Generation Mech » 1960-69

Tetsujin 28 (Gigantor)

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:16:58 +0000

Tetsujin 28 battling with Mechanical crows

The show that started it all (well sort of. The show was not possible if it wasn’t for the great Osamu Tezuka’s Astro boy). This is the show that drew a lot of attention which inspired a large number of Japanese animators wanting to produce great mecha shows. It’s obvious to us who that person be ie (Go Nagai if you don’t know this already).

It was this show that gave Go Nagai the core reason and strong desire to spend countless nights and days wondering about designing his own concept of robot anime (and succeeded). And soon, more and more Japanese animators were able to follow Nagai’s footsteps to produce many great mecha anime shows they would be proud to claim. One generation after other.

It was truly amazing how all the shows I used to love watching whilst growing up were made possible because of this 9-foot iron-clad giant that got Go Nagai so hooked and enabled him to make “mecha” as a mainstream genre for future artists to follow. So I decided to be inquisitive on this subject, wanting to find out more about it. I researched and googled everything about it, hoping there’s plenty of substantial information that could explain more about this mysterious iron clad giant (and how the mainstream public get to know it very personally), back in the 1960’s (since that’s the theme of this specific post). However, to my disasppointment, I could not find anyone reliable source of information that tells me how this show has been a positive impact in the community and how much do they really aware this program was the reason that propelled the drive for success of having so mecha shows for many generations (and more to come). No forums, no blogs, nothing. The best one I encountered is with this Youtube link that has opening of original show. ie 60’s.

I was left completedly stupefied that this video still looks pretty fresh as it’s been more than 35 years since this program was last screened on TV (or in today’s terms, Youtube), and we have dedicated fans out there who knews how incredibly important this “manga” series was to the mecha fan community. A community that would never exist without Mitsuteru’s contribution.

What would life be like without him? But still, I wasn’t contented enough in finding that there’s lack of “recognition” this series truly deserve. All I’m getting from my search results from Google.com, Microsoft.com, Yahoo.com were lots of Tetsujin merchandise, figurines, video games, DVDs sold on Amazon or Ebay and boundless of sites where people can give rave reviews on Tetsujin’s goods for incredibly low price when trading. Looking at it from a perspective, I say Tetsujin 28 was produced out from cries of help by the ordinary people to end all wars. Elements of famine, destruction, rivalry and conquest were the strong forces that “push” Mitsuteru to develop a story that involved building a robot that holds the characteristics of a hero. A people’s hero, more or less. When the author grew up in the horrific days of WWII, he witnessed significant events of B29 bombings in the Japan that brought a devastating end to the war and there was nothing Japan could do to prevent that. It was because USA had the secret plans of implement strategic long-range bombings over the land of the rising sun. Mitsuteru thought (in his fictional point of view) if Japan could have a “secret” plan to thwart American’s offense, Tetsujin 28 would be the answer. Tetsujin would be equipped with many of long-range weapons. And he can fly with a propulsion packs and it takes a remote controlled device to give specific commands that will help in accomplish the war-winning objectives. Tetsujin is also given with a Frankenstein-like complex ie meaning like Frankenstein, he’s neither good or evil. But he’s the protector of people from criminals and enemy robots. So making comparisons of these with other 70’s, 80’s and 90’s mecha I used to watch since little, there’s this sense of good old-fashioned story of “good guys vs bad guys” and Tetsujin 28 is nothing short of being an exceptions to that. In addition, robot character design isn’t hugely tied into the aesthetics of its sharp edges and incredible details of mechanical structure as compared to today’s mecha anime standards.

Tetsujin 28 and Frankenstein: See any resemblence between these two?

As he submitted this Tetsujin artworks to one of the teen publishing firms “Shonen”, the company were impressed with his works, started to make TV shows. Later, its series became a number one hit instantly and gained the reputation as the greatest sci-fi genre anime in the post era war in Japan. The series ran for about a decade spanning in mid 1950’s – 1960’s. With such incredible reponses, given the fact that books and magazines were hard to purchase as everybody have much money only for rice, it’s little wonder how he’s done well in exceeding his expectations of getting this much reception from the public. The show really turned itself out to be one of the great pioneers of Japanese animation genre in the history. Which begs the question – if Mitsuteru Yokoyama was truly the ‘godfather’ of giant robot anime (other than Go Nagai), why is that he’s not getting that same amount of recognition and respect as Go Nagai does? It was his works after all that gave Go Nagai all the great inspiration to make his own lineage of unique robot shows in the first place. So surely Mitsuteru Yokoyama deserves that much credit, if not more. Despite this, history behind these developments show that past, present and future mecha shows attributed to Go Nagai’s contribution to this subgenre. Like a blueprint for success, as old as that cliche personal development coach would love to use, Go Nagai is hailed the ‘mentor’ for many mecha communitis out there internationally. (Well, you could argue that Mitsuteru Yokoyama left Go Nagai “his” blueprint of success, otherwise it wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for him, wasn’t it?)

