Trivia / Time Bokan

• Channel Hop: The franchise began on Fuji TV in 1975 and the franchise stayed there until 1983. When the franchise came back in 2000, Kiramekiman was broadcast on TV Tokyo, and then when the 2008 Yatterman remake came around the franchise hopped over to NTV, where the Time Bokan series (and most of Tatsunoko's recent output) has remained since then.
• Market-Based Title:
  • Almost with Time Bokan. The series would have been called Time Fighters in the U.S. had Tatsunoko gone through with the localization^note Although two Compilation Movies did get released in the U.S. with this title.
  • After the Time Fighters compilation movies were released, another compilation movie of Time Bokan was going to be aired, called Time Patrol. Unlike the Time Fighters compilation movies, Time Patrol was made by Harmony Gold. However, Time Patrol was never aired, at least not in English^note it did get aired in Russian and Greek, with the former version being a Voiceover Translation.
  • According to Tatsunoko's website, Yattodetaman would've been called Firebird had it been released in western countries.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Ippatsuman's appearance in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom might be the first time people in the west have seen him. In fact, it might be the first time a non-Yatterman character from the franchise has been seen outside of their series at all.
  • This effect might have occurred with the villains of Time Bokan, as the Royal Revival OVAs focuses primarily on them. Since a great deal of their series were never released overseas, most of the villain teams would be unfamiliar to a western audience.
    • Kinda lampshaded in the Italian dub, where the villains from Itadakiman are announced as "the newest, the latest, appearing in Italy here for the first time!"
• No Export for You: Most of the Time Bokan series never made it completely overseas. Latin America managed to subvert it with the original Time Bokan, Yatterman and Yattodetaman, while Italy managed to air Time Bokan, Yatterman (to the point where it's one of the country's most liked anime), Otasukeman and Yattodetaman. Streaming company Anime Sols tried to subvert this for Time Bokan by putting it on the internet, but only subtitled 3 episodes until enough funding could be provided for 14 more, and managed to sub 17 episodes of the 1977 and 2008 series of Yatterman before funding was cut from the project and Anime Sols shut down. The rest of the franchise hasn't had a chance yet.
  • Sentai Filmworks managed to subvert the trope for the Royal Revival OVAs by distributing them on DVD and on Hulu subbed.
  • Any of the various Time Bokan games created were also never released overseas^note Except for the PlayStation 1 Yatterman game that got an Italian release, and it's likely they never will.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: One of the franchise's main staples is how fans could actually contribute to the series. Not only multiple series had a Fourth-Wall Mail Slot, but often the villain mechas were based on suggestions sent by fans.
• Trope Codifier: In Japanese television, you owe the Terrible Trio trope and its many followers to this series. The mold began with the Time Skeletons in Time Bokan, but very quickly created a Fountain of Expies thanks to Yatterman's Doronbo Gang.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Kiramekiman was a Japan/Italy coproduction between Tatsunoko and Mondo TV, but the collaboration was interrupted so not only the series lasted only 26 episodes rather than 52, but the Italian dub was never produced. The dub was going to be supervised by the founder of the Italian Time Bokan fan club, aiming for the same kind of Woolseyism the Italian dubs of Yatterman and Yattodetaman had (read: replacing every joke that would make no sense outside of Japan with more Italian-oriented ones, and renaming many characters with punny names based on Italian celebrities)
  • The official Tatsunoko website features a recap of Yattodetaman that uses English dub names for the characters that were ultimately unused as no dub was made: Wataru becomes "Paul Tuck", Koyomi becomes "Tracy Headly", the two princesses Karen and Mirenjo become respectively "Sara" and "Miranda", the Kingdom of Nandara is the "Kingdom of Firantic" and the Jujaku bird is referred to as just "the Firebird" (this last one is actually used in the western edition of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, during Yatterman-2's ending).
  • Kazuyuki Sogabe was originally going to voice Tetsu in Zenderman, but had to drop out due to health reasons, he was later cast as Wataru in Yattodetaman.

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