Dinosaur War Aizenborg a.k.a. The Attack of the Super Monste

[DerGolem]

So I've been a member for awhile, just didn't really have anything to post. I mostly just use FB to talk to people about Kaiju/tokusatsu stuff and when I do use forums its usually the Classic Horror Film Boards. Anyway now I do have something I want to talk about and its this crazy show: Dinosaur War Aizenborg (Jap. Kyōryū Daisensō Aizenbōgu).

Like a lot of kaiju/tokusatus fans I've become morbidly interested in this very strange late 70s show from Tsuburaya Productions that was latter re-edited into a straight-to-VHS "movie" by Associates Entertainment International in 1982 retitled "The Attack of The Super Monsters."

However despite my interest I haven't been able to find much information on it other then a few online reviews (one text, one video and one podcast oddly enough) that basically just highlight the general WTF nature of the American re-edit. So I've decided to compile what I do know here, along with questions that hopefully some members can answer in addition to contributing any additional info.

Dinosaur War Aizenborg was produced by Akira Tsuburaya as joint venture between Tsuburaya Productions and Studio Deen. Tsuburaya Pro. handled the live-action tokusatsu parts of each episode and Deen handled the animation.... Oh right, for those who don't know this show was a tokusatsu/anime hybrid. There are literally no live human actors in this entire thing. Well at least not outside the dinosaur suits.

The show ran from Oct. 17, 1977 to June 30, 1978 on Tokyo 12 Channel for 39 half-hour episodes. The head writer for the show was Hiroyasu Yamaura. He appears to have a lot of anime credits but I've also seen someone with that name credited as one of story developers on Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla. Same guy?

The director of SFX, and possibly head director period, appears to have been Shohei Tojo. He also served as a director on The Return of Ultraman, Ultraman Leo and the wacky Thailand Ultraman movie The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army (74) in which the Ultra Bros team up with the white monkey god Hanuman. Later he apparently went to Toei where he worked on a number of their Super Sentai series including Kagaku Sentai Dynaman (83), Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (92), Gosei Sentai Dairanger (93), Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (94) and Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (95). As a bit of an aside it is interesting to note that Dynaman was the first Sentai to be shown in the U.S. when it was dubbed over and appeared as part of the USA Network's Night Flight segment under the title "Dynaman." Later Zyuranger through Kakuranger would be used as source material for the first three seasons of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" while Ohranger would become "Power Rangers Zeo." Zyuranger through Ohranger were all also written by Noboru Sugimura, so perhaps Sugimura and Tojo had a good working relationship.

The director of animation was Hiroshi Jinzenji. I'm not sure what he's done but found some references that would seem to indicate that he worked on the animated Ultraman TV series from 1979.

The music was by Toshiaki Tsushima who, if what I'm seeing on IMDb is true, has an impressive lists of credits including such classic samurai films as Three Outlaw Samurai (64) and Sword of the Beast (65) as well as the first three films in Kinji Fukasaku's iconic yakuza series Battles Without Honor or Humanity (74-76). He's also got some genre credits to including working on Toei's The Magic Serpent (66) and The Green Slime (68), Sonny Chiba's The Street Fighter (74) and for Tsuburaya Pro. the POTA TV knock-off Time of the Apes (74).

Before getting into the plot of the show it is also worth noting that perhaps the most recognizable aspect of Dinosaur War Aizenborg for most Kaiju fans is that it features the tyrannosaurs rex suit used in 1977's The Last Dinosaur, co-produced by Tsuburaya Pro. and Rankin/Bass Pro. In Aizenborg the t-rex from The Last Dinosaur returns as the villainous Ururu (Emperor Tyrannus in the AEI re-edit/dub). Apparently after wrapping The Last Dinosaur, Tsuburaya Pro. decided to get more use out of the suit they made. It's also worth noting that director Shohei Tojo served as second-unit director on The Last Dinosaur, so maybe it was his idea to reuse the suit?

Now for the plot....

