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is an anime series, released in 1992. This series was intended to be a reboot of the original anime, though these shows ultimately shared little in common besides the "armoured hero" concept and a few common character names. The show was also dubbed and released in Western shores under the title Teknoman, one of the first shows on UPN Kids. The dubbed version has since been released on DVD in the U.S. under the same name by AnimeWorks. __TOC__ Plot Present Time: Earth, the Space Ring and the Space Knights In the United Global Year (UGY) 193, the Earth is under attack from an extraterrestrial enemy; the Rahdam. The Rahdam are led by an even deadlier force, known as the Tekkamen. Surrounding the Earth is the huge man-made orbital ring known as the Space Ring. The Space Ring was constructed well before the arrival of Rahdam and was the first human structure attacked by them. As the aliens attacked, those that were left either fled or were killed, and the Space Ring was largely abandoned, serving only as a battle ground for Blade and the Tekkamen. Fighting against Rahdam and the Tekkamen are the Space Knights. Led by Commander Heinrich Freeman, the Space Knights are a Special Defense Force, and Earth's last hope for defeating the mighty Rahdam. The Space Knights consist of Noal, the pilot of the Space Knights' ship the Blue Earth; Aki Kisaragi, the Blue Earth Navigator; Milly, Communications Operator; Rebin, computer wiz and mechanic; and Honda, Mechanic and Repairs. The Space Knights have been unsuccessful at repelling the Rahdam until the arrival of D-Boy (Dangerous Boy - Tekkaman Blade's nickname while amnesiac), a mysterious young man who has the ability to transform into the powerful warrior known as Tekkaman Blade. Rahdam
The Argos Before the arrival of the Rahdam there was a deep space exploration ship called the Argos. It was the Argos that first encountered the Rahdam probe ship. Aboard the Argos were the Aiba family: Blade's family and their ship crew. Whilst exploring the outer rings of Saturn, the Argos' radar picks up an unusual disturbance. Going to investigate, the crew discover the disturbance to be an alien ship, and as they get closer, they are drawn in by a tractor beam. Excited at the prospect of encountering alien life, the crew board the vessel and discover the Rahdam. Rahdam Tekkaplants rain down upon the crew, beginning the process of turning them into Tekkamen. All of the crew aboard the ship are put into pods, though only the most ideal humans could become Tekkamen. While this occurred, the Argos was slowly being assimilated into the Rahdam mothership. Over time, D-Boy's father was rejected by the process and manages to survive and uses what little time he had left to free one member of his family; Blade. It is through the crew of the Argos that the Rahdam learn of Earth and plan their invasion. On his last legs, D-Boy's father helps him into the escape pod and before activating the Argos' self destruct sequence, he casts D-Boy off into space telling him that the fate of the Earth rests in his hands. Upon the explosion, the Rahdam mothership crash lands on the dark side of the Moon. Battle for Earth
The Final Battle Towards the end of the saga, D-Boy and Evil meet for one last time to duel. They battle and eventually Blade impales Evil. As he dies, Evil is freed from the aliens' control and hands Blade his crystal, instructing him that he will need its power to reach Omega's base on the Moon. D-Boy takes off on Pegas whilst falling further and further into the depths of his rage. He finally arrives on the Moon and confronts Omega, who reveals the whole alien plan and that he is Kengo, Blade's eldest brother. Omega has begun to resurrect the alien mother ship, to descend upon Earth. Blade attacks Omega, but he is too powerful and easily stops Blade. Omega is about to kill Blade when Pegas steps in. Omega easily destroys Pegas, whose last words are a farewell to Blade. The destruction of Pegas sends Blade over the edge, and he erupts, drawing all his power into a huge green beam which encompasses him. Omega tries to stop him, but cannot. As Omega is about to die, Blade tells him, "Go back, come home." The mothership spectacularly explodes. As pieces of it fall to the Earth, so too does Blade, once again crash landing. The series ends with D-Boy and Aki watching a sunset and Noel recalling what a miracle it was that Blade survived. However, prices were paid, as Blade is now wheelchair-bound, can barely speak and is almost completely amnesiac. With the aliens destroyed, the threat to the Earth was no more... Name changes Note: The "D" in D-Boy, Nick's Japanese name, stands for "dangerous". At first the characters do not know his actual name, so Ringo/Noal chooses the nickname on the basis of how foolhardy and dangerous D-Boy acts. Blade
Evil
Rapier
Omega
Dagger
Axe
Lance
Sword
Aki
Noel
