Science Ninja Team Character Chart

A character chart for Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was first reprinted in Rendezvous as well as the 2nd Tatsunoko Fes pamphlet, and later in vol. 5 of Columbia's Gatchaman DVD releases.

This chart was written by Satoshi Suyama and produced through Tatsunoko's Literary Department during the planning for the show. As it was still an early draft, many points changed over production and when the show was actually greenlit and progressed through airing. Its exact date of creation is unknown, along with what stage of the project it was from, although it is projected to have likely been in the Science Ninja Team Birdman period, before some characters were renamed and other details worked out. The pre-production stages of Production No.21 had spanned from 1969 to 1972, making it likely there were various different drafts of material like this one (though Suyama's involvement would have only begun in late 1970, at earliest).

One notable difference is the setting of Kanagawa Prefecture, instead of the stateless city Utoland that Tatsunoko writers would establish the team as living and working out of. Berg Katse is also identified as a woman here long before the mutant setting.

A document from an earlier iteration of the series simply labeled Science Ninja Team was briefly summarized within Makoto Hoshi's "I Want to Learn More About Manga!" article #57 in Mandarake ZENBU, but it remains unknown if there was a character chart produced for it as well. It is unknown in general what iterations of production materials survived within Tatsunoko, or what former employees may have personally kept and not thrown out over the ensuing decades.

Leader X is a notable omission from the chart, but at this time and through the production of the series up until very late in the final period, he was not counted as a legitimate character as he was meant to be an AI created by Berg Katse instead of an actual alien overlord from outer space.

The Character Chart most commonly seen (circa possibly Birdman)

(As recreating the table seems to break the wiki, a different format shall be tried)

The team are listed in their original intended order, with Jun notably intended to be second-in-command and Jinpei being the last member to serve as the youngest "mascot" type. All five have bird-themed surnames to indicate what their Bird Styles were meant to be at the time as well.

Going by some unaltered remnants in some scenario scripts that carried over from the Birdman period, their mothership would have been named the God Bird at this time rather than the God Phoenix.

At one point after Tatsunoko's studio closure and purging of their assets, it was said that settei of the mechas from the Birdman period floated around in auctions but were seemingly never sold and wound up vanishing; the mechas in this iteration would have been named "M-1", "M-2", etc. but it is unknown if that extended to the team codenames as well or was something specific to their machines. A preliminary "Science Ninja Team Birdman" logo was also showcased on those sheets.

Ken Hayabusa

(隼健)

• Nationality: Japanese (Presumed)
• Current Address: Southern Kanagawa Research Institute
• Age: 18 year old boy
• Family: A father (missing for several years)
• Educational Background: High school graduate (Part-time)
• Occupation: Test Pilot, educated by Nambu from an early age
• Awards: Air Race Formula Class Champion
• Licenses: Air License, Car Racing Class A License
• Special Skills: Hissatsu Hayabusa Arashi, 3rd place in Karate, 2nd place in Judo
• Hobbies: Rifle Shooting
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: (No Data)
• Aspiration: Space Pilot
• Personality: Bad at expressing himself to women, Shinichi Chiba (Model)
• Other: (No Data)

The "presumed" note about Ken's nationality is a point of interest, indicating there was the possibility of him being mixed like Jun. He was still a Falcon at this point, before becoming a Big Hawk sometime in the Shadow stage and then the Steller's Sea Eagle (but more commonly listed as just "The Eagle" in international contexts).

Jun Shiratori

(白鳥ジュン)

• Nationality: Japanese-American
• Current Address: Marine Club "Shell" in Kanagawa Prefecture
• Age: 16 year old girl
• Family: An orphan, living with Jinpei Tsubakurou
• Educational Background: High school dropout
• Occupation: Pharmaceutical Engineering Assistant, Go-Go Girl
• Awards: International Fencing Competition Champion
• Licenses: Auto Racing Class A License
• Special Skills: 3rd place in Karate and Aikido
• Hobbies: Cake Baking
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: (No Data)
• Aspiration: Running a modern cake shop
• Personality: Tomboyish, Yuko Enatsu (Model)
• Other: Her father was an engineer at an explosives laboratory (and died in an explosion)

The fencing part of this bio indicates the illustration of Jun with short hair and a sword may very well have been produced by this time, before Tatsuo Yoshida opted to give her long hair and her weapon was switched out with the yo-yo. Her family history has at least a little more elaboration than the finalized show (outside of later materials like the Fantastic TV Collection and the '89 remake proposal), with that detail about her father. There is no "Snack J" yet in these settings.

Joe Takano

(鷹野ジョー)

• Nationality: An Italian born in Sicily
• Current Address: No fixed address, lives in a camper trailer
• Age: 18 year old boy
• Family: An orphan, parents were killed by gangsters
• Educational Background: Illiterate
• Occupation: Private Racer
• Awards: Indirect Murder
• Licenses: Car Racing Class A License
• Special Skills: Feather Shuriken
• Hobbies: He likes gambling, working with flowers, and would like to own a gun
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: (No Data)
• Aspiration: Landscape Management and Floral Arranging
• Personality: Doesn't show emotion in public, Steve McQueen (Model)
• Other: Doesn't trust strangers

While this Joe appears to be fully Italian, his name is still listed in Eastern order and he has a Japanese surname; at some point after the "Asakura" alteration and in ensuing years since the broadcasts of the franchise, someone at Tatsunoko would decide that Joe would be a Japanese-Italian mixed race young man and this could be seen in notes for the aborted '89 remake project. His surname refers to a Hawk as well as the art of falconry involving them (Takano Jo also having the potential to be read as Taka no Jo).

