Thunderbirds 2086

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This Japanese animated series was produced in 1982, and was an updated version of Gerry Anderson's original Supermarionation marionette show Thunderbirds concept of an International Rescue organization dedicated to dealing with disasters at any time or place.

The show was originally... more »

This Japanese animated series was produced in 1982, and was an updated version of Gerry Anderson's original Supermarionation marionette show Thunderbirds concept of an International Rescue organization dedicated to dealing with disasters at any time or place.

The show was originally known in Japan as Scientific Rescue Team TechnoBoyger, and was a deliberate homage to the original Thunderbirds series. Since the show's producer, Banjiro Uemura was also the head of ITC Japan (ITC being the company that owned the original Thunderbirds series), the show was sold to ITC in the US, and with the help of experienced voice director Peter Fernandez (Speed Racer, Marine Boy, Star Blazers season 3), was dubbed into English and retitled Thunderbirds 2086, with some of the original music removed and replaced with music from Barry Gray, who compsed the music for the original Thunderbirds series. The series also boasted Noboru Ishiguro as one of the directors, and Kentaro Haneda as the series' composer, both of whom also played these roles in the contemporary and far more successful sci-fi anime Macross. It should also be noted that, apart from the show's title and general set-up, there were no direct references to the original Thunderbirds series.

The show's backstory was that in 2066, the World Federation was formed, and now twenty years later, a new rescue team known as the Thunderbirds would be used to combat disasters on or off the Earth. The Thunderbirds operated under the authority of the International Rescue Organization, run by Dr. Gerald Simpson, and consisted of five pilots; Dylan Beyda (Raiji Hidaka, from Japan in the original Japanese version), Jessie Rigel (Eric Jones, from Britian), Jonathon Jordan Jr. (Sammy Edkins Jr.), Gran Hanson and Kallan James (Catherine Heywood, from the U.S.). In the dubbed version however, all of the pilots' nationalities were American. Unlike Gerry Anderson's original Thunderbirds team that only used 5 primary rescue vehicles, the Thunderbirds 2086 team had 17 separate vehicles capable of adapting to every environment.

The series was first shown in English on the US Prism cable network in 1983, and finally made it to the shores of its spiritual ancestor in the UK in 1986. Although 24 episodes were produced, the show did not perform well in Japan and only 18 episodes were shown there, although 3 of the remaining 6 episodes were exported back to Japan and released on video in the Thunderbirds 2086 format, with English dialogue complete with Japanese subtitles.

It should be noted that in some promotional episode guides for the English-language version of the show, several episodes had different (working) titles. These alternate titles have subsequently been used in some reference books and other sources. This episode guide will use the final titles as seen on-screen, with a note indicating the alternate title (if applicable).

Additionally, since no exact airdates are known for the U.S. transmission of the series, the airdates of the original Japanese counterpart episodes are listed where relevant.less «

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