Star #5: =Amazing Three=
Through the ages: Amazing three manga, Amazing three anime, Pre-transformation, Pukko 1980 cameo
See them in action: 1965 W3 ANIME EPISODE 1, 1980 EPISODE 27 PUKKO CAMEO.
(All credit for scanlated Wonder Three manga pages goes to Two Pioneers, check their stuff out HERE and read the chapters without having to download HERE.)
Tezuka character list bio: Number 05
[b]
- Team made of Bokko, Pukko, and Nokko. They are a part of the Galactic Patrol. Their orders are to research Earth, and destroy it with a proton bomb if necessary. They appeared in “Weekly Shonen Sunday” from May 1965 to May 1966. The human who befriends the Amazing Three, Shinichi Hoshi, is named after a sci-fiction writer. And Shinichi’s Teacher, Mr. Baba, is named after the comic artist Noboru Baba. During its run, this comic changed magazines as well as its contents. Yasuo Ohtsuka, of “Lupin the 3rd” fame, helped create the anime’s opening. The Amazing Three is known in the East as “W3(Wonder Three)”. “Lupin the 3rd” is a registered trademark of “TMS Entertainment.”[/b]
“The Amazing Three”, known in the east as Wonder Three and often abbreviated as W3, has an interesting history behind it. The bio alludes to this a bit, what with the different names and the line about changing magazines, but it’s a fairly cool story involving industrial espionage, reboots, Kodansha bans, and reconciliations. I’m not going to get super into it here in favor of focusing on the characters, but THIS PAGE has a good synopsis of the whole shebang, would recommend. It’s a pretty decent read!
Also pretty decent: the work itself. I’m not gonna lie, this one’s one of my personal favorites among the many works represented in this game. W3 is cool in that the namesake group isn’t the only trio involved – there’s actually two other main protagonists, a pair of brothers named Shinichi and Kouichi Hoshi, one of which is a hot-blooded, misguided but justice-seeking youth, and the other of which is a secret agent codenamed “F7”, who foils dastardly plots while living under the guise of a humble manga artist. The focus of the plot tends to switch between them, with the W3 watching from afar and assisting when need be, and it makes the story as a whole kind of feel like a bunch of separate-but-related arcs. Sometimes, it’s about Shinichi’s struggles in life as he gets into brawls with corrupt students and adults, while other times it’s about the exploits of his literally James Bond older brother, who’s working to destroy diabolical facilities alongside his fellow Phoenix agents. It’s an interesting story, and it’s all taking place while the W3 themselves look on…and decide whether or not humanity’s so disgusting they have to nuke the entire planet.
The W3 is composed of three members: Bokko, the captain of the crew who takes the form of a rabbit, Pukko, the Lieutenant who takes the form of a Duck, and Nokko, the Engineer of the crew who takes the form of a horse. The lot of them make up unit three of the galactic patrol, a veteran unit well-known for their previous successes, who get sent to Earth after a summit of planets tie a vote pertaining to whether or not the savages on Earth should be destroyed – their role is to observe the Earthlings for a year, determine their worth as a species, and, if they should be found wanting, to blow the entire place up with an anti-proton bomb.
From left to right, that’s Bokko, Pukko, and Nokko; thing is, in order to blend in with the inhabitants of earth, they need to disguise themselves as earth creatures. As such, they employ a device known as a trans-disguiser, sucking up various fauna from their surroundings after landing in rural Japan, splitting up their genes, and combining them with their own to achieve their current forms…which, incidentally, VAPORIZES the initial subjects, at least in the original manga. Yikes.
It’s here that we see them for the majority of the work. They’re supacute, but they’re also more than a little dangerous, packing alien weaponry and tech in their pursuit of justice, as well as their own human sidekick. They end up hooking up with Shinichi after he saves them from a fire, and as such he often tags along with them and gets exposed to various extraterrestrial toys himself.
As far as the individual members go, each of them has their own personality, powers, and role in the story, which I figure I’ll cover here even though they’re more of a single unit as far as the game goes.
Bokko, the rabbit leader, is the most compassionate and human-siding of the three, taking an instant liking to Shinichi upon landing and generally putting the nix on any premature Earth-destroying. Being a rabbit, most of her powers employ her large ears, ranging from the sensible (good hearing) to the less sensible (shooting laser beams with varying effects from them, speaking telepathicaly), but being a CAPTAIN she’s also usually the order-giver, and as such has the powers of the other two at her disposal as well.
Pukko, the duck lieutenant, is the most cynical, hot-headed and human-hating of the three, constantly complaining about their assignment and trying to prematurely detonate the Earth. He’s really stubborn, trying to avoid getting transformed into a duck and hiding things from his captain on multiple occasions, but he’ll grudgingly admit his wrongness when faced with the facts. His appearance is rather funny in that his hairstyle and penchant to show up with guitars is a pretty obvious homage to the Beatles (who were a pretty big thing in the 60s), though said hair is actually a wig that pops off whenever he’s surprised. For whatever reason, this guy’s the one you’ll usually see popping up as cameos in other works, like the linked 1980 Astro episode or this random appearance in the opening of 2004 black jack.
Power-wise, he’s usually packing heat, but being a duck he’s also capable of flight and can create powerful shockwaves by flapping his wings. He can play the guitar a bit too, though whether or not he’s good at it is up for debate. He’s probably my personal favorite, just because of how much of a jerkass he is.
Nokko, the horse engineer, is the most laid-back of the three, following orders but generally just keeping to the sidelines. He can be a bit goofy and comes off as thick at times, but that’s just the way he is. He often acts as the straight man to Pukko’s antics, keeping him in line despite his technically being a lower rank, and is usually the guy who steers the group back on-track and gets things done.
Despite the obvious setback of being hooved, his power is the ability to create basically anything extremely quickly from whatever’s lying around, ranging from an alien surgery table capable of completely reforming someone’s body to the Big Rollie, their iconic mode of transport.
I went a bit into this in the boss bio for the three, but it’s basically an advanced alien all-terrain vehicle capable of going at superfast speeds, all while looking like a grungy old tire. Glorious.
The three are super endearing, it’s a fun story with interesting plots involving poverty, ecology and other social justice topics, and it even has a definitive ending. The anime’s had some trouble over the years, with floods damaging the Japanese negatives and much of the original English dub having been lost to the MISTS OF TIME, but there’s still enough floating around youtube to get a good taste of it. The theme song of the show is especially catchy, I’ve been having trouble getting the voice actors belting out WANNNNNDAAAAA SURRIIIIII out of my head for the last few months, and it’s made even worse given that the battle theme for these guys is based off of it. It’s a fun show and I’d recommend.
And, for the sake of completion, here’s the dudes they reference in the bio: Shinichi Hoshi the sci-fi dude, Noboru Baba the comic artist, and Yasuo Ohtsuka, whose name only googleresults in a Toei/Gibli animator by the name of “Otsuka”. The pages reference his works on Lupin too, though, so I figure the game just misspells it.
