Magazine Shōnen Gaho Volumes 2 Music by Yasushi Kokura Final episode date 27 September 1968 Adapted from Robotan | Original run 1966 – 1968 Directed by Hiroshi Ono First episode date 1 October 1966 Genre Anime Written by Kenji Morita | |
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Produced by Tsuyoshi Hata (early episodes)Isamu Hagi (later episodes) Similar Ehrgeiz, Z‑Mind, Daimajū Gekitō: Hagane n, Starship Troopers, Ganbaron | ||
Robotan (ロボタン) is a Japanese anime and manga series created by Kenji Morita. The series revolves around household robot Robotan, who is created By Kan-chan and lives with an everyday Japanese family as a domestic servant and friend to the children. Like Doraemon, his good intentions don't always work out, with comic consequences. The original series was produced by Daiko Advertising. Production moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha for the 20th-anniversary color remake New Robotan (1986) under director Masaharu Okuwaki.
Contents
Plot
Robotan is a robot made by a school boy named Kan-chan, a nerd. He has special abilities like "Robotan Copter", "Robotan Punch" etc. His arch Rival is Botchi, a small kid who dislikes Robotan and makes several plans to destroy him or make him a slave, but Robotan destroys all his plans. He has also a little crush on his teacher, Umi. He is very fond of bananas which gives him power. His male mentor Uminoyamais also in love with Umi, at which Robotan is angered.
Manga
Written and illustrated by Kenji Morita, the manga began serialization in the Shonen Gaho magazine in 1966. The manga was published simultaneously with the 1966 anime version after Morita was hired by Daiko Advertising to create a series similar to Obake no Q-Taro.
1966 anime
The 1966 anime version of Robotan was produced by Daiko Advertising and the animation was outsourced to four studios, all located in Osaka (which was very uncommon for studios in Tokyo to do at the time). The studios providing the animation were Puppe Production, A Production, Sun Production, and Nakamura Production, all of which would take turns producing the episodes. All the stories were handled at Daiko Advertising, which would then be sent the four studios. The film would then be sent back to Daiko for editing and dubbing work.
The series was aired on Fuji Television from October 4, 1966 to September 27, 1968 for 104 episodes. To this day, it's unknown how many episodes still survive. The films were thrown out by Daiko several years ago and ended up as collectors items which were sold under $100. In 2010, two 35mm black and white negatives with no soundtrack were sold on Yahoo Japan's auction service.
1986 anime
The 1986 anime color remake was produced by Daiko who contracted Tokyo Movie Shinsha to handle the production of it. It aired on Yomiuri Television from January 6th to September 22nd, 1986 for 33 episodes.