Battle of the Planets Question
Vincent Cirillo
a daily basis on television. A certain scene that has been imprinted
in my head all these years was when Vultan's mask was pulled off on
the last episode to reveal his true identity as a woman.
Unfortunatley they gave no explanation for this.
Recently I attended an anime convention and was told the Japanesse
version of Battle of the Planets told of Vultan's background.
I would REALLY appreciate if anyone with any knowledge on this
subject to e-mail me an explanation of Vultan's crossdressing habits
so I can sleep soundly again.
Thank you
jo...@ix.netcom.com
Joe Cirillo
Katharine.Foust
: It has been many years since Ive seen the Battle of the Planets on
The Japanese series is named Gatchaman, and it's cheif antagonist was Berg
Katse, the same charecter as BotP's "Vultan". The reason that he appeared as
a woman in that episode was because Katse was in truth a hermaphrodite. This
little fact was never revealed in BotP because of the heavy editing the series
endured to make it "suitable" for American and European audiences. To get the
original in it's entirety, (and that episode you mentioned is *not* the last!)
ftp Ne...@venice.mps.ohio-state.edu or email ne...@venice.mps.ohio-state.edu,
and enjoy!
Katharine Foust
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Katharine Foust || "I wonder why man was put on earth. What's |
| fo...@ucssun1.sdsu.edu || our purpose? Why are we here?" |
| San Diego State University || "Tiger food." *grin* |
| My opinions are MINE! || -Calvin and Hobbes |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ivy Reisner
is a Bronx pronunciation of Spock's homeworld. :)
In BOTP they never really explained it. The team kind of looked at
each other with lines like "did you see what I think I say" and
"could the ruler of spectra really be ... a woman?' (No, a woman
would have gotten it right by now). In Gatchaman, from which comes
BOTP, Berge Katse (Zoltar) is a hermaphrodite. It switches between a
male and a female. If you recall Mala, Zoltar's sister, that was Katse
in her female form. What I'd like to know is why the team never noticed
Zoltar wore lipstick and why they did not realize that when they saw him
unmasked he did not have frontal protrusions so indicative of a female.
Long hair does not a woman make.
This does offer the role of Frank 'N Furter to Zoltar if we do BOTP does
Rocky Horror. He has practive with the make-up (oh, Mark, you strong
man you, oh my).
How about Tiny as Rocky just to see Zoltar try to catch him?
: It has been
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Ivy Reisner | Reality is a Crutch for those People |
|rei...@panix.com| Who can't handle Science Fiction. |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alara Rogers
>in her female form. What I'd like to know is why the team never noticed
>Zoltar wore lipstick and why they did not realize that when they saw him
>unmasked he did not have frontal protrusions so indicative of a female.
>Long hair does not a woman make.
likes it like that. He also wears purple. (Admittedly this does not explain
why they thought he was a woman just from the hair... but perhaps in the time
period of BOTP hair *that* long is considered very much a woman thing, less
so than lipstick.)
The amusing thing is that in Gatchaman, in a scene reflecting on that very
incident, Ken muses that he doesn't think Katse could possibly be a woman,
becaus the body under the cape is hard and muscled like a man's...
Robin and Ennien Ashbrook
> Ivy Reisner <rei...@panix.com> writes:
>
> >in her female form. What I'd like to know is why the team never noticed
> >Zoltar wore lipstick and why they did not realize that when they saw him
> >unmasked he did not have frontal protrusions so indicative of a female.
> >Long hair does not a woman make.
>
> I'm sure the team did notice Zoltar wore lipstick... so what? Guess he just
> likes it like that. He also wears purple. (Admittedly this does not explain
> why they thought he was a woman just from the hair... but perhaps in the time
> period of BOTP hair *that* long is considered very much a woman thing, less
> so than lipstick.)
When I watched the scene, I disagreed with my age-mates' assumption that
Zoltar was a woman based on his hair and lips. I had seen men with full,
coloured lips (married one, in fact), and certainly I had seen men with
long hair (see above, though admittedly not THAT long). Zoltar quite
clearly lacked something that Mala, his sister, did not - breasts! Also,
every now and again, ever so briefly, some considerate animator had
decided that men had bulges in the anatomically appropriate areas, and I
remember seeing Zoltar with such a shading in one or two scenes in other
episodes. Ergo, no woman.
So what was he? Easy! -- Mala's identical twin brother! His face was
masked because, well, obviously the Luminous One was sexist (I mean, the
most I remember him saying about Mala was that she was beautiful, adding
that she had a brain almost as an afterthought). A Leader who looked
like a woman?? Outrageous! Cover him up!
Long hair? Simple -- Spectran custom. After all, are not military
hairstyles the shortest to be found on our own planet? Assuming such
holds true for Spectra (and we rarely got to see any Spectran civilians),
then the shoulder-length style of the Spectran soldiers should indicate a
preference for longer hair in general among the masses.
Voila, the logic of the 9 year old mind <grin> (Gimme a break, I haven't
seen the show in 15 years :) )
Cheers,
-==- Ennien
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Ennein & Robin Ashbrook | |
| Internet: Gala...@Debug.cuc.ab.ca | " To each, their own. " |
| UUCP: calgary!debug!galatia.9 | |
Douglas Orlowski
perfectly) and are available from me, as are the episodes dealing with
Ken/Jason's father. Those were not shown as part of the BOTP series
either. I have still to hear from ANYONE regarding interest in doing the
20 episodes of Gatchaman in English subtitles. For all the talk on the
net about Nexus, no one from them has communicated with me about doing
it!