Special Armored Battalion Dorvack

Special Armored Battalion Dorvack
Promotional artwork for Special Armored Battalion Dorvack
特装機兵ドルバック (Tokusō Kihei Dorvack)
Genre	Action, Adventure, Mecha anime, Real Robot, Military science fiction
Anime television series
Directed by	Hisatarou Ooba
Written by	Kazumi Koide Keiji Kubota Kenji Terada Narimitsu Taguchi Satoshi Namiki Yoshihisa Araki
Studio	Ashi Productions
Original network	Fuji TV
Original run	October 7, 1983 – July 6, 1984
Episodes	36

Special Armored Battalion Dorvack (特装機兵ドルバック, Tokusō Kihei Dorubākku^?, Cantonese: 特装機兵) is an anime series aired from 1983 to 1984 in Japan and also aired in Hong Kong roughly at the same time. There were 36 episodes. Other loosely translated names are "Dorvack", "Dolbuk", "Special Powered Armor Troop Dorvack", "Special Machine Army Dorvack", "Machine Corps Dorvack", "Armored Trooper Dorvack", "Tokusou Kihei Dorvack", "Comando Dolbuck" (Brazil), "Dolbuk, Defensores de la Tierra" (Latin America).

The year is 1999. The Idelians, whose colony-ship has been wandering space for tens of thousands of years, are nearing exhaustion. Their sole hope is to settle on the nearest habitable planet, Earth. Soon after their arrival in orbit, they launch an invasion, landing a large attack force in the Alps.

The Earth Defense Forces valiantly fight in their powered armor against the enemy, but with little success. Only one unit is able to inflict significant damage, the Special Armored Battalion Dorvack. Under the command of Colonel Takagi, Masato Mugen, Pierre Bonaparte and Louise Oberon fight to defeat the invaders. They are equipped with special variable mecha that are able to convert from rugged all-terrain vehicles to humanoid forms.

The show was essentially a showcase for the toyline released by Takatoku. The mecha designs were created by Katsumi Itabashi and Nobuyoshi Habara, while the models were made by the model company Gunze Sangyo. The plot was kept simple, but filled with high levels of animation and action.

The series featured some solid mechanical designs, but the slow-moving storyline failed to move fans. The line of 1/24, 1/72 and 1/100 scale toys and models sat on Japanese toy store shelves. Toymaker Takatoku Toys, already suffering from the poor performances of the merchandise lines from the previous Super Dimension Century Orguss and Galactic Whirlwind Sasuraiger series, went under as a result.