The Mazinger Z sequel, also produced by Go Nagai.  A slightly stronger version of Mazinger Z with many mechanical functions that are superior to Mazinger Z’s fighting abilities (see weapons statistics below).

Said to be not as successful as the original series.  For its obvious reason since we never seen much return of the original characters.  Personally, it does ruin the entire process of enjoying the Mazinger Z franchise, when fans of the orginal series were really pinning hope of getting Kabuto Koji and his gang to ready to take on world of baddies.  Not much a good move.  But hey! It’s still remembered as one of Nagai’s great works.

Here’s the excerpt descrption of the series (sourced from Wikipedia.org)

Great Mazinger (グレートマジンガー Gurēto Majingā?) is a manga comic book and anime television series by manga artist Go Nagai, made as a direct continuation of the successful Mazinger Z series. It was aired on Japan in 1974, immediately following the end of the first Mazinger series. It lasted for 56 episodes.

Synopsis

The story centers on Tetsuya Tsurugi (剣 鉄也 Tsurugi Tetsuya?), an orphan raised by none other than Kenzo Kabuto (兜 剣造 Kabuto Kenzō?), the once thought dead father of Mazinger Z pilot Kouji Kabuto. Kenzo Kabuto is the creator of the new, improved version of Mazinger, made by refining his father’s Chogokin Z (Super Alloy Z) into a new, stronger form, designed to fight against humanity’s new enemy, the Mikenese Empire, led by the Great General of Darkness and his army of Warrior Beasts. Kenzo gives the Great Mazinger to Tetsuya to pilot, who is accompanied by a new token girl, Jun Hono (an orphaned half Japanese, half black girl), in her female robot Venus A.

Both Great Mazinger’s and Tetsuya’s training are completed just in time to come to Kouji’s aid as the Mycene Battle Beasts overwhelm Mazinger Z. With the original Mazinger destroyed, Kouji went to America to study space travel and left Japan’s defense in the hands of Tetsuya and the Fortress of Science. Tetsuya battles the Mycene Battle Beasts and even their mighty generals, cumulating in a bitter final battle with the Mycene’s military leader, Ankoku Daishogun (Great General of Darkness). After the Great General of Darkness’ defeat, the Mycene forces are led by Doctor Hell, the villain from Mazinger Z, back under the guise of the Great Marshall of Hell.

The series also includes some cast members the original Mazinger Z show, like Shiro Kabuto (Kouji’s little brother), and comic-relief robot Boss Borot. The series was not as successful in Japan as the original, and it was never shown in the United States. It was however shown unedited and in its entirety, like Mazinger Z, in Italy, Mexico and some other Latin American countries with great success, and occasionally footage from Great Mazinger’s sole appearance in the final episode of Mazinger Z would be shown in Tranzor Z.

Great Mazinger was also the star of the short theatrical “team-up movies” features released in Japan like Great Mazinger versus Grendizer, Great Mazinger versus Getter Robo G, etc., based on anime crossovers of the manga creations of Go Nagai.

Tetsuya and the Great Mazinger are featured, along with Jun in the Mazinkaiser OVA and movie Mazinkaiser: Death match! Ankoku Daishogun. The characters have been also a mainstay in Banpresto’s Super Robot Wars, a popular battle-simulation/RPG series of video games based on many anime mecha shows, including the original Mazinger Z and many others like Getter Robo, the Gundam series, and Neon Genesis Evangelion among others. Tetsuya also appears in Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen.

Tetsuya also pilots an earlier version of Mazinger Z called Energer Z

Great Mazinger Z TV Opening

Statistics
Power Source: Photonic Energy
Armor Materials: Chogokin New Z (New Super-Alloy Z)
Dimensions
*Height: 25 meters
*Weight: 32 tons
*Neck Circumference: 6.2 meters
*Chest Circumference: 18.5 meters
*Arm Circumference: 6.5 meters
*Leg Circumference: 7 meters
*Arm Length: 9.8 meters
*Leg Length: 13 meters
*Foot Length: 4 meters (approximate)
Performance
*Walking Speed: 70 km/h
*Running Speed: 450 km/h
*Swimming Speed: 25 knots
*Flight Speed: Mach 4
*Flight Speed (docked with Great Booster): Mach 5
*Ceiling: 50 km
*Maximum Jump Height: 30 meters
*Maximum Dive Depth: 8 km
*Output: 90,000 horsepower

Weapons and Attacks
Navel Missile
Just like Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger mounts a missile launcher in its stomach.

