is a Japanese

mecha anime Mecha anime and manga, known in Japan as and , are anime and manga that feature robots (mecha) in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; "super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where robots are ...

television series that was produced by Eiken. There were 47 episodes aired at 25 minutes each. It is also known as "''UFO Senshi Dai-Apolon''", "''UFO Soldier Dai-Apolon''", "''UFO Robo Dai-Apolon''", "''Daiapolon''", "''Shadow World''".

Synopsis

The series is about a 16-year-old boy Takeshi who recently formed an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team at the Blue Sky

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...

. One day the game is interrupted by a light in the sky. Takeshi discovers he is the son of the king of the planet Apolon, spirited away to Earth by his father's retainer Labi to avoid death at the hands of General Dazaan. He turns out to have special energy abilities which can control UFO saucers from a base under the ocean floor. His friends Miki, Matsuo and Goro also become pilots. They magically change into their uniforms every time they yell U! F! O!. There are three robots: Header (Head); Trangur (Trunk) and Legger (Leg). They combine into a larger and powerful robot called ''Daiapolon''. Through a solar-powered process known as "body fusion", activated by the "Key Energy" device placed inside the boy's chest, Takeshi can "grow" in mass and become a giant humanoid, thus "wearing" the Daiapolon as a kind of cybernetical armour.

Development

The anime was loosely based on the manga ''Galactic Warrior Apolon'' by creator Tetsu Kariya (which also created the manga ''

Oishinbo is a long-running Japanese cooking manga series written by and drawn by . The manga's title is a portmanteau of the Japanese word for delicious, ''oishii'', and the word for someone who loves to eat, ''kuishinbo''. The series depicts the ...

'') and illustrator Shigeru Tsuchiyama (serialized in ''Weekly Shonen King'', which also serialized the first run of the ''

Galaxy Express 999 is a Japanese manga series. It is written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, later adapted into a number of anime films and television series. It is set in a spacefaring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer ...

'' manga). That manga featured a 15-year-old orphan called Akira. Although there are UFO scenes in the manga, it did not have the American football or

super robot Mecha anime and manga, known in Japan as and , are anime and manga that feature robots (mecha) in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; "super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where robots are ...

elements, and the enemies were demons with the power of the

108 Stars of Destiny The 108 Heroes are the main characters of the Ming dynasty classic Chinese novel the ''Water Margin'', which was written in the 14th century and usually attributed to Shi Nai'an. The heroes are divided into the 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly ...

.Clements, Jonathan; McCarthy, Helen (2006). ''The Anime Encyclopedia: Revised & Expanded Edition''. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. It was unusual for the football element to be added, since the sport was barely even recognized as an amateur sport in Japan in the mid 1970s. It may just be a coincidental blend to add variety to the

genre. The original run ended at 26 episodes, followed by 21 episodes of UFO Warrior Dai Apolon II. Some episodes of this combined new footage and re-edited footage from the first series, and the rest were reruns.

English release

Five episodes were combined and dubbed in English to create a re-edited movie called ''Shadow World''. The setting was changed to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and the names of the protagonists were changed to American ones, although Dai Apolon and some of the villains kept their names. This movie was released on video in 1986.

Voice actors

Staff

* Screenwriter

Takao Koyama is a Japanese screenwriter and novelist focusing on anime productions. His name was written as until 1987. Career He graduated from Waseda University in 1972 and joined to Tatsunoko Production as a story creator and a screenwriter. He left from T ...

Okihara Matsumoto

Noboru Shiroyama Noboru (written: , , , , in hiragana or katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, official in the government of Japan's Okinawa Prefecture *, former professional sumo wrestler and current politician fr ...

Soji Yoshikawa
Seiji Matsuoka * Creator

Tetsu Kariya Tetsu (written: 哲, 徹, 鉄 or テツ in katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese photographer *, Japanese voice actor *, Japanese musician *, Japanese politician and Prime Minister of Japan ...

* Design

Toyoo Ashida was an anime character designer, animation director and director. He was most notable for directing the original ''Vampire Hunter D'' anime, as well as for providing character designs for '' Vifam'', ''Mashin Hero Wataru'', '' Minky Momo'' and '' ...

* Animation
Keijiro Kimura
Takashi Kakuta
Konio Okoto

* Music
Masahisa Takeichi

References

External links

Super Robot info

Detailed review of the English language release
* * {{Eiken 1976 anime television series debuts 1977 Japanese television series endings Eiken (studio) Super robot anime and manga TBS Television (Japan) original programming