Nevertheless, Tetsujin did win several manga awards over the years (and some posthumous ones too) and so Tetsujin 28 was put into the spotlight for some time. We remember him well for bringing us the iron-clad giant whose impregnable body represents the model of any mecha that wants to be: strong, heroic, mysterious, unstoppable and powerful. And a symbol of peace and admiration (not to mention those ridiculous shapes of long-range missles that seem to come out of nowhere). That’s the beginning of a milestone Mitsuteru’s work set aside which ‘breeds’ many talented artists such as Go Nagai, Shoji Kawamori and Tomino Yoshiyuki to bring their wonderful mecha art creations to life. Ahh. If only they have the original series on DVD releases, that would certainly make my personal journal on mecha very ‘complete’.

Astro Boy – the strongest robot in the world

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:29:16 +0000

The boy wonder. Well technically, not a biological one. A robot made to mimic the life of a 12-year old boy in real life said to the world’s greatest hero for peace and harmony and thwart all evil robots on the earth. Hence the title of the post.

I was originally hesitant to put Astro Boy (also known as Shin Tetsuwan Atom in Japanese) as part of my ongoing collection of all mecha series I love to keep in my blog, as the word ‘mecha’ supposedly meant a pilot controlling a robot from inside either within a cockpit or its chest. (Tetsujin 28 is no different, but we’ll get into that point later).

Nevertheless, I decisively reserved this page for this ‘unconventional’ form of robot as this series made a lot of serious contribution to the manga/anime world all over, as we all know that Osamu Tezuka is the creator of the series.

Osamu Tezuka was hailed the “God of manga” from its sources on IMDB.com. Several noteworthy anime/manga he created under his belt were recognized publicly in Japan and the rest of the world (including the likes of Walt Disney who once did request Osamu to sign up to do some production work on Disney’s animation). His Astro Boy was rather interesting. In terms of its craze and possibly unprecedented popularity. In Japan, this was the very first manga series produced in the mid 1950s. It ran for more than a decade. It was so popular that it became a major hit as aTV anime series later on in 1963 by Mushi Productions. His other manga artworks did come through as well, as clearly Osamu Tezuka was granting himself as a legendary status of the father of manga artworks for over 4 decades. So it’s little wonder why Go Nagai has high regards for him when he shared his thoughts on Osamu’s humanitarian ways with the French presses at Japan Expo in Paris in Oct 2008. (Click here for the interview link.)

Astro Boy Gallery

The series served plenty of credit, if not part of a direct contribution to the existence of mecha subgenre up to this point. The elements of story-telling is all too common we all hear of late. Good guys are brought up into this world to rid us the bad guys. Its been a long lasting tradition that robots are designed by fictional scientists in the hopes to serve the mankind in order to achieve not only better use of science and technology in the right way but also accomplishing humanitarian ways that no military forces in any day of age could possibly do with their own resource. Think Dr Saotome(Getter Robo, Getter Robo G), Professor Ochanomizu (Astro Boy), Dr Kabuto (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Getter Robo Series, Mazinkaizer), Professor Shiba (Steel Jeeg), Dr. Daimonji (Great Sky Demon Dragon Gaiking) etc etc. Ironically enough, the AstroBoy comic creator himself was a medical doctor who used his talented surgical hands to bring this ‘fictional’ boy to life, in hopes on bringing great joy and entertainment for everyone of all ages and races. After all, with Astro Boy’s eternally youthfuly looks along with Pinnochio-esque inoccence and his honest nature that gives the warm feeling that he’s going to help everybody to get through any obstacle in life, why wouldn’t children start to grow liking him, as much as the adults do? It proves so since its debut 50 years ago. I faintly remembered watching it so young that time but I guess in my country it wasn’t such a mainstream program every kid would talk about. So I guess now I’m learning more about it, I’m starting to understand how greatly relevant this is to my personal exploration of mecha chronology over the ages. It clearly shows its age and times now.

In my opinion, Astro Boy willingness to save every human being on Earth certainly gave Mitsuteru Yokoyama and Go Nagai inspiration to tell us normal folks that robots are used for good as long as they’re driven by the correct pilot, setting out to do things what is right and serve justice. Giving them the image of heroic characteristic of any superhero character you can think of ie Superman/Spiderman. But obviously in a different medium that Japan knows.

So without doubt, Osamu’s works has made these talented artists possible for us to enjoy mecha over the last 30 years and I’m sure it deserves its place on Generation Mech’s Journal.com for many years to come. This is the beginning of it.