A member of the Space Knights, Noel is a tough Joker, who initially, doesn't trust Blade at all, and shows it. He seems to like Aki as seen in the first episode, and cares for her a lot, as seen in the episode, "Falling Star" when he beats Blade up for causing, (indirectly) Aki to be hospitalized. He is also willing to destroy him in the fifth episode, as seen when he is fully prepared to blow Blade out of the sky when it seems that his time is up. As the series goes on, however, they become firm friends, playing a strong part in breaking Blade out of the Military confinement center where Blade had been taken, and constantly telling him to reveal his feelings about Aki, such as advising him to buy flowers, and so on. Some time into the series, when he is breaking Blade out of the confinement center, he steals the Sol-Tekkaman suit, (the Tekno-suit in the dub) and he plays a part in almost every battle after that, fighting alongside Blade, and sometimes alone. While the suit is strong, he is more often than not defeated while in it against evil Tekkamen. It just doesn't measure up in terms of strength, and its ammunition is ineffective against Tekkamen. The bullets are also particularly easy to dodge. Milly She is a bright and bubbly young space knight, and seems to be the one that Blade trusts at first, he certainly confides in her the conditon of his 1/2 hour time limit in a more compassionate way than he does to anyone else, even Aki. She looks like Blade's younger sister, Miyuki, a coincidence not left unused. When Blade exceeded his 30 minute time limit, and became a rahdam warrior, she was the only one who could bring him back, and he reverted back to his normal state, horrified at what he had done. Freeman
A strong, tall commander, who leads the Space knights well. He is extremely concerned with the safety of his personnel, as shown by his absolute unwillingness to force Blade into action, or to undergo the Evolution process. He is the one who discovered the Information on the Argos, prompting Blade to fill in the rest of the gaps. Honda A wide, caring mechanic. Extremely down to earth, he often snaps Rebin out of his daydreams about Blade. He designed Pegas with Rebin's help. He is brave, and will not step down from the line of Duty. After the attack on the Space Knights HQ, he chose to stay with Freeman and build the new command center rather than travel with Aki, Noel and Rebin to destroy the Tekkamen. Rebin
Rebin is a cross-dresser and a highly skilled mechanic. He also fantasises about Blade in the earlier episodes, to have himself be brought back to reality by Honda. He is extremely talented in mechanics, cooking apparently and history. He chooses to travel with Aki and Noel in the land vehicle, the Green Earth. NOTE: While male in the Japanese version, this character is female in the English Dubs. Rebin's fascintation with Blade was one of the more notable characteristics carried over to the English Dubs. As a result, Maggie would often gush over Blade and even attempted to assist him in battle at one point by blasting a spider-crab with a turret gun, only to be save at the last minute by Balzac and his powerful new Teknosuit. Pegas The mobile support unit used by D-Boy to transform into Tekkaman Blade after his crystal is shattered. Pegas has a deep, bland strong voice which is easily recognizable. He can be activated by voice command, or by remote from the Space Knight Central Command. He was given the name Pegas by O' Toole after the flying horse Pegasus. His trademark is singing a soldier's song (The Irish 'Johnny Boy') which O' Toole always sang and asked him to save it into his data banks which annoys Maggie. He is destroyed by Omega in the final episode. An interesting note is that in the original Japanese version and International Dub, an oil tear floats from Pegus's eye when saying his final goodbye after he is killed, but this was removed in the US Dub to indicate he was rebuilt and is now used by Aki in Tekkaman Blade II. O Toole
The leader of a special commando unit, who was stranded on the Space Ring. At first, he didn't believe in Teknoman's abilities until he was saved by him. He teaches D-Boy/Slade/Blade about how soldiers have lives too. When he lost 3 of his soldiers, he asked him how would the families of those lost soldiers would feel, which made him realize that he can put trust in others, specifically the Space Knights. In addition, he taught Pegas to sing "The Irish Johnny Boy". Unfortunately, he is killed by Lance in order to give Teknoman the time needed to upgrade his powers. He was buried in the flower field hidden deep under the Antarctic Space Knight Base. Balzac
An arrogant soldier who was a spy for General Gault who maliciously taunted Blade and the Space Knights. Jamison intentionally gave him the data on Teknoman, implying that the Space Knights will need all the help he can get. He led a strike team on the Space Ring thinking it was the main base; however, it wasn't and fell into a trap set by Saber, who end up annihilating his team which included his childhood friend Marlowe, the scientist responsible for creating the Tekno-Suits. Balzac escaped the massacre and returned to Earth where he was saved by Rachael and her brother Rick. For several months, he stayed with Rachael and Rick, finally understanding what it feels like to have people care for him, but also seeking revenge for the death of Marlowe. He ends up helping the Space Knight giving extra fire power to the team, which already had Blade and Noel. He and Noel still show rivalry towards each other, but in a friendlier sense. Near the end, both he and Noel take on Teknoman Sword. Balzac used Noel's suit to use a special cannon designed by Jamieson to negate the Tekno Powers. He managed to take out Sword; however, she attempted a kamikaze attack which almost killed them. According to Noel, he did survive his ordeal. Analysis of armor A Tekkaman (or, in the English version, a Teknoman) is a human who has been biologically altered by alien technology. The process, however, is so physically taxing that most don't survive it. Those that do survive gain the ability to transform into a powerful armored form. The armor is capable of self-propelled flight, functions as an environmental suit, and is virtually invulnerable to most forms of attack - Blade withstood a nuclear explosion