It's Marine Boy, brave and free,
Fighting evil 'neath the sea!
Marine Boy (Japanese: Undersea Boy Marine) is a 1965 anime series starring Marine Boy, an agent for the Ocean Patrol. It's the job of the Ocean Patrol to, well, patrol the ocean.
When it was first run in the US in 1967, it was simply presented as a children's cartoon, not as a product from Japan, thus some people consider it a "stealth" anime series. In any case, this made it one of the first anime series seen by many people, even if they weren't familiar with the term "anime."
The worldwide rights to the English dub were originally acquired by Seven Arts Productions, thus today, Marine Boy is part of the modern Warner Bros. Animation library.
Not to be confused with a boy Marine.
This anime provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Ocean Patrol Submarines usually carry small torpedoes, but they can also fire boxing-glove torpedoes, nets, drills, and others.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Splasher has some dog-like qualities, most notably Marine Boy calls him with a dolphin whistle.
- Artificial Gill: Professor Fumble's inventions: "oxy-gum" which Marine Boy can chew and receive hours of oxygenation.
- Badass Adorable:
- Marine Boy is very young but very capable and athletic.
- Neptina is even younger and often winds up saving Marine Boy.
- Department of Redundancy Department: One episode is titled "The Power of Power".
- Godiva Hair: How Neptina usually stays decent (a technique also used in the Japanese animated version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid).
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: A false Marine Boy calls the real one's Dad by a variation of "father" the real Marine Boy doesn't use and this clues Marine Boy's Dad to the fact someone is impersonating him.
- Improbable Age: Marine Boy is essentially an underwater policeman and he's presumably somewhere around 13 years old.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Splasher, a white dolphin who accompanies Marine Boy.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: Marine Boy's weapon of choice. It folds up and can electrify targets to boot.
- Scenery Censor: Mermaid Neptina wears nothing; her breasts are concealed by her long hair or the scenery.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Neptina speaks with Splasher often.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Done through Professor Fumble's inventions and the fact Neptina is a mermaid.
- Unscaled Merfolk: Neptina is half-dolphin instead of half-fish.
