Since its major introduction 30-40 years ago, there’s been an explosion of mecha anime programs that were screened in every household’s television sets of Japan, especially in the science fiction genre area. It’s said to be one of the oldest animes subgenre. Due to Go Nagai’s phenomenal contribution on his Mazinger Z artworks, the series became a major pinnacle for all anime in this genre for many years to come. (And wikiing “Super Robot” on Wikipedia, it really proved so!) How can such a subgenre that looks into areas of science and technology that had gained such immense popularity amongst young children that didn’t know anything about science? How it achieved such massive success still is a mystery to me. Facts came about that Japan’s is the first country to lead the development of robotics technology and its applicable uses for the human society and they’ve done this for a very very long time. This could explain the source of this subgenre’s major influence in taking itself to next level of animation. When I was researching behind the historcial fascination with Japan’s living obsession with these mechanical inventions, I managed to traced it back to the last century, in 1930s that a Japanese inventor by the name of Yatsutaro Mitsui who invented a humanoid robot, codenamed “Steel Humanoid”. (see picture below)
It really astounds me the fact there was truly a robot made from scratch! All done by one individual man! And to think this is Japans’ answer to Victor Frankenstein’s who brought us his creation to life that everybody used to love watching as a horror film, Frankenstein. All the experiments, the laboratory, test subjects, bunsen burners and what nots. However, I couldn’t get the complete story behind Yasutaro’s existence in his quest for making a robot that’s used as a household appliance. (If any of you out there, who knows much about it, can you please forward the details to me using Contact us page. Thanks!). I would certainly like to hear more about the amazing tales with this inventor. After all, this could lead to the explanation why Japan’s got the highest density of robots in the world, with skyrocketing figures of more than 295 robots per every 10,000 manufacturing workes. And still climbing after all these years. It’s no wonder why we get all these incredibly humanoid robots from Sony had before they decided to cancel all of its robot production, followed by a female robot that takes on the catwalk for modelling (here’s the Youtube video link that shows the robot is unveiled on Tokyo Fashion shows).
There are several robot developments going around in Japan and it’s pretty evident why this robot is such a strong culture amongst the ordinary citizens of Japan. This is the contributing factor that robot anime became one of the longest and oldest anime subgenre ever. When Mazinger Z become such a hit wonder, animation studio Toei Animations Inc approached Go Nagai and requested him to produce many great Super Robot shows he produced from 1972-1977. And then later on, this genre experienced so much boom in its production, another subgenre is spawned coming out of this. And that is called Real Robot and soon we saw great programs like Macross and Gundam came into mainstream of 1980s. But what is difference between Super Robot and Real Robot? And why did Japanese animators even bother to go this far to make such distinction? Before we look at this in detail, we look at these two phrases and find out their actual meanings. The first phrase is simply described as robots that are given with incredibly god-like powers and weapon systems that comes with destructive capabilities, which makes them virtually unbeatable and any damage they sustain would be minimal. And the only weakness they appear to have is the anime director to call out a plot which tells super villian that has the better chance of destroying them. The second-genre is Real Robot, which is the exact opposite of the sub-genre, as robots are designed and used in real life such that it suggests they are “applicable” to modern real life sciences research scientists could produce.
Here are a few examples
Super Robot Examples
Mazinger Z
UFO Robo Grendizer
Getter Robo
Steel Jeeg
Toshou Daimos
Real Robot Examples
Mospeada
Gundam
Votoms
Patlabor
Frankly, the motivation behind having another mecha subgenre (which Yoshiyuki Tomino is responsible for) is to give us mecha enthusiasts an alternate view how robots could have the “potential” to provide realistic uses and applications for the real world. Ironically, it’s not possible because they’re still fictional (I’ll explain in a minute) Yoshiyuki Tomino has made such a breakthrough with this that he had done a lot to capture the imagination of how science and technology could excel in making such advanced robotics technologies, along with cool character designs! In an interview with Animericana, he said (in relation to the Gundam series works)
“The bottom line is, I wanted to have a more realistic robot series – unlike a robot – where everything is more reality-based, based on a humanoid robot. Right from the beginning, the roots of the mobile suit came from the worker robots that were building the space colonies back then, and they would become more technologically advanced, to the point of becoming a weapon, and that was the whole lineage of the robots I had in mind since the beginning. So the whole idea, my idea, of trying to have a robot series in space without it becoming a stupid story was based on wanting to make a story and surrounding it with reality – more realistic possibilities was the underlying concept“
With such words, he knew what he wanted to accomplish. With this goal, many Gundam shows he’s helped to produce and directed, propelled new levels of fanfare, thanks to this subgenre.
However we may look at this, we’re fortunate (at least in my generation) that we witnessed so many fantastic anime programs coming out from these two mecha sub-genres over these many decades and several of them have become instant classics we all know too well and familiar of ie Voltron, Macross and Transformers etc. I purposely used the word “fortunate” because I was glad to have lived in the old era where robot anime experienced rises in the production that everybody were so much in tune with. I remembered vividly that mecha shows were the predominant thing in the past during our childhood years in the 70’s and 80’s. A so-called “robot culture” is born. Children of all ages would flock to grab hold any mecha toys or merchandise they could find in the stores and beg their parents to fork out the money to buy the coolest looking Transformers figurines around. Now, several decades later, people from all over the world went to do crazy things to celebrate their love affair for these things. Everything from people having been buying Gundam toys as their items collectors for years, people requesting their famous mecha put on their skins as their tattoos, to people in Spain worshipping legendary Mazinger Z as a giant statue of him in the remote fields of Spain! (Not to mention that there are countless mecha fans wanting to create fan pages of their favourite mecha on Facebook recently!)
It feels really refreshing to know after how much time has changed and having me grow out of it after I reach 16 years of age, expecting to do a lot of adult stuff and taking life’s major responsibilities, I read stories and facts from forums and media presses that a lot of old-school stuff are coming back to this modern era of the 21st century. They said some gonna be bigger and better than the old shows. With this, I was very delighted to hear about it because I feel it’s incredibly good to rekindle your sweet memories that people of old and new can share with. Hence here’s my personal blog that I wish to contribute to this community and to the new and old fanfare. My theme is to focus on historical facts behind these mecha shows, explore the myths and legends behind them and how people of old and new fanfare can come to grips with them as new set of identities and individuality with them. That’s my life mission.
Happy MechaBlogging everyone! :)
