air in 2020. The companies Tatsunoko and Horipro hosted an audition for who will voice the titular character Muteking; the winner will voice the character and will also have a singing debut with character songs, and will get a contract with Horipro. HoriPro was accepting applications for the audition until July 19, 2019, and after several rounds, the final round took place on September 8.

The reboot is animated by Tatsunoko and Tezuka Productions and directed by Yūzō Satō, with Ryōsuke Takahashi serving as chief director and Hiroshi Sasagawa serving as executive director, Masafumi Satō serving as assistant director and battle dance director, Yūji Kondō supervising series' scripts, and Takamitsu Shimazaki and Takeshi Masuda composing the series' music. The opening theme song, "Labyrinth", is performed by Orange Range, while the ending theme song, "Kibō no Uta" (Song of Hope), is performed by Kalma. It aired from October 3 to December 19, 2021 on TV Osaka and other channels. Funimation streamed the anime.

Episode list

 * Muteki (ムテキ)


 * DJ


 * Seo (セオ)


 * Aida-san (アイダさん)


 * An (アン)


 * Naomi (ナオミ)


 * Sara (サラ)


 * Vivi (ヴィヴィ)


 * Haru (ハル)


 * Summer (サマー)


 * Aki (アキ)


 * Winter (ウィンター)


 * Suteking (ステキング)


 * Matt (マット)


 * Tommy (トミー)


 * George (ジョージ)


 * Owen (オーウェン)