Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats)
Filed under mecha only because were talking about robotic pizza-making cats…
Nearly every anime fan knows this show’s dubbed name, and yet very few have had the privelege of seeing it in Japanese. No subtitled version was ever produced, and Saban never tried to hide that the show was never translated per se…they just made it up as they went along. As a result, it’s famed for being one of the best early-90s animes (and before we knew it was an anime, it was the best cartoon, to be sure) brought to North America.
The premise of the story is that Kon no Kami, a wily fox and member of the Royal Council, plots to overthrow the government of Edoropolis and take over the city. Without enough proof to have Kon no Kami removed from the Council, Wanko no Kami of the Royal Guard calls regularly upon the Nyankī, known in English as the Samurai Pizza Cats, to defend Edoropolis from takeover. These three aminaloid cats, Yattarou, Pururun and Sukashii, work in a pizza parlour in the city, and launch from a huge pistol on top of their store to fly into action.
54 episodes of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee ran in Japan, 48 of which were translated and dubbed for English audiences after 1991 in Canada. 40 of the 48 dubbed were aired in the U.S. due to censorship restrictions. It has also been dubbed into French, German, Hebrew, Italian and Dutch, but the show has not been seen in most countries since the late 1990s.
The word Kyatto (cat, obviously) is written with the kanji for surprising group. Ninden is short for Ninja Densetsu, meaning Ninja Legend, and Teyandee more or less translates into “What the &*^#@ are you talking about?!”, and is yelled at one’s opponent before battle. -Steve Waldon
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