Who designed the characters in Gatchaman?

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman ran from 1972 to 1974: five young heroes in bird-themed capes and helmets fighting the organisation Galactor. The West met them re-edited as Battle of the Planets and later as G-Force. The designs were a Tatsunoko Production team product, led by studio founder Tatsuo Yoshida, with Yoshitaka Amano working in the character department he had joined as a teenager.

Amano himself was modest about it. In a 2018 interview he corrected the premise of the question: he did not make Gatchaman, Yoshida and the senior staff made it together, and he participated. The participation still matters. The sleek, comic-book line of the team, drawn from the American comics Amano devoured as a boy, is where his style first reached millions of children.

He was not finished with Tatsunoko heroes. His character design credits of the era include Neo-Human Casshan, which ran from 1973 to 1974, Tekkaman: The Space Knight, Time Bokan and Hutch the Honeybee. Decades later the American painter Alex Ross, a Gatchaman fan, said of the team that they belong among the pantheon of great characters.