A while ago, I ordered this online from Malaysian DVD ecommerce store called Zoommovie.com, and I find it very refreshing and awesome to see that I get to watch Mazinger Z for the first time in 28 years! And see what the hype is all about behind this legendary mecha, the one that started it all.

In the beginning, I had difficulty in searching for it online as the series comes in three parts. Meaning you would have to purchase 3 DVD sets for the price of USD $200.00, when googling for it. I did find it quite expensive and I hesitated to buy it until I bumped into Zoomovie.com, and found that I could get it the whole series for the price USD $69.99 in one DVD collection set of 4 DVDs. This sounded like a great bargain for me. So, immediately, I signed up, put the item into my ‘trolley’, processed the payment and have the shipping done within 5-10 days to arrive in my front door.

And as soon as the item arrived, I was beaming with great joy, and I quickly unravelled the FedEx package and took a good look of my soon-to-be-favourite goods.  (Click anyone below to zoom in)

The DVD package comes with a 3-way fold, which inside it’s got an old artwork of Kouji Kabuto that’s starting between two mecha ‘goliaths’, Great Mazinger and Mazinger Z, and there sits 4 DVD discs on each disc slot holder. On the front and back cover, I notice there are some English and Chinese characters writing on them and my impressions was that the DVD release set was done and prepackaged in Malaysia or China. (But I suspect it’s the former because I googled the DVD distributor Vscape Enterprises is based in Malaysia, and digging further I discovered that same company produces several other Asian DVD releases as well other than anime such as Mazinger Z.) From this little piece of information, I would expect its quality to be ‘lesser’ standard than others, which normally includes the several features or extras like commentaries, trailers, triva etc etc.

However, given the fact I got the set at such a great price, shouldn’t the great legend deserve a noteworthy review, nothing lesser than the great pride the show used to praise on the TV boxes a few decades ago? I think so.

So here’s the rundown of my review:

On the (+) sides

• The DVD release set with all 92 episodes comes at a great price.  It’s a much better deal compared to what you get from other anime online stores  (series is divided into 3 parts, each part with 30 plus episodes comes with a price tag at USD $60.95 RRP).
• The delivery of the goods is fast and on time.  They send you an email update on the status of the item being ordered after you submit your form for payment, and also allowing you to track whereabouts of the goods once it’s started to shipped.  They also give you the ETA for the goods and usually that is a good indicator how good they keep their delivery promise for the items you ordered right at your door.
• The series still retains its original format or quality of the show so that old-school mecha fan like me can enjoy and relish the great prime days of mecha shows.  New school mecha fans can benefit from our nolstagia as well.
• The series comes with more than one language subtitle.  Both in English and Chinese so the chinese can too enjoy the series as much as the english speakers can.

On the (-) sides

• Subtitles – they were difficult to follow.  Not that the eligibility or clarity of the subtitles be the issue, but rather the lack of consistency in keeping proper context when translating Japanese names to English. For eg, Throughtout the series, I found that the name ‘Kabuto’ has at least 4 different English translations (which is a bit overstretched) when the word “Kabuto” is enough to address character names for normal viewers like me to comprehend.  When reading subtitles, I find that subtitles’ sentences don’t make a lot of sense and I came a conclusion that the translator decided to translate from its Chinese translation(which he did earlier) into English ie he translated the Japanese dialogue to Chinese dialogue.  And he’s decided to translate again by converting the Chinese subtitle into English, directly.  After reading his style of translation, it clearly shows that his English translation skills were incorrectly applied when translating Japanese to English,  indirectly. The approach was completely wrong.
• Another disadvantage with this set is there is no movie trivia and extras for the innocent viewer can watch and appreciate why the series was brought up that way and which notable producers (other than Go Nagai) were heavily involved during its creation.  Then again, this is my first review on one product.  I cannot say the same for other Mazinger Z DVDs sold by other online DVD ecommerce vendors.

Looking at it overall, having all the classic episodes in one DVD set along with midly poor English subtitles,  on a scale 1 to 5, I would give a generous figure of 3.5.  Just because I felt the package would have better potential to provide as the alternative cheap pricing of goods that presents good quality and great affordability for old-school mecha fans like myself to enjoy, especially within budgetary reasons.  I have yet to try other online DVD vendor that also offers something similar (and probably pricey) items and see what they’re like. :) More to come on this shortly.

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