Atomic Punch
Great Mazinger also possesses a Rocket Punch-like attack, though its fists spin while in flight, giving them extra force.

Drill Pressure Punch
It is like the Atomic Punch, except that the forearms sprout drill-like blades that add to the damage as well as the speed of rotation.

Great Boomerang
Great Mazinger can take the heat sink fin off of its chest and throw it as a giant boomerang.

Scramble Cutter
Just like Mazinger Z’s Scrander Cutter, Great Mazinger slashes the enemy with the Scrander’s wings while flying at high speeds.

Great Typhoon
Just like Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger uses turbines to generate powerful wind attacks. However, Great Mazinger’s attack is simply a wind-based attack, lacking the corrosive properties of Mazinger’s attack.

Knee Impulse Kick
Great Mazinger can sprout a spike from its knee, making its kick attacks more lethal.

Backspin Kick
Great Mazinger can also sprout a curved blade on the front of its leg for stronger kicks.

Mazinger Blade
The flanged compartments on Great Mazinger’s legs hold a pair of swords. Tetsuya typically uses the Blades for melee combat, but on several occasions he threw them at the enemy.

Breast Burn
Like Mazinger Z, the fin on Great Mazinger’s chest doubles as a heat sink and a weapon, unleashing incredible thermal energy.

Thunder Break
Great Mazinger can release energy into the atmosphere, stimulating the process that creates natural lightning. Great Mazinger then calls the lightning down onto the antennae on its head and redirects the energy towards an enemy. In the Super Robot Wars series, Tetsuya can perform this alongside the Grendizer’s Space Thunder or another Great Mazinger unit’s Thunder Break to perform the Double Lightning Buster.

Thunder Blade
A one-time attack where Tetsuya channeled the lightning from the Thunder Break through one of his Mazinger Blades.

Double Thunder Break
Similar to Thunder Break but Great Mazinger uses both hands to redirect the lightning.

Breast Burn Special
Basically a powered-up Breast Burn, almost akin to the Kaiser Nova of Mazinkaiser but with detrimental effects to Great Mazinger. Used in the manga to destroy Gilgilgan from within.

Just rang into this website the other day, mentioning about this new Mazinkaizer SKL show.

And here’s its translation (in English)

“Comic Vs Mazinkaiser SKL” series begins! Cartoon: Wataru Kazu stars
April 23, 2010
New Genie descent!
Maginn next is “bad, strong, cool!”

The most evil genie, again!
And a new legend begins!
Continued to refuse to manipulate their own people, chose the most evil of the Devil Mazinkaiser, Two little beast hidden madness, and the sword was moving above sea Liao.
They are only to satisfy his own desires, but fight with them, and continue down.
Agenda of the organization, and even abandoned hope of the people.
Shall be at the end of it, either victory or destruction or that.
All reverse image of the past, in the midst of a storm of bullets and sharp sword overwhelming, and revived with a new legend of the strongest robot Mazinkaiser!

Cartoon: Wataru Kazu stars
Nagai © 2010 / Dyn · MS

Mazinkaiser OVA SKL Official Sites

So it’s definitely confirmed that we got outselves a hot new robot show this year!  What a great way to start with these exciting shows!!!

Now I need to ask from any Mazinkaizer fans out there!  What are you guys keen to look for this new OVA series?  Do you want to see Kabuto Koji returning to this show for the 2nd time in the Mazinkaizer franchise?  Or preferably somebody new this time like how Go Nagai did with Tetsuya on his Great Mazinger 35 plus years ago??  Or maybe perhaps you’re looking forward to see that Kabuto Koji should ready to settle down with Sayaka Yumi this time?

What are your thoughts?

Source: Comic Gekkin.com

Okay…. There’s been a crazy amount of rumours spreading around online for the past few days that a new Mazinkaizer, super almighty demi-god (Oops! Sorry I mean GOD) persona of Mazinger Z is returning to the TV. As new set of OVA series. I was checking to be sure my hard-wired eyes and ears weren’t playing tricks on me….

