Gowappā 5 Godam

Gowapper 5 Godam
Screenshot showing Go Tsunami in his vehicle Godaemon
ゴワッパー5ゴーダム (Gowappaa 5 Gōdamu)
Genre	Mecha
Anime television series
Directed by	Hisayuki Toriumi
Written by	Jinzo Toriumi
Studio	Tatsunoko Productions
Original network	NET
Original run	April 4, 1976 – December 29, 1976
Episodes	36

Go-wapper 5 Go-dam (ゴワッパー5ゴーダム^?, Gowappā Faibu Gōdamu), is an anime series aired in 1976. There were 36 episodes. It is also referred to as Godam and Gowapper 5 Gordam.

The series has also been aired on Italian television under the title Godam.

Gowappa was the first super robot anime to feature a female as the leader and main character. The concept of a group of young adults gathering to fight evil can be seen in other Tatsunoko works such as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and in manga written by Tatsuo Yoshida and Ippei Kuri, but as of 2008, the only other Tatsunoko production featuring a female lead is Time Bokan 2000: Kaitou Kiramekiman. Gowappa 5 Gordam has a bright theme song and light-hearted situations, but the story also includes more serious parts, and there are episodes that end on a rather bitter note.

Because Gowappa 5 Gordam was competing with another robot anime, UFO Robo Grendizer (on Fuji Television), as well as a popular television game show called Up Down Quiz (on Mainichi Broadcasting System), both in the same timeslot, it faced an extremely difficult ratings battle, and was later moved mid-broadcast from Sunday's "Golden Hour" to a weekday evening timeslot, where its ratings suffered. After moving, Tatsunoko attempted to broaden the scope of the series by making Gordam itself into a combining robot, but this did not bring viewers back, so it ended after three seasons (36 episodes). Before and since this series, there have been many Tatsunoko-made series broadcast on the same channels that had to fight for ratings in the same manner.

"Gowappa", the name of the group of five main characters, is an abbreviation created from two of the kanji in the phrase "five children" (五人の小童, gonin no kowappa) to create 五童 (gowappa). However, one of the candidates for the series' name was "Abaranger", and many media outlets actually used this name before the series aired. The Abaranger name would go on to be a candidate name for the later series Golden Warrior Gold Lightan, and would finally be used for the 2003 Super Sentai series Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger.