Robotech | |
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Title screen from the 1985 broadcast
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Genre | Epic, Mecha, Space opera |
Created by | Carl Macek |
Based on |
Season 1: Super Dimension Fortress Macross Season 2: Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross Season 3: Genesis Climber Mospeada |
Written by |
Story: Carl Macek Dialogue: Gregory Snegoff Greg Finley Steve Kramer Mike Reynolds Tao Will Ardwight Chamberlain Jason Klassi Jim Wager Steve Flood Uncredited: Winston Richard Tom Wyner |
Directed by | Robert Barron |
Starring | (see below) |
Narrated by | J. Jay Smith |
Theme music composer | Ulpio Minucci |
Composer(s) | Ulpio Minucci |
Country of origin |
United States Japan |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 85 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Producer(s) |
Carl Macek Ahmed Agrama |
Running time | 25 minutes |
Production company(s) |
Harmony Gold USA Tatsunoko Production Uncredited: Studio Nue Artland Artmic |
Release | |
Original network |
First-run syndication Sci-Fi Channel Cartoon Network, KTEH |
Picture format | NTSC |
Audio format | 1.0 monaural (1985) 5.1 Dolby surround sound (2004) |
Original release | March 4 – June 28, 1985 |
Chronology | |
Preceded by | Codename: Robotech |
Followed by |
Robotech: The Movie Robotech II: The Sentinels Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Robotech: Love Live Alive |
External links | |
Website | www |
Robotech is an American 85-episode adaptation of three unrelated anime television series (from three different fictional universes) made between 1982-1984 in Japan; the adaptation was aired in 1985. Within the combined and edited story, Robotechnology refers to the scientific advances discovered in an alien starship that crashed on a South Pacific island. With this technology, Earth developed giant robotic machines or mecha (many of which were capable of transforming into vehicles) to fight three successive invasions.
Robotech was one of the first anime televised in the United States that attempted to include most of the complexity and drama of its original Japanese source material. Produced by Harmony Gold USA, Inc. in association with Tatsunoko Productions Co. Ltd., Robotech is a story adapted with edited content and revised dialogue from the animation of three different mecha anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross from 1982, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross from 1984, and Genesis Climber Mospeada from 1983. Harmony Gold's cited reasoning for combining these unrelated series was its decision to market Macross for US-American weekday syndication television, which required a minimum of 65 episodes at the time (thirteen weeks at five episodes per week). Macross and the two other series each had fewer episodes than required since they originally aired in Japan as a weekly series.
Harmony Gold hired American writers to adapt the scripts of the three Japanese series. This complicated process was supervised by producer Carl Macek, a pioneer of the anime industry in United States.
This combination resulted in a storyline that spans three generations as mankind must fight three destructive Robotech Wars in succession over a powerful energy source called "":