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Jetter Mars

2/3/1977 - 9/15/1977, Thursdays 7:00 - 7:30 PM TV series 27 episodes Tôei Dôga/Fuji TV
HATA'S ROLE
Episode Director:
#4: Goodbye, little brother!
STAFF
Original Idea/Layout: Tezuka Osamu
Series Organizer: Maruyama Masao
Screenplay: Tsuji Masaki, Yukimuro Shun'ichi, Suzuki Yoshitake, Yamamoto Yû
Series Director: Rin Tarô
Episode Directors: Hata Masami, Chiba Sumiko (Hirata Toshio), Kurokawa Susumu, Mizusawa Wataru, Sasaki Masato, Serikawa Yûgo
Character Design Supervisor: Sugino Akio
Animation Directors: Sugino Akio, Mori Toshio, Shingû Akira, Daikuhara Akira Shikajima Tsuneyasu, Mibu Wataru, Ashida Toyoo
Artistic Director: Mukuo Takamura
Art: Kawamoto Shôhei, Mukuo Takashi, Kubota Norio
Music: Koshibe Nobuyoshi
Theme songs sung by Ôsugi Kumiko
Jetter Mars has suffered an unfortunate fate, now completely forgotten, and never before released on video. However, its luck is now turning. The series has been aired on satellite channels in Japan devoted to anime along with other obscure and hitherto unreleased Hata titles like Animal 1 and Andersen Stories. There is yet no word of a DVD release.

As the legend goes, the reason for this series looking like a knock-off of Atom Boy has to do with the fact that it was originally supposed to be Atom Boy. The series was planned as a continuation of the famous first TV anime, but the producers found out at the last minute that they did not have the rights to it, and were forced to do a different project. With no time to prepare a different project, and barely any time before the deadline, they instead modified the Atom Boy character designs and story just enough to turn them into what would pass for a different story. Hence we have a cast of characters, situation and design of the main characters which seems straight out of Atom Boy, just with minor differences. (The preceding is nothing more than hearsay AFAIK, but there is no manga version of Jetter Mars, which at least lends some credence to this explanation.)

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