Ganbare Gonbe

がんばれごんべ

Aired: 1980

A television anime produced by Tsuchida Productions and broadcast on Tokyo 12 Channel (now TV Tokyo) as a children's slapstick comedy series. Based on Aoki Yamane's manga 'Ganbare Gonbe,' it centres on the cheerful and slightly clumsy boy Gonbe and a band of mischievous neighbourhood friends whose everyday antics balloon into small-scale chaos, leavened by warm depictions of family and friendship. Episodes are pitched as short-form vignettes of roughly five minutes, kept buoyant by Masayuki Yamamoto's title song 'Ganbare Gonbe,' the choral group Koorogi '73's performance and Masaaki Jimbo's arrangements. Tsuchida Productions' lineage in Tatsunoko and Time Bokan-style gag animation comes through in the spry visual comedy that helped the show find its niche in morning children's programming.