If you've only seen "The Attack of the Super Monsters" I'm afraid you only know half of the wackiness that is Dinosaur War Aizenborg. Since Super Monsters only reused footage from the first 10 episodes or so of Aizenborg it is easy for one to get the impression that Aizenborg followed a formula similar to what one would see in a Gerry Anderson show. Giant suitimation dinosaurs attack mankind, our animated heroes respond and using various tricked out sci-fi vehicles and weapons ultimately defeat the dinosaurs. If only it was that simple....

Our heroes, BTW, are composed of a sister and brother team named Ai and Zen Tachibana (names Jim and Gem Starbuck in Super Monsters) who make up D Sentai (called Gemini Force in Super Monsters). They also have several other members on their team but I don't know their Japanese names! In Super Monsters they were Jerry and Wally, who served as comic relief, and Dr. Kharmady who filled the role of generic scientist.

Early on in the series Ai and Zen are injured in a fight and, like Steve Austin, must undergo radical surgery and be turned into cyborgs to stay alive. This process also gives the duo the unique ability to combine with one another and create a never ending stream of incest jokes.... and a super-powerful androgynous cyborg called Aizenborg hence the name of the show!

All of this makes it into Super Monsters, however what comes after is even stranger. Starting with episode 19 a new villain named Dinosaur Satan Gottes appears. Dinosaur Satan Gottes doesn't look like a dinosaur but rather like a member of Daft Punk. He berates Ururu (a.k.a Emperor Tyrannus) for failing to defeat D Sentai and orders him to go fight them himself. Ururu does and is killed. Dinosaur Satan Gottes then takes over as the main villain and starts creating new more powerful mutant dinosaurs, and also the occasional robot, to attack earth. Fortunately Ai and Zen discover that they have another power at their disposal, for you see this is a Tsuburaya Pro. show and it just wouldn't be if the heroes could not grow into a giant warrior and wrestle the mutant dinosaurs into submission! So starting from episode 20 onward the androgynous Aizenborg goes from animated to tokusatsu Ultraman-like man-in-suit for the climax of every episode.

Then just before the end of the series (remember its only 39 episodes) we are introduced to Dinosaur Satan Gottes' wife Demon Woman Zobina (first appearance ep. 26, and then 30-38) who helps her husband in his plans to conquer earth. In the end however both are defeated, Zobina falling in ep. 38 and then Gottes in ep. 39; the finale.

So there you go. That's everything I've been able to find out about Dinosaur War Aizenborg. I guess my biggest question might be the most obvious; namely why is this show an anime/tokusatsu hybrid? As either a straight forward tokusatsu or anime this show would have worked, but put together it comes off as really really odd. Was this kind of thing common in Japan at the time? I can't think of another show like this. The closes I can come is to Toei's Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion (1985, 46 eps) which was ostensibly a Metal Hero show with Kaiju vs. Mecha elements thrown in. Though live-action the show did also feature some animated parts. For example, in the first episode of Juspion the hero startles a bunch of cartoon bats in a cave. The bats look about on par with the cartoon people and animals in Aizenborg. In Juspion however I can understand why this was done; to save money. But was that the reason for Aizenborg? Admittedly Aizenborg does in many ways come off looking like one of Tsuburaya Pro.'s cheaper productions, but I don't know that it actually was.

Well if anyone has any corrections, comments or additional info please feel free to contribute. That's what this is here for.[/i]

[narius]

I saw the dubbed (into cantonese) Aisenborg series when i was a kid.

I believe the same team has done multiple toku series in the same style, with a mix of anime/toku. The first one (Aisenborg is the second) is also dinosaur themed.

The first one is called "Born Free". It is about dinosaurs becoming alive again (because of a comet) and a team is trying to save them. There is no giant super hero.

Here is the 1st episode (Taiwan dubbed version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjlRWA_ ... e=youtu.be

The last one is tansor 5. OP here:

http://www.oldcake.net/viewthread.php?t ... a=page%3D1

[INVINCIBLE HASTUR]

[Silver Kamen]

I have the R2 DVDs. To be honest though, I don't like how the show blends animation and live-action. It would have been better if they would have just simply scrapped the animation, and filmed it all in Live-Action.