Ninja Senshi Tobikage

Television anime

Ninja Senshi Tobikage (忍者戦士飛影), known as Ninja Robots outside Japan and as Ninja Robot Tobikage by Pierrot, is a Japanese anime television series, produced by Pierrot, which aired from 6 October 1985 to 13 July 1986 on the Nippon Television network. It was also broadcast to parts of Asia and Australia on Cartoon Network, but never aired in the United States.

It is the 23rd century and Earth have colonized Mars and the Moon. Much like the legendary convicts in Australia during the 18th and 19th century, the settlers of Mars consist mostly of convicts from Earth. The Martian colony is run by a dictatorial Commander Hazzard Pascha, who tests every settler on whether they should serve in the military or become a laborer. Joe Maya is a 16 year old who lives on Mars and dreams of returning to Earth. He has two friends: Mike Coil and Jenny Ai. When escaping from the Martian military police, Joe and Mike stumble upon a crashed spaceship, the Xenos 5, being attacked by huge robots. In his attempt to escape chasing robots, Joe gets into the spaceship where he encounters three human looking aliens: the beautiful Princess Romina, her willowy attendant Jade, and a young General Icelander. A robot locates them and the three aliens hide, leaving Joe to fend for himself. Joe tries hiding in a pile of glowing metal, which turns out to be a ninja robot named Black Lion. The battle leads outside the ship where a mysterious ninja robot Cybertron suddenly appears when the Black Lion struggles. It wipes out several enemy robots before merging with Joe's robot, transforming into a mechanical lion that destroys the remaining attackers. After the attack, Joe, Mike, and Jenny are forcibly taken to the alien spaceship. It transpires that the aliens are from the planet Ladorio (also romanized as "Radorio") in a distant galaxy (Andromeda, also "Black Star Galaxy" in the English version), and are at war with the Zaboom army who captured their planet. They came to the Milky Way seeking ninjas who could operate their three ninja robots. Joe, Mike, and Jenny agree to help them for a variety of reasons. Along the way, as they fend off the constant attacks by the Zaboom army and their allies, they make new friends and enemies, while Cybertron looms mysteriously in the background.

No. Episode Title Written by Original Japanese airdate

Aspects of Ninja Senshi Tobikage appeared in Super Robot Wars Compact 2, Super Robot Wars Impact, Super Robot Wars UX and Super Robot Wars X Ω.

The anime has been released in two DVD boxsets on March 22, 2002 and June 25, 2002 by PioneerLDC. The Blu Ray box was sold on December 26, 2014.

The series used to be streamed in North America via Yomiura Group's now defunct Anime Sols video service in spring 2013. In December 2021, the series became available for streaming on RetroCrush. Discotek has licensed the anime for a release in North America. On June 7, 2021, the company issued calls for assistance in locating the English dub tracks for episodes 34, 37, 42 and 43. The series was released with an English dub on Blu ray on January 25, 2022. Animenewsnetwork user ratings gave the show an average score of 6.34 out of 10, ranking it #5788 of the 9076 shows on the website. Neil Lumbard of Blu Ray. com gave the North American Blu ray release a positive review, noting the hand drawn artwork as "a fascinating example of how excellent traditional art looks with anime series," and calling the show overall "an exciting action series with a lot to offer fans of classic (vintage) anime."