Maybe the first anime I ever watched as a child on American TV. Close race between this and Kimba. I've only seen the American releases, and it was pretty common as afternoon time slot filler in the 60s and 70s, between the time kids got home from school and when the evening news started. Even as an elementary school kid I knew this was some cheap stuff. The artwork was cheesy. The animation was poor compared to other kid shows at the time. The characters and the stories were pretty corny as well, but they got better as the series moved along. You could understandthe characters, and sympathize wth them, and root them on. Probably the most problematic of the US release, though, was the voice acting for the English dub. Oh god it was brutal. Even as a little kid I would laugh at how bad it was. Sometimes I watched just to hear what dumb shit some character was going to spew this episode.

Although I view this title with some heartfelt nostalgia, I could not recommend it for a modern audience. It's just too primitive. If I was grading this, I'd give it 65/100, a D-. Not a total failiure, but it's still really bad by today's standards; therefore the 4 rating.

If you are a student of anime as an artform, or interested in the history and evolution of anime, this might be worth at least checking out a few eps. This is the progenitor of so many tropes that got hammered into the ground, by series like Gundam, Macross, Robotech, etc. it may be interesting to see where they originally came from.