Like every success stories of mecha anime producers, artists and designers have ever produced in Japan such as Shoji Kawamori, Yoshiyuki Tomino,
Shinji Aramaki etc, they all share the same humble 
beginnings. It began in 1960s, a manga artist named Mitsuteru Yokoyama (see inset), who featured an infamous anime show at the time. “Tetsujin 28” was the name. (see inset). He developed the idea of a giant robot that’s controlled by a remoted device that a boy can give commands to it to perform various heroic battles against evil forces of the Earth. This inspiration came from the artist’s life experiences during the war times when he witnessed the awesome power of the bombers coming from the air. He remembered well his hometown Kobe was soon ravaged and destroyed, and that the entire town was completely flattened. Tetsujin 28-go comes with many long-range military weapons that Germans used to fight World War II in the hopes of acing the war with their mightiest weaponry technology at that time. Another interesting point of fact with Mitsuteru’s creation was that Tetsujin’s character holds many similar physical attributes of Frankenstein as well as personal characteristics, for it is a robot that does not know the difference between good and evil. Soon, the series made its first appearance of the giant robot after airing it through Fuji TV networks. The show went on throughout the 60s and general public welcome the show warmly.
Tetsujin 28 fighting against menacing mechanical crows
Tetsujin 28 with Shotaro Haneda
Thanks to the show’s great successes with the general public and Mitsuteru’s great contribution, there’s one man who also desired to create a mecha show of his own that tells a unique tale of heros and 
villains. Kiyoshi Nagai (see inset) (or Go Nagai as he’s infamously referred to as) is the name and he’s brought us the infamous show ‘Mazinger Z’. Go Nagai admittedly has the love affair with it since he was a child while watching Yokoyama’s Tetsujin 28-Go. It’s all thanks to these shows that influenced him to come with an excellent idea on how robots are taken controlled by humans. That idea was a human person could ride the robots from within, just like an analogy with cars. In his earlier works (this occurred before Mazinger Z became a living household name) the concept was that his robot was controlled by a motorcyle, starting from its head. 
Later on, Nagai decided to change the motorcyle idea to a hovercraft due to the rising popularity of Kamen Rider series, which makes perfect sense, considering the height of an ordinary robot is usually 4.3 metres high. Go Nagai redesigned his robot, named it as Mazinger Z, which is derived from the Japanese word Ma-zin. Ma as “demon” and zin as god. So Mazinger Z is a “demon god” figuratively. This idea comes a fact a hovercraft called Hover Pilder docking itself into Mazinger’s head also borrows from Nagai’s 1971 manga Demon Lord Dante, which the giant demon has a human head in his forehead.
As he’s happy with his creation, he struck a deal with TV networks and publications agencies to run over 90 episodes and produce 6 volumes of manga respectively. The show ran for about two years in early 70s. In the same period, the show had begun to receive very high ratings from the general public, making it one of the best anime of all time. As its fame grew in the local shores, the show gained international popularity in the later 70s era, particularly in Europe where it gained overwhelmingly positive response from Italian and Spanish viewers. It was so successful in Spain that they even built a giant Mazinger statue in the rural vineyard fields at that same time. The show recieved so much great success that many people realised his show pioneered the standards for all Super robot anime shows up until now ie a robot that has cockpit with a pilot controlling it. Many of us would recognise the following shows if they grew up watching them in the 70s, 80s and 90s era.
And many other countless shows. These anime developments really astounds me so much and clearly there was a mecha anime boom that lasted for over a decade during the 70s and 80s. There’s so much I really miss here during my years of growing up as a kid. And as a part of my life’s passion, I want to explore the fascinating developments, the myths and legends behind the shows, the spectacular artworks, political influences and amazing artists that truly deliver all the great mecha shows we’ve get that much acquainted with over the years.
