Buster D said:
Right, I didn't think you were calling me a liar or anything, I just didn't think to doubt the ja.wikipedia article until you mentioned that you hadn't yet confirmed the re-broadcasts.
One possible bit of good news is that God Mars has been re-airing on a local TV station (TV Kanagawa, I think). Perhaps they'll air Mighty Orbots afterward as a sort of tie in. A long shot, but you never know.
Well, it's better to clear up any misunderstandings early on this board. :)
You're right, I haven't been able to confirm the rebroadcast myself, though since I don't really speak Japanese, it's kind of hard for me to do that directly. But you'd think that a rebroadcast would mean that someone, somewhere would have more information on it, like air dates and times.
Since my last post here, some additional news has surfaced that's actually slightly more encouraging and effectively doubles my chances of finding the missing episodes that I need. Turns out that I was completely wrong about the United Kingdom and North American releases, but in a good way.
There were thirteen episodes of Mighty Orbots made:
Episode 1: "Magnetic Menace"
Episode 2: "The Wish World"
Episode 3: "Trapped on the Prehistoric Planet"
Episode 4: "Devil's Asteroid"
Episode 5: "The Dremloks"
Episode 6: "Raid on the Stellar Queen"
Episode 7: "The Jewel of Targon"
Episode 8: "The Phoenix Factor"
Episode 9: "Leviathan"
Episode 10: "The Cosmic Circus"
Episode 11: "A Tale of Two Thieves"
Episode 12: "Operation Eclipse"
Episode 13: "Invasion of the Shadow Star"
In North America, the first six episodes were released on home video with one episode per tape and a total running time of 23 minutes per videocassette:
Mighty Orbots - Volume 1: Magnetic Menace
Mighty Orbots - Volume 2: The Wish World
Mighty Orbots - Volume 3: Trapped on the Prehistoric Planet
Mighty Orbots - Volume 4: Devil's Asteroid
Mighty Orbots - Volume 5: The Dremloks
Mighty Orbots - Volume 6: Raid on the Stellar Queen
I've been speaking with a videocassette collector in England via e-mail, and he was able to dig up the names of the UK releases here:
Mighty Orbots - Volume 1: Magnetic Menace
Mighty Orbots - Volume 2: Devil's Asteroid
Mighty Orbots - Volume 3: The Jewel of Targon
Mighty Orbots - Volume 4: The Phoenix Factor
Mighty Orbots - Volume 5: Leviathan
Now, here's where things get interesting.
Several years ago, a UK website known as Anime Video Games did a review of the first volume. But they mentioned that there were three episodes on one cassette, with a total running time of 70 minutes. Based on this, it would appear that the entire series was released on home video in the UK, but in non-chronological order and with two to three episodes per tape, with running times of between 47 and 70 minutes per videocassette. UK Volume 1 is confirmed as having Episodes 1 to 3 on it. No idea what the distribution is for the remaining ones, though. But at least it's a start. :)