at point-blank range without any ill effects. Even in human-form they have enhanced speed and strength demostrated by Lance and Blade in "Tekno Trap" and "Metamorphisis" as well as the psionic ability to sense other tekkamen. All Tekkamen control their armor by use of a crystal that is stored in the body while not in use, a Tekno-Crystal. Blade's crystal is shattered early on by Dagger, and he is forced to use Pegas to transform. In addition, the crystal is capable of enabling the Tekkaman to travel through space at high speeds (without his crystal, Blade is earth-bound without the assistance of the Blue Earth) Tekka-Armor also has a number of built-in offensive systems. First, physical strength is enhanced considerably. For melee combat, a Tekkaman uses a spearlike weapon called a Tekk Lancer (called Tekno-Lance in Teknoman). The lances wielded by some Tekkamen had special abilities: Dagger's could double as a bow capable of firing energized arrows, Blade's had launchable boomerang blades, and his (demonstrated in episode one during his first battle) and Evil's could generate an electrical charge in addition to being used as a throwing star. Blade also had a grappling spike that could be fired out of the right wrist of his armour as was shown at the end of episode three when he tows the Blue Earth. (Miyuki and Evil are also shown using similar tools). Most Tekkamen (the one notable exception being Dagger) also had access to Vol Tekka (known as Teknopower Blasters in Teknoman), massively powerful energy cannons that could fire incredible blasts of energy called Vol Tekka Bolts. Evil is capable of using his blasters to power a "ball lightning" blast, and Blade is later able to boost the power of his blast using Pegas. Blade and Evil later evolve into Blastor Tekkamen (known as Super Teknoman/Teknoman Plus/Pen Ultimate Embodiment in Teknoman). During battle, they can change their armor into an enhanced form which boosts their energy blasts and speed considerably. This enhancement has serious neurological effects for both of them, however. Blade had a technique (called Crush Intrude in Tekkaman Blade, and called Tekno Battle Mode in Teknoman) which increased his flight speed and combat ability. Nearly all Tekkamen are able to generate a bird-shaped aura around themselves, allowing them to destroy enemies by crashing into them. This aura can also be expelled as an explosion that destroys everything around the Tekkamen within a certain radius. Episode list Tekkaman Blade specials There are also three OVAs set outside the official continuty of the series (unofficially called The Missing Specials by the fan community). These specials are difficult to find, although all three have been unofficially subtitled and released by the fan community on the Internet: Video games There have been a total of three video games based on Tekkaman Blade. The first one was on Game Boy, and is a simple scrolling action game. The next was on Super Nintendo and is a scrolling action game mixed with 1vs1 fighter scenes. The final game was released on the Japanese home computer system the PC98 and is a strategic game. Tekkaman Blade has also recently been incorporated into the Super Robot Wars series, a long-running series of turn-based strategy games operating under the premise of one massive crossover of various mecha anime. Despite the controversy of including Tekkaman in a series that almost exclusively involves mecha combat, Tekkaman loosely falling between mecha and costumed hero in terms of genre, the game remains relatively faithful to the original storyline, incorporating all major plot points if only slightly reorganized for time. To date, Tekkaman Blade has only appeared in SRW J. Trivia Two separate English versions exist. The first one produced, known as the International Version among fans because it was broadcast in Europe and Australia, was less severely edited than the second, which was only shown in the United States. Differences between the two dubbed versions include the following: The American version had more cuts for "objectionable content" such as: The US-English dub was cancelled after 26 episodes, while its international counterpart was shown in its relative entirety. Due to the merging of certain episodes, the episode count was cut down to 43 from the Japanese version's 49. With the exception of a few changes (for example, Blade is called Slade in the US English dub), most Tekkamen names are retained from the original Japanese series. Characters resembling Joji and Andro Uemeda from the original appear various times throughout the story. DVD release The first volume of Teknoman has been released on DVD in the United States and Canada containing the first fourteen episodes. Although most of the changes made for the American version have been kept (the aliens are still "Venomoids", their leader is still "Darkon", and Maggie is still a woman), the protagonist's name has been changed back from "Slade" to "Blade", and "Teknoman Gunner" is once again "Dagger". These differences prompt the possibility of the dub in question being the International Version. Additionally, the DVD release uses the Japanese opening theme. Volume 2 was released on July 25, 2006. Volume 3 has a tentative release date of September 12, 2006. Another Tekkaman Blade release will be a subtitled special edition version with remastered video and all the extras from the Japanese LD and DVD sets. It is currently scheduled for release on September 19, 2006. Japanese version Openings Endings U.S. version See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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