Till I arrived at a couple of links. Here and there.

It’s title debut comes as Mazinkaizer SKL, judging by the glossy poster above.  Goodness, it’s been almost 10 years since Mazinkaizer made its spectacular debut.

I also happened to stumble upon this fan’s video on Youtube, foretelling about Mazinkaizer SKL going to be released this year.

At the time of writing, I found out from a reliable source of information on FB, that rumour has it that we have two new different hero characters in this show (as depicted in this video).  It turns out Kouji Kabuto is no longer our main protagonist of the new series??!

THIS CANNOT BE!!

It’d better only a rumor, not a FACT!!  I could not imagine myself if we ever lose Kouji Kabuto to some new kids on the block, whom we know very little of.  Some even said that Kouji is no longer piloting Mazinkaizer anymore?!? No!!!!!!!!!

I don’t want to believe it!  IT MUST BE ABSURD!!! >o<

And I hope that’s what will eventually happen…

Source: Mazingo, Mazinkaizer SKL, ANN.com

I’ve heard a lot about the Super Robot Wars games lately. And after spending some time in Youtube, judging by the looks of countless Youtube videos being posted by so many mecha fans in relation to this title, there’s a clear suggestion that they were great games to play and I wished we had something like that in New Zealand shores.

Even if they are completely done in Japanese language, they should be still be sold in one of those selected niche parallel import markets where people like me living downunder can come over and get a taste of them. But sadly, no. Our market’s too small to be catered for this at the time.

My understanding that these games were made by a company Banpresto, a Japanese video game development company who has made the Super Robot Wars series franchise for the last 18 years in the business. The company, part of Namco Bandai’s division, has spawned numerious SRW titles on several video game platforms from Nintendo to Playstation during its tenure. The concept of the game is that they are RPG genre, which involves plenty of turn-based rounds with your favourite super robot characters. They get to level up, get experience points, learn new skills or attacks and they get to challenge tougher mechanical monsters just like your favourite characters from Final Fantasy games, Kingdom Hearts, etc. Players beat monsters when it’s their turn, monsters beat the crap out of players once it’s their turn next etc.

In those early times, not many super/real robots were brought into the games. There was only Mazinger Z, Getter Robo and a Gundam character, probably. The other robot series in the 80s and 90s were later added on other SRW titles.

Having check on this Japanese SRW blog page, I gazed upon its huge gallery of SRW titles and I wanted to find out what was the first SRW game title created. And I looked at this.

Super Robot Taisen F 1997 PS1

And I looked up this video link on Youtube that relates to the poster above.

Okay. I should have mentioned earlier this is not a Playstation game as you can see from the video.(apparently, they don’t have any Playstation video equivalent online -_-) Nevertheless, fundamentally it’s still the same title.

A number of familiar characters’ faces from the Mazinger Series and Getter Robo as you began the game and several dialogues emerged as you keep playing. This is very refreshing indeed.

I would like to get one of these. However, they don’t see anymore PS machines in our shores. :(

Source: Suparobo.jp, Wikipedia.org

I’ve been meaning to provide my insight review of Mazinger Z DVD review since I got its DVD copy since June 2009.
For the past 4-5 weeks, after watching its series half-way through, I’d say everything’s a great fascination to me. Nothing short of disappointments to be found, other than the mere fact it’s a mecha show that was released on air more than 30 plus years ago. I still find myself dumbstruck asking this numbing question “Why of all mecha anime they had during the 80s did I not come across this one first before the others?” Clearly, it’s a revolutionary genre which sparked off several chains of super robot shows I watched such as Voltron, Transformers, UFO Robo Grendizer , Danguard Ace, etc.
That’s still a mystery to me why it never broadcasted in my hometown of Malaysia. One day I’ll find out that reason…
But enough about me and quibbling. Onwards to the main task at hand.
My initial thoughts about Mazinger Z were exactly the same as I would think for other mecha anime I watched in the early 80s. They got atypical good-guys-vs-bad-guys element to the plot and it never tires the traditionalists such as myself when watching them over and over again. Good guys with their powered-up set out the mission to protect Earth from evil forces of mechanical monsters or robots that threatens the very existence of peace and tranquility for the planet. Only this time, this one is more refreshingly raw and original.

