G-4: The Swallow - Tsubakuro no Jinpei
Jun and Jinpei act like real siblings, maybe because she was the one who found him at the base of Mount Jupiter. Though Jinpei's origins aren't known, there is speculation that he was a child of the Jupiter Ninjas.
Jun and Jinpei live together over Jun's restaurant, the Snack J. She takes care of him and chastises him for acting up, while he teases her and gets her into trouble she wouldn't have found without him. He helps her run the J ("helps" being a subjective term) by cooking, waiting tables, bartending, cleaning, and complaining.
A number of episodes feature the youngest member of the team; generally, in them he and a few other kids find themselves the unfortunate victims of some new Galactor scheme. For a ten-year-old, Jinpei is a quick thinker, clever, and brave. Perhaps because he is the youngest, Jinpei sometimes feels the need to prove himself (and being a woman, so does Jun from time to time—ah, the 1970s). He loves animals, and more than one of the team's adventures has to do with one of newfound "pets," which range from seals and whales to insects.
Relationships with the Rest of the Team
Jinpei calls Jun onechan (big sister), and Ken (and sometimes Joe) aniki (big brother). The ADV Gatchaman English dubs translated this literally, and it sounds a bit awkward, since most Westerners don't talk like this. ("Bro," "dude," "sis," or diminutives and sobriquets "Jin" or "Joey" are more common. And before you decide nobody would dare call Joe "Joey," remember how much siblings like to call each other by names the person in question hates. They just say it while running in the other direction. *grin*)
1970s BotP comics. The top image is from the Netherlands, the bottom from North America. You'll notice that Keyop beedle-boops in both languages, though more clearly in Dutch (which is pretty sad given that I can't read Dutch). As for the bottom panel, I have two remarks. First, if you were old enough to understand "infalliable," wouldn't you be old enough to realize how bad these were? Second, given Mark's glorification of Zark, I think I can translate what Keyop is saying in response: WTF?
Joe and Jinpei have their differences, just like Ryu and Joe have their differences. Joe likes to remind Jinpei that he's just a kid, and Jinpei takes exception.
Jinpei and Ryu are often comic relief, poking each other, cracking jokes, and teasing the more serious members of the group.
Battle of the Planets
In the BotP translation, Jinpei's character was radically altered. Manufactured "from a single embryonic cell" in a laboratory to be a part of G-Force, Keyop can't get out more than two or three words without long pauses and extremely intrusive burbling sounds.
(I guess his speech impediment is what you get when you start cloning kids. His specs specifically say he's "not an artificial being or a clone, but a normal human being."¹ Could someone please tell me how you get a normal zygote out of one cell? Look, something is different about him from the others, and nobody else got cloned.
I couldn't find any information on how this strange speech pattern got started other than, "Keyop should have been allowed to speak normally" in a discussion of the BotP characters' voices. One theory is that Jinpei swears so much that the voice actor had to find a way to use the extra mouth movements.² Makes sense, though it's kind of a lazy solution.)
As in Gatchaman, Jinpei and Ryu joke and tease and get yelled at a lot by the others; in BotP, however, a lot more of that teasing has to do with Mark and Princess, creating a relationship that wasn't really present in Gatchaman.
Voices for G-4
Gatchaman Shioya Yoku
ADV Gatchaman dubs Luci Christian
Battle of the Planets Alan Young
G-Force Barbara Goodson
Eagle Riders Mona Marshall
OVAs Matsumoto Rika
OVA English dubs Mona Marshall
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References & Works Cited:
¹ Hofius, J. and Khoury, G. (2002). G-Force: Animated
² Dinsmore, W. Home of the White Shadow. http://www.chronicsite.com/gatchaman/characters.html