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[AprilSeven]

The original tapes are gone, but the dvds DO exist - that's where Jeffbert got the images you see for every episode to above something like 105.

You'll see where Jeffbert is guessing about what is happening in the episode, because it's all in Japanese.

[Tetsuwan Penguin]

[QUOTE=AprilSeven;210749]

I asked for the 89 1960's episodes never translated out of Japanese

Remember that the sole reason those episodes weren't subbed in the regular 60's boxsets is because NBC literally destroyed them. They don't exist anymore. God bless America ;_;[/QUOTE]
I think that may have been in their contract with Mushi productions. In any case when the 104 episodes were syndicated lots of copies were made for that purpose and every now and then a reel long buried at some TV station in west armpit somewhere shows up (on ebay?).

[Little Brown Fox]

I don't neccesarily think that they were destroyed. Copies of the originals, as well as most of the cels, probably were, but a lot of it had to have survived, or else there would be no DVD boxsets of the entire series. I know of three that for the most part, did not make it: Find the Bacteria, Experimental Robot (these two are known as the "lost episodes", I think; no images of the latter can be found anywhere at all, and only a small part of the former had survived), and another episode, with a name I cannot recall. Tezuka was unhappy with the original version, so after it first aired, it was destroyed, and a new version was made to air in America (I believe the English name is The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms).

[Earthshine]

I thought that the English Masters were destroyed in a fire, not deliberately though. I'm pretty sure that RS had a nation-wide hunt for other copies of the episodes to create the boxsets. If I remember right, back in the broadcasting days of the 1960s they had to literally ship the rolls of film to studios to be played, like old films in movies. This is where the copies came from that RS used to make their DVDs.

As for the Japanese copies, I'm not sure if the undubbed episodes ever made it to America.

[Little Brown Fox]

Hm. Talk about devotion... well, I guess that we can all be glad for it!