We start off with our main protagonists here, Kouji Kabuto, who is said to be very hot-blooded, gets very eager to jump into upcoming battles with mechanical monsters, ready to fight them off with everything he’s got in order to save people from the evil clutches of Dr Hell, Kouji arch-nemesis, whose sole ambition is world conquest. We learned that his grandfather was the scientist who used to work well with Dr Hell as colleagues in the archaeological exploration of the ancient ruins of Greece, and they discovered the military secrets of the Greek civilization for keeping invaders at bay using Mycaene giants which are also called mechanical robots. When Dr Hell betrayed the colleagues and his grandfather, Dr Kabuto, he killed everyone except Dr Kabuto, who managed to escape alive by a tail of whisker by jumping on the lone boat and sailing far away from Dr Hell. Dr Hell got away with his evil deeds and Dr Kabuto, from then on, gave his life dedication to this super robot construction project whose purpose is to thwart the evil plans of Dr Hell for good. However, later in the show he died in the early part of the show as Dr Hell’s henchmen successfully disposed of him by blowing up his secret lab in the basement. Kouji witnessed the whole thing and was in complete grief that his grandfather was caught in this heated battle with a very dangerous enemy, and his last words to Kouji was that “It’s a shame I could not see you ride on Mazinger Z after I gasped my last breath”. This is truly sad. This impacts Kouji for the rest of his life and that probably explains why he’s always so hot-headed whenever he hears any mechanical monsters that try to threaten the peace and tranquility of his home country, Japan in every Mazinger Z episode. He never once wanted to step away from the opportunity to fight, especially if it’s justice he seeks. Very common trait of a hero wanting to set things straight with villains that there’s no room for enemies to prosper. And you always get the sense that he will never say a ‘no’ for every challenge Dr Hell wanted to give him relentlessly.

Later on, I learnt more interesting facts about how Kouji tried to pilot his mecha for the first time. And the series dedicated the first 5-10 episodes just to see how he managed to control his robot’s simple movements such as walking, running and landing his rocket punch on the enemy. There were some really funny scenes of this and I didn’t know whether Go Nagai was intently trying hard to infuse the viewers to comprehend the struggles Kouji gets when learning to ride his robot as compared to riding a motorcycle or a car. As if the viewers were ‘educated’ to understand that controlling the car’s movements can never compare to the likes of controlling robots when you’re dealing with 50 different controls to operate. Along the way, we starting to see how Kouji develops friendships with allies he meets along the way and they assisted him to fulfill his objectives as well. In the midst of all this, Kouji gets pretty settled in Dr Yumi’s lab and soon we started to recognize the infamous scene where the pool opens up and Mazinger comes up rising from the pool and Kouji’s hovercraft also known as ‘Pilder’ lands on top of Mazinger Z’s head, acting as Mazinger’s brain (see below).

Friends

As our hero gains confidence in making full use of Mazinger Z’s fighting abilities, so are his new found friends and allies growing their confidence in him defending the earth from evil forces of Dr Hell. We have Professor Yumi and daughter , Sayaka Yumi, who always prepare to give advice to Kouji whenever he’s in any imminent danger, even though at times Kouji appears to be not interested in listening to the things Sayaka says about his reckless and sometimes boastful behaviour which could lead to further troubles ahead, unnecessarily. Sayaka Yumi, like Kouji Kabuto, who also programs her own robot, Aphrodite A, to engage in battle, but lack the necessary firepower in order to sustain any ‘practical’ damage on the enemies. Aphrodite A is useful in several occasions where Kouji/Mazinger Z could not handle things themselves. We have three amazing scientists, best working colleagues of Professor Yumi, who assisted Kouji a lot in his quest for peace and justice, by regularly reviewing, analyzing and enhancing Mazinger Z’s fighting capabilities. They’re really indispensable bunch! Then we have our big former-foe-but-turned-to-a-friend-of-Kabuto-Kouji, Big Boss and his two sidekicks, who respects Kouji a lot when he’s in the battlefield when facing tough opponents. But on the ground level, Boss’s envy on Sayaka’s love interest on Kouji, is really apparent that he would take every step to prove his affections for her is better than Kouji. After all, Kouji did seem at times getting pretty cheeky and arrogant about this achievements with Mazinger Z, Sayaka’s taking the short end of the stick for the credit and Boss did try to take advantage of this so things would come out favourably for him.

