Yatterman Review

Were coming to the last couple of reviews in this A-Z so lets kick off Y with Yatterman.

Yatterman started in the 70s as a follow up to the Time Bokan series produced by Tatsunoko which features a boy and a girl team fighting against an evil trio not much different to Team Rocket using robot animals.
Yatterman is about a boy and a girl team fighting against an evil trio not much different to Team Rocket using robot animals......
Yeah the shows don't change much but lets see why Yatterman went on the longest compared to the others. Well male lead Gan-Chan and female lead Ai-Chan are actually a couple, a very close couple despite Ai-Chan doing most of the work, which makes this formulaic series work better than your standard brother and sister or just friends team.
Yes I said formulaic and boy does it run like clockwork, a typical episode will involve an issue of some kind, usually the Dorombo Gang involved in a cheesy crime of some description using a mecha, now this is Team Rocket's spiritual ancestor, we have the lady in charge Doronjo, the brains Boyacky and the muscle Tonzura. With the evil plot taking place it's up to Gan & Ai to stop the Dorombo Gang, doing so with a robot dog dressed like a fire marshal called Yatter-Wan.
Gan & Ai also have some toys of they're own as Gan uses a Kendama while Ai uses a cattle prod as their weapons of choice. Once the battle gets going Yatter-Wan summons a load of mini robots to attack the Dorombo gang which usually wins the battle for Yatterman. Afterwards the Dorombo gang get chewed out by their boss and literally blast off again, which is actually where the term comes from and not Team Rocket.
I have to say, for a show so strict on formula, it is still able to remain entertaining, it helps that the mini-robots change every week and other animal robots come into the story as it goes along, but the chemistry is so strong between characters it rarely makes mistakes, my only real criticisms are a lack of localization for the west, the 70s original hasn't aged that well and the late 00s reboot should've come back sooner.
Final Verdict: Definitely worth the effort of finding a fansub for. I'd recommend trying both versions of the anime but I prefer the reboot to the original.

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