Marine Boy

Marine Boy was something of an obsession for my school friends and I in the early seventies.  It was one of the first Japanese cartoons to make its way to the west.  (Indeed, the English language version debuted on US TV before the original version was screened in Japan).  In common with most Japanese cartoons of the time, the episodes weren't just redubbed, but also re0edited in order to make them more acceptable to western audiences.  More often than not, this was to remove what would be seen in the west as excessive violence in the context of a show aimed primarily at children.  (This was certainly the case in the animated series known as Battle of the Planets in the west).  But none of that bothered me and my friends when we watched it week in, week out.  In fact, despite the fact that the titles clearly announced Marine Boy as being a 'Japan Tele-Cartoons' co-production, I don't think that it ever occurred to any of us that it was of Japanese origin.  To us, it was just an exciting futuristic adventure series with an unusual setting. 

The premise of Marine Boy was quite straightforward: at some unspecified point in the near future, humanity has colonised the oceans and a global body, the Ocean Patrol, guards them against threats from numerous quarters, (criminals, mad scientists, that sort of thing).  The Ocean Patrol has a fleet of ships and patrol submarines (which can also fly) at their disposal, as well as their top operative: Marine Boy.  He is a teenage boy who, thanks to his father, Professor Mariner, has, as the theme song tells us, his bullet proof red suit, propeller boots and a sort of underwater boomerang, to help him in his fight against submarine crime.  He doesn't need an aqualung or other breathing apparartus thanks to his 'oxy-gum', which, when he chewed it, allowed Marine Boy to breath underwater.  (Although, strangely, nobody else in Ocean Patrol seems to use it, having to wear conventional aqualungs instead.  Not that such inconsistencies bothered us as seven year olds).  He was aided by his dolphin friend Splasher, a mermaid girl called Neptina, whose long hair always protects her modesty and a the crew of one of the patrol subs, Bolton and Piper.   

But what was it about Marine Boy that fascinated my seven year old self so much?  At this distance in time it is hard to be sure, but I think that it had something to do with the fact that it presented its own self contained world you could escape into.  In that respect, its appeal was similar to that of the Gerry Anderson 'Super Marionation' series like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.  These, too, presented the viewer with plausible seeming future worlds, with their own histories, technology and organisations.  The latter was an important component of these series' attraction for kids like me.  Both the Gerry Anderson series' and Marine Boy featured international organisations working for the good of mankind, sometimes implying the existence of a world government behind them (Spectrum and, presumably, the Ocean Patrol), sometimes acting independently of official authority, (International Rescue).  If anything, Ocean Patrol, with its fleet of subs and not-quite military uniforms, is most reminiscent of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP) in Anderson's Stingray.  All of these organisations conjured up a vision of a peaceful world, where the majority of people happily co-existed.  Something that, for children in the seventies, seemed to be a reassuring prediction for the future.  Not to mention entirely in line with  what seemed to be the aim of most adults so it seemed to us kids) in the wake of World War Two.  Believe me, the war still humg heavily over the seventies: both our parents and people in government had experienced the war and had no wish to see a repetition of its horrors. 

If only the Cold War could be ended by bringing East and West together, we thought, then a peaceful golden age of science, progress and exploration would be in sight. As it turned out, we were being very naive.  But children's TV shows like Marine Boy played into these hopes: science born from international co-operation opening a whole new frontier under the oceans.  Which is possibly why Marine Boy doesn't seem to be that well remembered these days, despite having been one of the first examples of Japanese anime to gain widespread distribution in the west.  Still, I remember it fondly - I never missed an episode as a child, when it showed regularly on the BBC.  Happy days.