Hi all! After literally decades of waiting, the soundtracks for Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter are finally going to have a commercial release! The two CDs, one for each series, are being released by Sony Music Entertainment's Be Smile label on April 4th. Following the very successful release of the soundtracks for the various Time Bokan series, as well as those from Gold Lightan and Gordian, Be Smile is starting a "Tatsunoko Music Museum" series, with Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter as the initial releases. The discs will retail at 2,800 yen apiece. The stock number for the "Gatchaman II Original Soundtrack" is BSCH-30055, and the stock number for the "Gatchaman Fighter Original Soundtrack" is BSCH-30056. At this point, no details have been released regarding the contents of the discs, such as the number of tracks or the track titles. Judging by their previous Tatsunoko releases, these discs will likely be very, very thorough collections. With luck, we'll know more details within the next few weeks. What makes the release of these discs so exciting is the fact that neither Gatchaman II nor Gatchaman Fighter has ever had a release of their soundtracks. When these series were being broadcast, all that were released were their theme songs, a collection of "Hit Songs" inspired by Gatchaman II, and a pair of "TV Manga Action Series" records which had the theme songs with drama segments telling a brief story interspersed between the verses. Finally, those of us who enjoyed the music created for these series will be able to listen and enjoy it outside of episodes from the two series themselves. The CDs are now available for preorder through online shops like Amazon Japan http://www.amazon.co.jp and CD Japan http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (Be aware that CD Japan has them listed under Gacchaman II and Gacchaman F) I'm sure can be found at other locations as well. I hope this helps! James

Thanks for the information James. May have to check into it!

Thanks James! Now if they would only release Gatch II and Gatch F on DVD with English subtitles.....

