Gowappa 5 Gōdam
Japanese anime television series
Go-wapper 5 Go-dam (ゴワッパー5ゴーダム, Gowappā Faibu Gōdamu) is a Japanese mecha anime series produced by Tatsunoko Production and aired in 1976. There were 36 episodes. It is the second installment to Takara's Magne-Robo franchise.
Outline
Gowappa was the first super robot anime to feature a female as the leader and main character. The concept of a group of young adults gathering to fight evil can be seen in other Tatsunoko works such as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and in manga written by Tatsuo Yoshida and Ippei Kuri, but as of 2008, the only other Tatsunoko production featuring a female lead is Time Bokan 2000: Kaitou Kiramekiman. Gowappa 5 Gordam has a bright theme song and light-hearted situations, but the story also includes more serious parts, and there are episodes that end on a rather bitter note.
Because Gowappa 5 Gordam was competing with another robot anime, UFO Robo Grendizer (on Fuji Television), as well as a popular television game show called Up Down Quiz (on Mainichi Broadcasting System), both in the same timeslot, it faced an extremely difficult ratings battle, and was later moved mid-broadcast from Sunday's "Golden Hour" to a weekday evening timeslot, where its ratings suffered. After moving, Tatsunoko attempted to broaden the scope of the series by making Gordam itself into a combining robot, but this did not bring viewers back, so it ended after three seasons (36 episodes). Before and since this series, there have been many Tatsunoko-made series broadcast on the same channels that had to fight for ratings in the same manner.
"Gowappa", the name of the group of five main characters, is an abbreviation created from two of the kanji in the phrase "five children" (五人の小童, gonin no kowappa) to create 五童 (gowappa).
“Gowappa 5 Gōdam” enters the record as japanese anime television series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gowappa, Gōdam and Japanese can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1748134. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1976, 2008 and 2000.
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