Time Bokan: Royal Revival OVA episode 2

Since episode 1 was full of references and jokes to the entire franchise, as well as more than a bit of Wacky Races, it's up to episode 2 to be more "traditional". As such, it follows the format of an episode of Yatterman.

The standard Yatterman episode plot is as follows:
The Dorombo Trio (Doronjo, Boyakki, and Tonzura) will hatch a scheme to swindle people out of their money. Usually, this scheme will cross paths with Gan-chan and Ai-chan, secret identities of Yatterman-1 and Yatterman-2, respectively. Later, back at their hideout, the trio would receive a message from Dokurobei, the "God of Thieves". Sending the trio out to look for a fragment of the mystical "Dokuro Stone", the Dorombo would be threatened with a punishment that was "Scarier than anything their mama would do", before exploding in true secret message fashion. Climbing aboard their mecha of the week (usually themed off the scam from the start of the episode), they would head to whatever fictitious location the Stone was said to be at (New Yorker instead of New York, Ogypt instead of Egypt). After acquiring the presumed piece of the Stone, the heroes would show up, and they would fight. Eventually it would seem the Dorombos would have the upper hand, until Yatterman fed his own mecha, Yatter-Wan a mecha bone, which would boost his power and allow him to do "This week's suprise robots", which would always be mini-mecha that would be able to handle Dorombo's mecha, before making it explode in a skull shaped mushroom cloud. Yatterman-1 and 2 would then do their victory pose.

After the battle, the trio would be seen riding off on their tandem bike, and find out if the stone they even located was even the real Dokuro stone or not, and then get berated by Dokurobei for their failure (either in acquiring the real stone, getting defeated by Yatterman, or whatever reason he felt at the moment). That famous organ music would play, and the trio would get left in a hazardous deathtrap.

Of note this episode almost falls victim to the same problem the first did, with references that the US dubbed audience never would get. Luckily, while Hurricane Polymer never was brought to the west, The Gatchamen, Neo-Human Cassharn, and Tekkaman at least had some release at one point or another prior to the show. Albeit never as high profile as other anime, it at least put them a step higher than the other Time Bokan shows had.

Ultimately, the Royal Revival did its job in Japan. The OVA led to various Time Bokan based video games released (usually centered around the Dorombo or the vehicles of the evil Trios, as seen in episode 1), and in 2000 even brought an 8th series to the franchise: The oft-forgotten Kiramekiman. In 2008 a remake of Yatterman would be released, along with related merchandising, and shortly into 2009 Takashi Miike (of Ichi the Killer fame) would direct a Yatterman movie. The remake naturally had the characters of the show meet the movie cast.

The majority of these characters would be seen one more time in the West, with the release of Wii based fighting game Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Although many classic Tatsunoko characters made it in, Time Bokan would once again be the one that showed the most for it: Yatterman-1, Yatterman-2, The Dorombo Trio, Ippatsuman, and their respective mechas would all be playable characters in it, making Time Bokan the franchise with the most representives in the game. In the Japanese, Doronjo and her two cohorts were even the characters who explained the various game modes on the main menu.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• time
• bokan
• ova
• bad
• dubbing
• yatterman
• gan-chan
• ai-chan
• doronjo
• boyakki
• tonzura
• gatchman
• cassharn
• polymir
• tekkaman
• tatsunoko
• vs
• capcom

[keero16]

English? I thought anything Yatterman wasn't in English

[RogerPyoko]

@keero16 That's true. Yatterman only ever got a dub of its entire run in Italian. This OVA, however, was licensed and dubbed by the usually mediocre US Manga Corps.

[2FunnyVersionIV]

I like how Speed Racer and Space Ace were in this episode.

[Darkspines22]

Yeesh, this is really, "risque" for a "kids""" anime. episode. O_o

[thegr8estone]

I wish they can actually make an English Dub Version for Yatterman for the Fututre.

[mkScorpion878]

I think tatsunoko vs capcom should have been rated M for mature xd

[matthibner]

This was really great. I love how Tekkaman only says "Oh!" and "You wanna go home?" Tatsunoko really is a great company that cares about it's fans. Thanks for uploading this!