is a Japanese television program produced by

Tsuburaya Productions is a Japanese special effects studio founded in 1963 by special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya and was run by his family, until October 2007, when the family sold the company to advertising agency TYO Inc. The studio is best known for producin ...

that aired from 1977 to 1978 on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...

. It combined Tsuburaya's trademark suitmation

tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live action film or television drama that makes heavy use of practical special effects. ''Tokusatsu'' entertainment mainly refers to science fiction, War film, war, fantasy, or Horror film, horror media featuring such te ...

techniques with

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

. The show ran for 39 episodes.

Plot

Dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

reappear on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

, stronger and more intelligent than before, led by Dinosaur Satan Gottes (renamed Emporer Tyrannos in the English dub), and this time they are trying to rule Earth once more and wipe out humankind. They are alive and even thriving in an underground empire that they have built. In 1986, Satan Gottes, the leader of the dinosaurs, declares war against humanity. In an attempt to reclaim Earth's surface, some of the dinosaurs evolve into deadly monsters and start wreaking havoc on human population centers around the globe. The story revolves around the D-Force (D戦隊 ''D Sentai''), and its two members, a brother and sister team of Tachibana Ai (立花愛) and Tachibana Zen (立花善), the Special OPs force, whose mission is to combat monsterized dinosaurs and protect humanity. But early in the series, the siblings suffer a near-fatal injury from the massive explosion during the test of a prototype super-tank, "predecessor to Izenborg". In order to keep them alive, they receive cybernetic body parts and other implants, which synchronize with their combat vehicle and form ''Aizenborg'' (Ai + Zen + Cy"borg"; called ''Gemini'' in the US version) to fight the dino-army. Halfway through the show their bodies are altered again, and the two are able to combine into a robotic giant that can fight the dinosaurs in close combat.

Compilation film

On 25 August 1982, the first four episodes were released to VHS in the United States in the form of a

compilation film A compilation film, or compilation movie is a film composed of scenes and shots taken from two or more prior films and edited together so as to make a new film, whether on the same or a different subject. The most common example would be a docum ...

titled ''Attack of the Super Monsters''. Comedy podcast

RiffTrax RiffTrax is an American company that produces scripted humorous commentary tracks which are synced to mostly public domain feature films, education shorts, and television episodes. With the talents of former ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (''M ...

(

Michael J. Nelson Michael John Nelson (born October 11, 1964) is an American comedian and writer, most known for his work on the television series '' Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (''MST3K''). Nelson was the head writer of the series for most of the show's origi ...

, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy) recorded and released a riff in 2019. The original, unriffed version is available on

IMDb TV Amazon Freevee is an American ad-supported video-on-demand (VOD) streaming service owned by Amazon, with original and licensed programming. History Amazon Freevee launched as a free, ad-supported video channel by the Amazon-owned online data ...

and

Tubi Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...

The Return of Izenborg

is a Japanese-Arabic documentary produced as a collaboration between the Japanese company Tsuburaya Productions, Mr. Jarrah Alfurih from Saudi Arabia and Cultures Factory (an NLC company). It is the first Arabic-Japanese production in the art of Japanese tokusatsu, which is a special live action effects category. This documentary was filmed in 2016 and aired on Friday December 15, 2017 on the Arabic channel Spacetoon at 8:30pm local Saudi time. The documentary was translated back to Japanese by Tsubaraya and officially streamed on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

on December 29, 2017.

References

External links

* * * 1977 anime television series debuts 1977 Japanese television series debuts 1978 Japanese television series endings Dinosaurs in anime and manga Mecha anime and manga Animated television series about dinosaurs Tokusatsu television series Tsuburaya Productions Studio Deen TV Tokyo original programming Ultra television series Television series set in 1986 Japanese television series with live action and animation {{Anime-television-series-stub