Hello all! Well, Be! Smile has just posted a track list for their Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter soundtrack CDs. As expected, the discs are fairly thorough, with 60 tracks on the Gatchaman II disc and 66 on the Gatchaman Fighter disc. Fortunately, Be! Smile has enough respect for their audience to know that we'd prefer to have the music as separate tracks instead of those darn "suites" that companies like Silva Screen seem to think is the only way anyone will accept things. Of course, while the individual pieces are separate tracks, they have been grouped so similar types of music are together. Here's the way things break down: Gatchaman II Original Soundtrack Gatchaman II 01.Theme Governor X, Once Again 02.BM-3 T2 Gallactor Attack 03.Cord J, Quick T2 04.BM-5 05.BM-6' 06.AM-19B 07.Bridge A Science Ninja Team Take Off 08.AM-5 09.AM-1 10.CM-11 Inference 11.DM-24 T2 12.CM-6 T2 13.Cord G Sneaking 14.Cord J 15.Extra T1 Decisive 4 Person Tornado Fighter 16.Cord A 17.AM-13 18.DM-12 T3 19.DM-30 T3 Joe is Alive 20.AM-23B T2 21.AM-24 T2 Enjoyable Time 22.DM-6 T3 23.Pan F 24.DM-15 25.AM-34B Suspicious Joe 26.CM-10 27.DM-11 The Love of Only Half-a-Day 28.CM-1 29.DM-19 30.Joe The Shadow of Red Impulse 31.DM-18B T2 32.Cord F 33.DM-20 T2 34.Ken Ryu, For Love 35.DM-5 36.DM-21 T2 37.DM-29 38.CM-14* Ken, Burning With Anger 39.Extra T2 40.DM-23 Eagle Sharp, Toward Space 41.AM-6 42.DM-14 T2 Orbiter G, Toward Mars 43.BM-9 44.CM-4 Ken & Joe, the Victory of Friendship 45.DM-22 46.DM-25 47.DM-2 T2 The White Shadow That Slips In Unseen 48.Touch A 49.AM-19 T2 Tampering With Mother and Child 50.BM-2 51.DM-4 52.DM-17 53.Cord I T2 The Death of Pandora 54.CM-15 55.AM-17 Gel Sadra's Tragedy 56.Cord E T2 57.DM-16 Peace Returns 58.DM-26 59.CM-14 Tomorrow 60.Theme Ending Gatchaman Fighter Original Soundtrack Gatchaman Fighter 01.Theme Subtitle 02.A-23A A Moment of Peace 03.C-27 T2 04.C-50 05.C-5 T2 The Rebirth of Evil, Governor Z 06.C-1 T2 07.B-8A 08.B-10 Count Egobossler's Theme 09.B-6 10.B-2 The Successor to the Gallactor Name 11.B-7 12.B-5 The Iron Beast Appears 13.C-8 14.C-43 15.B-4 The New Companion ~ Science Ninja Team Take Off 16.C-49 17.A-5 T2 18.A-4 19.A-7 Science Ninja Team Action 20.C-30 21.C-17 Fighter Gatchaman 22.A-6 23.A-3 Risking Their Lives ~ Joe & Ken 24.C-10 25.C-14 T3 Unite Gatcha Spartan 26.A-2 T2 27.B-8B T2 28.A-8 Delta Power Up 29.A-8' 30.A-1' Ending ~ Previews 31.C-38 32.A-22 The Shadow of Death Approached G-1 33.C-51 34.A-24' 35.A-17 Collapse! Gatchaman Base 36.B-16 37.C-24 38.C-22 39.C-47 The Final Moments of Director Nambu 40.C-19 41.C-13' 42.C-13 The Destruction of Gallatown 43.C-11 T2 44.C-18 45.B-1 46.A-11 47.A-15 Science Ninpo Hypershoot 48.C-42 49.A-1 Underground Missile Revenge 50.C-23 51.C-4 52.B-3 Crush the Anti-Matter Planet 53.A-18 54.C-41 The Poison Apple and the Seven Dwarves ~ The Catastrophe of Earth's Extinction 55.C-6 56.C-35 57.C-20 Z's Stratagem, Egobossler's Rebellion 58.C-11' T2 59.C-16 Decisive Battle! Z Vs the Science Ninja Team 60.C-23' 61.C-33 62.C-39' 63.C-9 64.C-2 T3 Eternal Gatchaman 65.A-20 T2 66.A-24 As I said when the CDs were initially announced, this is the first time the music from these two series is being released, which makes this fairly exciting. The two discs are being released on April 4th, and cost 2,800 yen apiece. The stock number for the Gatchaman II CD is BSCH-30055, and the Gatchaman Fighter CD is BSCH-30056. Both discs come with a 24-page booklet that has information on the music, the recording sessions, the series itself, a 2-part interview with Katsuji Mori (Half of it in each of the booklets for the two series, so you need to get both for the full interview), and more. The Be! Smile website has pictures of the disc covers, and can be found at: http://www.besmile.co.jp/index.html The discs can be ordered through places like Amazon Japan http://www.amazon.co.jp or CD Japan http://www.cdjapan.co.jp and other places, I'm sure. I hope this helps! James

Hello all! Just a small update on these CDs, Be! Smile has announced the total running time for the Gatchaman Fighter disc. It will run a whopping 78 minutes, 48 seconds! They haven't announced the time for the Gatchaman II disc yet, but I'm sure that will follow shortly! James

Hello all! Just a day after the announcement of the total running time for the Gatchaman Fighter CD, Be! Smile has announced the total time for the Gatchaman II disc. Not surprisingly, this disc is also crammed full, running 78 minutes, 5 seconds! Now that's the way to fill a disc! I think it's safe to say that anyone buying these discs won't feel like they're being shortchanged! James

good to know...thanks for all the great info. James!