Of course, far prior to Hisayuki Toriumi's influence on fleshing out his past in-series, this Joe's parents weren't killed by Galactor. A gardening career for the finalized Joe would also seem quite random, or dark when considering that rose bomb that could have killed him.

Ryu Washio

(鷲尾竜)

• Nationality: Japanese, from a Tohoku fishing village
• Current Address: Kanagawa Yacht Harbor Management Office
• Age: 16 year old boy
• Family: Both parents are fishermen and still alive
• Educational Background: Marine High School graduate, experienced ocean voyage
• Occupation: Fishing, Scuba Diving, Yacht/Motorboat Coaching
• Awards: Winner of a long-distance swimming competition
• Licenses: Voyage Permit
• Special Skills: Diving, long-distance swimming
• Hobbies: (No Data)
• Preferences: Big Eater
• Physical Characteristics: Obese
• Aspiration: Deep Sea Explorer, constructing an underwater city
• Personality: Osami Nabe (Model)
• Other: Emotionally weak

Ryu is a year younger than his finalized age, as well as bearing Ken's eventual surname, indicating he was to be the Steller's Sea Eagle at this point (with Washio having the kanji for "eagle" and being a phonetic re-arrangement of Oowashi) instead of the Horned Owl. No younger brother seems to have been devised yet, but there is a lot of emphasis on his ocean-related activities.

Jinpei Tsubakurou

(燕甚平)

• Nationality: Japanese
• Current Address: Lives with Jun in Marine Club "Shell" in Kanagawa Prefecture
• Age: 9 year old boy
• Family: Orphan
• Educational Background: Elementary School Student
• Occupation: (No Data)
• Awards: (No Data)
• Licenses: (No Data)
• Special Skills: Clacker-throwing ninja with fast legs
• Hobbies: (No Data)
• Preferences: A big eater that loves sweets
• Physical Characteristics: The Idea Man
• Aspiration: Employee of a Candy Company
• Personality: The precociousness of Ishimatsu (of the Forest)
• Other: (No Data)

Jinpei is not yet a cook at any Snack J, but an ordinary school boy who loves candy.

Senzaburou Nambu (Doctor of Engineering)

(（工学博士）南部仙三郎)

• Nationality: Japanese
• Current Address: A villa in Kanagawa
• Age: 48 year old man
• Family: Single
• Educational Background: Oxford, Cambridge (Engineering, Medical, and Mechanical Engineering)
• Occupation: Professor of the University of Tokyo and Advisor to the ISO Mantle Project
• Awards: Winner of the Mami Science Award
• Licenses: Car License, Air License
• Special Skills: 1st place in Judo
• Hobbies: (No Data)
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: (No Data)
• Aspiration: Complete the Mantle Project
• Personality: Shinsuke Ashida (Model)
• Other: (No Data)

Dr. Nambu would seem pretty much the same but with some details into his past here, and of course a different given name.

Red Impulse Captain (Actually Ken's father)

(レッド・イン・パルズの隊長 実は健の父)

• Nationality: Japanese
• Current Address: An island in the Ogawasara Islands
• Age: (No Data)
• Family: His wife died of illness, his son is Ken Hayabusa
• Educational Background: (No Data)
• Occupation: Former Zero Fighter Pilot and Test Pilot
• Awards: Ace of Aces: 12,000 flight hours
• Licenses: Air License
• Special Skills: 3rd place in Judo, Acrobatic Flight
• Hobbies: (No Data)
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: (No Data)
• Aspiration: To defeat Galactor and live peacefully with his son
• Personality: Tetsuro Tamba (Model)
• Other: Collaborator (and close friend) of Dr. Nambu

Red Impulse already has a few mysteries about him, but his connection to Ken was blatant from the start; "The Big Tori" and Suyama seemed to like that masked family member trope, much to the chagrin of "The Little Tori".

Berg Katse

(ベルク・カッツェ)

• Nationality: Unknown
• Current Address: Uncertain Location
• Age: 28 year old woman
• Family: Orphan
• Educational Background: She has abundant knowledge in science and medicine
• Occupation: (No Data)
• Awards: (No Data)
• Licenses: Can operate anything without a license
• Special Skills: A master of disguise who can equally play both men and women
• Hobbies: Tames ferocious animals
• Preferences: (No Data)
• Physical Characteristics: A beautiful woman
• Aspiration: Achieving World Domination
• Personality: Cold expressions, Kim Novak (Model)
• Other: (No Data)

Columbia's reprint of the above data would misprint the kanji for "woman" (onna) as "man" (otoko) for Katse's age section, and interpret the grainy photocopied "28" as a "29" for her age as well, although fans note that the original age in the photocopy has a number that looks much closer to the "8" of the other character ages than the "9" of Jinpei's section.

There are still many mysteries about Katse this early on, but what is clear is that she was meant to be a lady but simply very excellent with disguises. She was evidently intended as a continuation of the Galactor boss of Space Ace, in being a powerful and pretty woman, although the known "lion's mane" design for her costumed look by Tatsuo Yoshida (which would up mistakenly used for the Turtle King Commander instead) does give a more traditionally masculine face to likely obscure that factor and keep it a secret for some time.