Akiyoshi Sakai (酒井あきよし, born October 23, 1942) is a screenwriter for various anime. He would be first be known for his work on Magical Witch Girl Sally, as well as writing for the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman anime and various other Tatsunoko Productions series.
Bio[]
Writing Credits[]
Contributions to "Cyborg 009"[]
Sakai would wind up involved with the franchise on three separate occasions, to different extents. The first and third times were via light novel adaptations, while his most prolific contribution were his scripts for the 1979-1980 anime adaptation.
SF Roman (1978)[]
Sakai would pen the Cyborg 009: SF Roman light novel in 1978, with Shotaro Ishinomori only providing the illustrations for the story.
He would take cues from "The Underground Empire of Yomi", but also use the Cyborg 009 Monster Wars film as the basis.
The novel remains obscure today, aside from a reprint in the Deluxe Akita Shoten manga volumes, and some criticism among fans for Sakai's characterizations of 009 and 003. However, some of its illustrations can be seen in artbooks and were also reprinted as extras in the Shotaro World edition of the manga.
Episodes written for the 1979-1980 anime[]
Throughout its run, Sakai was responsible for these 18 stories:
- The Giant that Sleeps in Ice
- I Desire Not the Tears of a Goddess
- Trap of the Gods
- The Violin that Cries Out for Love
- The Village of the Cosmic Tree
- Friendship in the West
- The Duel at West Side
- The Vampire Within Us
- The Desert of Deception
- Gilmore, Our Benign Father
- Joe! Pursue the Father!
- Escape from the Jungle
- Ivan, Search for Your Father
- Seize the Neo Black Ghost!
- The Secret of the Four Part 1
- The Secret of the Four Part 2
- Defeat! The Shangri-La Project of Fear
- The Fall of Neo Black Ghost
According to an interview with Masato Hayase in 2012, Sakai was the head writer meant to be in charge for the 1980 adaptation of "The Mythos Cyborgs", set to follow the wrap-up of the Neo Black Ghost arc. 3 out of the 13 planned episodes were drafted, presumably by Sakai.
Unfortunately, Sunrise bowed out of the anime adaptation, leaving it to be prematurely ended and the "Mythos" stories to be ultimately unproduced.
Legend of the Super Galaxy novel[]
In 1981, Sakai would revisit the 00 cyborgs when he wrote a 2-book light novel adaptation of Cyborg 009 The Movie: Legend of the Super Galaxy for the publisher Asahi Sonorama, which had previously published his SF Roman novel.
The novel would follow the film, but also contained liberties based off of Sakai's own characterizations, and contained callbacks to the SF Roman novel, including the depiction of Gilmore's research center as "The Green Coral Reef" (as opposed to the base in the film) and 003 having a ballet teacher named Aznavour who held interest in her.