Saturday, October 12, 2013

excerpt from Marine Boy: Underwater Adventure

Here's a brief excerpt from part of the Marine boy book (I may have mentioned writing one recently).  Yeah, it's shameless self promotion but it's my blog, what else am I gonna do?  It's still available here and use the coupon MXARFHS5 for a 10%discount.  it's also available on Amazon, search by title.
The Ocean Patrol also patrolled the ocean in some of the greatest looking boats ever put on film. They came equipped with torpedoes and various other weapons as needed per episode, such as missiles that knock people out instead of explode, or lasers or sonic guns. Bulton is the skipper of the P-1. The members of the Patrol are also equipped with various personal weapons.

In nearly every episode Marine Boy always mentions taking his oxy-gum so he will have enough oxygen when he is in the water. Such are the conventions of episodic television. I am sure this was done in part to make sure kids knew why he could breath underwater and they could not. Piper will be scared, but do something brave in the end. These are the reasons that they are so memorable, though.
I am amazed at some of the names of his evil foes- Dr. Diablo, Scurgy, Thaddeus E. Brackish- didn’t their names give their intentions away to anyone?

The villains are almost always very evil, but some do reform or rebel against even worse masters. Several episodes deal with misguided people, or ecological threats to the ocean or even the world- the second to last episode (“The Gillmen”) effectively and accurately predicts the advent of global warming 30 or more years before anyone ever thought of it. The worst villains tend to come to ironic and sometimes gruesome ends, and our hero usually says “he got what he deserved”! No remorse for those characters! Not a one of the villains returned to menace our hero again though, even the few that got away apparently learned their lesson. Some of the villains did threaten Marine Boy “when we meet again”.


5 comments:

Unknown said...

David, great post and Blog, congratulations from:
http://terror-en-el-cine.blogspot.com/

X7 said...

thanks and gracias! great blog of your own!

wazh said...

Just picked up this book. Loved every minute of it. Certainly something I remember when I was a child. When it was repeated on Go! a couple of years ago I couldn't wait to record it again so I could show it to my kids. Noticed you didn't list "The Desert Destroyer" as well. I presume this in the episode you were waiting for. Great to see someone has finally put something together about this classic Anime.

wazh said...

Just picked up this book what a great idea. I loved every minute of it and nice to have down an episode guide as well. When it was recently repeated on Go! I couldn't wait to watch it again and show it to the kids. I presume "The Desert Destroyer" is the episode you are still waiting to see. Thanks for such a great effort

X7 said...

thank you! That would be the missing episode. I'm glad to have a name for it finally. I'll add it in once I see it.