Go Nagai with his Mazinger Z
Was reading interesting article from an Egyptian online paper on Go Nagai, talking about his anime works made such impact on several (and uncommon) communities in the anime world, including the likes of Middle East and African countries and explains how he got famous.
Here’s the following excerpt of the article.
For my generation, the generation of Mickey Mouse and Tin Tin, MazingerZ and the Japanese cartoon genre of manga, the printed comic cartoons, were something beyond our conception. I had neither understood the cartoons nor sympathised with the characters. For the current generation, however, their creator is a big hero.
Thirty minutes before the talk Go Nagay was to deliver at the Cairo Opera House was due to begin, dozens of young people, most of them are students at the Faculty of Fine Arts, were trying to enter the gate but were held back by security. It was amazing to see how popular this artist is in a culture so far from his own in every way. I made my way into the hall after myself getting into a short clash with the security men, who let me through when they saw my press card.
The lecture was part of the programme in a four-day visit organised by the Higher Institute for Cinema (HIC) in cooperation with the Japanese Foundation in Cairo to host the internationally renowned cartoonist in Cairo.
The visit included a lecture at the Artistic Creativity Centre at the Opera House and an interactive workshop with HIC students on how he designed and created his cartoons. Both the lecture and the workshop included the screening of one of Nagay’s latest episodes of MazingerZ.
“Egypt has been one of the places that I have dreamt of visiting since I was a child. And I am happy to be here tonight, and even happier to discover that my cartoons are famous here too,” Nagay says.
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The length of the lecture was too short to satisfy the audience. They wanted more interaction with their very own hero. At the press conference held at the Japan Foundation in Downtown Cairo, a more relaxed Nagay received questions from journalists, most of them of the younger generation who appeared to be up to date with the episodes of MazingerZ and Grendizer and were familiar with the most key characters.
Asked about the kind of influences that had shaped his imagination since his youth, Nagay said World War II was the most important and had led him to make a deliberate attempt to show children how awful and destructive wars are through his popular cartoons.
“The mangas are easier to read than long novels, at least for teenagers, and this is one reason why my mangas have become very popular in Japan since World War II.”
Source: Al-Ahram
Click on the above link to read more on the article.
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