Dangaioh (manga)
Hyper Combat Unit Dangaioh (破邪大星ダンガイオー, Haja Taisei Dangaiō) is a Japanese anime OVA series produced and animated by AIC and Artmic and released in Japan in 1987. Dangaioh featured character designs by creator Toshiki Hirano, mechanical designs by Shoji Kawamori, and animation direction by Masami Ōbari.
Plot
Brought together by the mysterious Dr. Tarsan, four powerful psychic warriors Mia Alice, Lamba Nom, Pai Thunder, and Roll Kran can unite four powerful planes to form Dangaioh—the most powerful weapon in the universe. Using their combined psionic force, the Dangaioh team alone can stop the bloody tyranny of Captain Galimos and Gil Berg.
The team hopes their psychogenic wave will be strong enough to destroy Galimos’s evil henchman, the notorious Gil Berg, who has sworn by the taking of his right eye to utterly destroy the Dangaioh Team. Along with the threat of Gil Berg, the Dangaioh Team must also avoid falling foul of Galimos’s trickery, which finds weakness in their forgotten pasts.
Music
The OVA’s score was composed by Chumei Watanabe. The soundtrack was released by Nippon Columbia on August 21, 1987.
- Opening theme
- “Cross Fight!” (eps. 1-2)
- Lyrics: Akira Ōtsu
- Music: Chumei Watanabe
- Vocals: Mitsuko Horie and Ichirou Mizuki
- “Cheap Thrills” (ep. 3)
- Lyrics: Takeshi Sakakibara
- Music: Tatsuyuki Ōhara
- Vocals: Hidemi Nakai
- Ending theme
- “Kokoro no Honesty” (心のオネスティー, Kokoro no Onesutī, lit. “Honesty of the Heart”) (eps. 1-2)
- Lyrics: Akira Ōtsu
- Music: Chumei Watanabe
- Vocals: Mitsuko Horie
- “Who’s Gonna Win?” (ep. 3)
- Lyrics: Takeshi Sakakibara
- Music: Tatsuyuki Ōhara
- Vocals: Hidemi Nakai
Release
Episode 1 of Dangaioh was first released in North America on subtitled VHS format by U.S. Renditions in 1990 as Dangaio. It was infamously known for a subtitling error towards the end of the episode. Dangaioh’s final attacks “Psychic Wave” and “Psychic Sword” were misspelled as “Side-kick Wave” and “Side-kick Sword.” Episodes 2 and 3 were released in 1992 with a different translation staff behind the subtitling production.
Following the demise of U.S. Renditions in the mid-1990s, Manga Entertainment re-released Dangaioh in 1996 as Dangaioh: Hyper Combat Unit, which was an English-dubbed compilation of episodes 2–3. Episode 1 was omitted from this release, as episode 2 begins with a summary of the episode. This version was released on DVD in 2003.
Dangaioh was released on Blu-ray in Japan by King Records on April 27, 2016.
Sequel
A new 13-episode series named Great Dangaioh ran from April 5, 2001 through July 5, 2001 on TV Asahi in Japan. The series was created and directed by Hirano, and produced by AIC. Hirano’s wife, Narumi Kakinouchi, was the animation director. Originally perceived as a completely different story, the series was revealed halfway as the sequel to the OVA series.
The series was licensed in North America by Viz Media, featuring an English dub produced in the Philippines by Telesuccess Productions.
Video games
An Dangaioh adventure game was released for the PC-8801 in Japan in April 1990. Dangaioh’s characters, mecha, and storyline elements appeared in Banpresto‘s Super Robot Wars games. They initially appeared in Super Robot Wars Compact 2 (Parts 1, 2, and 3) for the WonderSwan game system, and later in its PlayStation 2 remake, Super Robot Wars Impact, as well as the Nintendo DS game, Super Robot Wars K. Impact notably features voice acting from the original Japanese voice actors.
The Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast video game Bangai-O contains various references to the series.
| Hyper Combat Unit Dangaioh | |
Cover for the Blu-ray remaster release in Japan
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| 破邪大星ダンガイオー (Haja Taisei Dangaiō) |
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|---|---|
| Genre | Adventure, Mecha, Science fiction |
| Original video animation | |
| Directed by | Toshiki Hirano |
| Written by | Koichi Ohata Shō Aikawa Toshiki Hirano |
| Music by | Kaoru Mizutani Michiaki Watanabe |
| Studio | AIC & Artmic |
| Licensed by | |
| Released | September 28, 1987 – July 25, 1989 |
| Runtime | 43 minutes (ep. 1) 27 minutes (ep. 2) 38 minutes (ep. 3) |
| Episodes | 3 |
| Manga | |
| Muteki Shōjo Ramii | |
| Written by | Ken Ishikawa |
| Illustrated by | Toshihiro Hirano |
| Published by | Tokuma Shoten |
| Published | July 1989 |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Game | |
| Developer | Technopolis Software |
| Publisher | Technopolis Software |
| Genre | Adventure |
| Platform | PC-8801 |
| Released | April 1990 |
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nimabi
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