X-Bomber
| X Bomber | |
|---|---|
Cover for the Remastered DVD-Box set.
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| Also known as | Star Fleet Bomber X Bombardero X Vegskip X Sternenflotte Zero Zero One |
| Genre | Tokusatsu, Science fiction, Fantasy |
| Created by | Go Nagai |
| Voices of |
Toshio Furukawa as Shiro Ginga Shigeru Chiba as Bongo Heracles Mami Koyama as Lamia Banjo Ginga as Emperor Gelma Hidekatsu Shibata as Gen. Kuroda Mikio Terashima as Dr. Benn Naoki Tatsuta as Bigman Lee Norio Wakamoto as Capt. Custer Reizo Nomoto as Kozlo Rihoko Yoshida as Bloody Mary Katsuji Mori as Capt. Halley Yūji Mitsuya as PP Adamsky |
| Narrated by | Yuzuru Fujimoto |
| Theme music composer | Kyoji Yamamoto |
| Opening theme | Soldier in the Space |
| Ending theme | The Drifting Galaxy |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| Original language(s) | Japanese |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 25 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Kimio Ikeda Keisuke Fujikawa |
| Producer(s) | Kimio Ikeda |
| Camera setup | Ryuji Kawasaki |
| Running time | 22-26 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
Fuji TV ITV |
| Picture format |
NTSC 4:3 PAL 4:3 |
| Audio format | Mono |
| Original release | October 4, 1980 – March 28, 1981 |
X Bomber (Ｘボンバー Ekkusu Bonbā?) is a marionette tokusatsu TV series. It was created by manga master Go Nagai, and produced by Cosmo Productions and Jin Productions. The show aired on Fuji TV from October 4, 1980 to March 28, 1981, with a total of 26 episodes (including the pre-series pilot episode), and was billed in Japan as being filmed in "Sūpāmariorama" (スーパーマリオラマ), a puppeteering process similar to Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation works.
This show can be considered somewhat of a cross between Ken Ishikawa's Getter Robo and Star Wars. As in Getter Robo, the show's protagonists ride three vehicles that combine into a giant robot. Big Dai X, the robot in X-Bomber, is more similar to the kind seen in the popular Super Sentai series than a regular Nagai robot.
The show's opening and ending theme songs ("Soldier in the Space" and "The Drifting Galaxy", respectively) were performed by the Japanese hard rock group Bow Wow, while Kazutaka Tazaki (of The Bach Revolution) and Nakayuki Sakuraba (of Adbaloon) provided additional music for the show.
The puppets of X-Bomber were controlled from below the set using rods, and as a consequence were generally seen only from the waist up. Whereas Gerry Anderson's series were episodic in nature, X-Bomber had an overall story arc, with sub-plots and new characters being introduced as the series progressed, leading to a definite end. Similarly, rod puppets were used in Gerry Anderson's 1967 series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons canned as "under-control" puppets due to their inability to walk-whereas everywhere else they were marionettes. Anderson would later use Rod puppets in Terrahawks.
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