The Drillimation Series (anime)

The Drillimation Anime (ドリメーションアニメ), or just simply The Drillimation Series, is an Emmy Award-winning Japanese anime television series created and written by Hiroshi Takajima and is simply the collective term for six major anime series, all of which focus on the adventures of Susumu Hori and his many friends he makes as the series progressed.

The anime began airing in Japan in 1969 starting with the Angry German Kid anime and in North America in 1975 with a Drillimation anime produced specifically in North America called GoGang. Specifically, Hanna-Barbera, Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Television obtained the license to dub the anime into English. Long before the term "anime" was coined in North America, fans of the series simply referred to the anime as The Drillimation Cartoon or The Drillimation Animated Series.

Characters

 * Main Article: List of Drillimation characters

Japan

 * Fuji TV
 * TV Asahi

United States

 * ABC
 * Cartoon Network
 * NBC

Development
Before the anime was brought to the United States, Drillimation approached Hanna-Barbera with an offer to dub the Angry German Kid anime into English. Hanna accepted Takajima's offer and Hanna-Barbara began looking for actors to voice the characters in the dub. Charles Martinet, who voiced Igor in the GoGang anime, chose to voice Leopold and Jake. Hanna-Barbera decided to broadcast the anime on Saturday mornings, presumably when children were home from school.