My Life In Fandom: Mercury Falcon on the History of Tatsunoko

Mercury Falcon is back with another episode, this one about the studio Tatsunoko, back in the news due to being part of the Macross/Robotech deal clearing the former to finally flood into the West and openly sell to anime fans. It's less than 30 minutes long, but still worth your time.

This one is a wild ride through post-WW2 history, starting before color television, and man was it a good time. However, it has some commonalities with other stories of these figures in that they were struggling until they hit on their first big hit- either at home or in international markets. For Tatsunoko that was Speed Racer. They were also the studio that created Science Ninja Team Gatchman, cementing their place in pop culture history and proving they were more than a flash in the pan.

While it doesn't go all the way to the present, it ends well enough with Yoshitaka Amano's departure from Tatsunoko and his taking up with Square to be the man defining the Final Fantasy franchise as well as Vampire Hunter D and Demon City Shinjuku. (The man has his own site.)

The rest of Tatsunoko's history can be split into its later high-profile successes' individual stories--I mentioned Macross above--so I don't fault Falcon for cutting it off where he did, and it really is the early years that were in need of documenting like this. Sure, I wanted more, but what I got is sufficient; I can find the 1980-Present stuff elsewhere.

Yes, I do think this man is worth throwing a few sheckels to as he's putting out good work, so here is his Patreon link.