Tekkaman: The Space Knight

Tekkaman: The Space Knight (宇宙の騎士テッカマン) is a Japanese anime produced by Tatsunoko Productions in 1975. A short-lived English adaptation aired in the U.S. in 1984. The first 13 episodes streamed in Japanese with English subtitles on Anime Sols as of spring 2013 exclusively in North America, but the website is now defunct. All 26 episodes were streaming on Viewster in several countries until the website went defunct in 2019. In the 1990s, it was followed by the much more popular Tekkaman Blade, which was dubbed in the U.S. by Saban as Teknoman.

Plot
The Earth has entered the 21st century, and it is in peril. The "Green Earth" project has been abandoned, and scientists look to the stars to find a "Second Earth". The "Space Angel", on its mission to find this "Second Earth", is attacked by a group of aliens named the "Waldarians". The "Space Angel", commanded by the father of hot-headed young space pilot Joji Minami (Barry Gallagher in the English dub), is destroyed and with it the hope of mankind.

Professor Souzou Amachi (Dr. Richardson) develops the powerful new alloy "tekka" and manages to create the Gigantor-like flying robot "Pegas" and the "Teksetter" system it contains, designed to combat the aliens by augmenting a human with a certain wavelength into the mighty Tekkaman, an indestructible armor-clad "Space Knight" endowed with enhanced strength, the ability to survive in space, and the deadly twin-bladed "Tek Lancer" that can slice through the hull of a spaceship as if it were paper.

Joji is given the ability to transform into Tekkaman and ride through space on the back of Pegas. Now along with Prof. Amachi's tech-savvy daughter Hiromi (Patricia Richardson) and the sardonic blond-afroed Andro and squirrel-like little Mutan who are from the far-off frozen planet Sanno and possess the power of teleportation, he fights to rid the dying Earth from the threat of the "Waldaster" and continue to research the "Leap Flight Engine" to reach a new home for humanity.

Production
The opening theme, "Tekkaman no Uta", is sung by Ichirou Mizuki, written by Tatsunoko's Planning Department (lyrics) and Asei Kobayashi (music) and arranged by Bob Sakuma, who composed all the music for the series. The character designs were done by Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame). The show was intended to run for 52 episodes, but was cancelled after 26 episodes. The reasons for the show's cancellation currently remain unknown.

An English-language version was created by a small independent company called William Winckler Productions, but the dub was cancelled in mid-story with only 13 of the show's 26 episodes produced.

Over forty-thousand original Tekkaman the Space Knight VHS video cassettes were successfully sold throughout the U.S. to major retail stores by Congress Video Group (the largest video distributor at the time), and later by L.D. Video. Congress Video sold half-hour episodes, whereas L.D. Video sold two 96-minute film compilations.

William Winckler attempted to stay as true to the original Japanese series as possible, with as little editing of violence as possible, and retaining all the original Japanese music and sound effects. This was in stark contrast to Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, another Tatsunoko series which was dubbed by Sandy Frank as Battle of the Planets.

Japanese cast

 * Katsuji Mori as Joji Minami/Tekkaman
 * Kan Tokumaru as Pegas
 * Junpei Takiguchi as Rambos
 * Kazue Komiya as Mutan
 * Kenji Utsumi as Chief Amachi
 * Miyuki Ueda as Hiromi
 * Shinji Nakae as Narrator
 * Takeshi Kuwabara as Dovrai
 * Yasuo Yamada as Andro Umeda
 * Yuzuru Fujimoto as Jupiter

English cast

 * Bill Hedderly Jr. as Barry Gallagher / Tekkaman
 * Kathy Pruitt as Patricia Richardson / Mutan
 * Reginald Bennett as Andro
 * Clancy Syrko as Pegas / Randrox / Narrator
 * Jean Veloz as Mutan / Computer
 * Robert Winckler as Dr. Richardson / Emperor Devoral

Appearances in other media
Tekkaman, Andro, and Dovrai appear in the PlayStation fighting game Tatsunoko Fight as playable fighters representing their series. Tekkaman reappears in both versions of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom with the Wii version also having Tekkaman Blade; Tekkaman's mini-game involves him throwing his Tek Lancer against a horde of Waldester fighters from the early part of series.

Tekkaman also appears in the crossover anime series Infini-T Force co-produced by Tatsunoko and Digital Frontier which aired from October 3 to December 26, 2017.