Hello all! Well, the long-awaited Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter Original Soundtrack CDs were released today, and listening to mine, the first thing that comes to mind is, "Wow!" I'd have to say that these two discs are a must for any Gatchaman fan! As expected, the discs are indeed a very thorough selection of the music used in these two series. They are not 100% complete, but they come fairly close. Thanks to the liner notes, we know that the Gatchaman II disc is missing 9 pieces of music for a total of 4 minute, 22 seconds, and the Gatchaman Fighter disc lacks 5 pieces, for 1 minute, 20 seconds worth of music. But, since both discs were pushing the limits of the 80-minute CD length ceiling, I can see why this had to happen. For those who care, I'll list the information regarding the missing music at the end of this message. A lot of you who haven't seen the second and third series are probably wondering if the music is worth your effort to get. The music is different than what was used in the original series, and doesn't really carry any direct ties to it thematically. Also, of the three series, the first series far and away had the best music (And if I'm going to rank things, I'd probably have to sneak Hoyt Curtin's Battle of the Planets music in above the music for Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter). The latter two series do have good music, just not as good as the music used in the first series. Between the two, musically, I'd have to say that Gatchaman Fighter had the superior compositions, so if you were only going to get one, that would be the one I'd pick. These two excellent discs are the first releases in Be! Smile's new Tatsunoko Music Museum series, with additional releases planned for at least June, August, October, and December. The next one will be for Gowapper 5 Godam, another Tatsunoko series that has never had a soundtrack release before. I'm sure most of you are unfamiliar with the series, but you might be interested to know that the music for it was composed by Bob Sakuma, the man who composed the music for the original Gatchaman TV series, so you know it's good. Of course, I'd love to see Be! Smile release a Gatchaman soundtrack that was as complete as the Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter releases are. Maybe someday...! I hope this helps! James P.S. For those who care about such things, here are the pieces of music that were not included on these discs, with information thankfully provided from the liner notes included with the discs. There were other pieces of music recorded for the series, but were never used, and they don't appear on the discs either. These missing tracks were used in the shows, if only once, and the episodes in which they appeared are included. The "titles" are the log numbers for the pieces, followed by their length (In minutes and seconds), and the episodes in which they appeared. Beneath them is the description of the piece as taken from the log notes. Gatchaman II DM-10 - 1:19 - #fs 24, 42, 44 A delightful Brass melody DM-13 - 1:38 - #13 A Brass melody for a pinch, postlude pomp DM-18C T2 - 0:46 - #14 Brass + Flute, with wonderful synthesizer, slow DM-24B - 0:13 - #3 Electric guitar + vibraphone + synthesizer tension, opening segment bridge Touch B - 0:06 - #2 Vibraphone + synthesizer distrust #2 Touch E - 0:04 - #42 Particularly shocking Brass Touch G - 0:06 - #3 Sorrow Brass #3 Cord B - 0:06 - #42 Discordant Pf, high key Cord C - 0:04 - #42 Shock Brass Gatchaman Fighter C-7 - 0:07 - #fs 5, 16, 19, 21, 25, 28, 38 A touch of something C-31 T2 - 0:25 - #4 and up Baroque wind C-39 - 0:19 - #fs 35, 46 Crisis-type ending C44 T2 - 0:08 - #fs 14, 16, 17, 19, 29 Pizzicato, xylophone, anxiety bridge C-45 - 0:11 - #fs 4, 6, 10, 12, 25 Anxiety, bass bridge

Thank you for the update along with your thoughts on the difference to Gatch 1. I have never scene the other two series , except in the remake "types" that were released in America aka ER and G-Force. I may end up getting them in the future but at this moment I should be watching my pennies a little better.

Don't forget that the music in Eagle Riders is not the music used in Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter. Unlike BotP, which kept the original Bob Sakuma music and supplimented it with Hoyt Curtin's scores, Eagle Riders replaced the entire audio tracks for Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter with their own music and sound effects. The music used in the original versions was vastly superior to the music created by Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi. Heck, I could strap a Kazoo to my dog's mouth and get better music than some of the stuff they used in Eagle Riders. Regardless, if you want to wait on buying the Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter CDs, just be aware that Be! Smile will only be manufacturing them through October 3, 2007. After that, they'll start to become harder and harder to obtain. James

Hello all! Just a quick note to let people know that, if you haven't already ordered them from a Japanese shop, the Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter soundtrack CDs are now listed on Amazon.com. You have the choice of buying them through Amazon itself or for a price that's closer to Japanese retail cost via some of their associated dealers. Just go to the Amazon website, search under "Gatchaman," and select the "Music" listing, and there they'll be. I highly recommend both discs! James