Enemies

When there’s hero in need to the rescue, there will certainly be villains that stirred up the troubles. There’s no other greater evil than Dr Hell(first inset), the evil-doer who started this whole world conquest vision (starting from Japan), using the ancient technologies of the Mycanae empire, along with his most loyal subordinates, Baron Ashura(second inset) and Count Brocken(third inset). Together, they will bring a huge force of army that’s very menacing that they can completely dominate the entire world with his fleet of giant robots, if it wasn’t for Mazinger Z( that keeps on thwarting them everytime). Very focused individual, trying to devise several strategic ways to eliminate Kouji, Professor Yumi and Mazinger Z during the series Z, but only to result in failure in misery. Baron Ashura, his most trusted subject, earlier who follows every Dr Hell’s instructions to create destruction and despair amongst citizens of Earth (or Japan in this context) and executes them without question. His loyalty and dedication to his master, Dr Hell is almost admirable that it reminds you how soldiers were at that time WWII occurred, they’re willing to put their lives at stake in order to fulfill their commands of the commanding officer, just as he’s willing to give his life to Dr. Hell. Throughout the series, we see him struggling to defeat Mazinger Z, Baron Ashura was seen humiliated and defeated that we have Count Brocken, who’s surfaced to replace Baron Ashura and Ashura’s seen demoted. Both of them are not getting along together because of this tension for Dr. Hell’s appraisal’s for one’s achievements. Count Brocken, a cyborg with floating head seems to be a very calculative and devious (just like all villains) with a Nazi-complex (the uniform was give away), tries to prove he’s far superior to Ashura when it comes to fighting Mazinger Z with results Ashura struggles to achieve.

Mechanical Beasts

There’s so many mechanical beasts this series introduced (I’m still half way through them) and I think it requires a different post to dedicate this topic. However, if I were to give a review on this, I would say they are very pretty impressive. Especially considering it’s an official fact that this one sets out the standard for all mecha shows to feature new monsters or villains every week, dubbed as ‘monster-of-the-week’. Every mechanical beasts that come out to battle Mazinger comes with any unique abilities to deter Mazinger and eventually destroy him as part of its attempt everything from boomerang sickles, giant monsters inspired from Ancient Greek times, flying monsters to light-saber-enhanced scythe, etc. Here’s a brief list of Mazinger’s villains.

Overall comments

Looking at the whole series so far up to this point, I find it very good and it delivers what a mecha anime ought to be ie weekly monster feature, battle cry weapon commands eg Rocket Punch, male hero gets robot that’s invented by his father scientists, used it to serve the purpose of protecting mankind etc. This ‘formulaic’ approach works very well for Mazinger Z and that probably explains why Go Nagai deserves full credit for this and receives so many honorary awards after so many years in anime business. I highly recommend it to people who’s truly into this subgenre and very passionate about their favourite mecha shows of the past (which Iam) and learn its historical influence which contributes the growing number of mecha/super robot shows in the past 30 years.  I’ll give a rating of 4.5/5.

Gosh… Haven’t been posting for a while. Definitely not good, as much as I hate to admit…
Been battling down with the colds and cough for the past couple of weeks (not that it’s got anything to do with swine flu, we’ve heard so much of as late, mind you!), so had taken plenty of vitamins C, oranges and what-nots. I could slip ‘panadol’ in as one of the important treatments I had so I can stay healthy to blog again, but I wouldn’t recommend highly as it contains a lot of drug chemicals that could potentially do more harm than good to you. So always remember to take them if you’re feeling unwell.

Anyway, I must digress…

I’ve been meaning to post this fantastic stuff about the new Mazinger z series and I understand up, to this point of time, it’s the last super robot series of the first decade of 2000. That’s right! We’re approaching the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Isn’t it incredible how those almost 10 years have passed since the clock ticked at midnight on 31st December 1999 and they went VERY FAST! Several super and real robot series came out in Japan over those years especially the remakes of the 70s/80s classic mecha anime for Go Nagai’s works and other Japan’s famous artists. Now we have the last mecha series here and that is Shin Mazinger Z (aka “Real” or “True” Mazinger Z) (it’s not a remake by the way). What a great way to have the ultimate retro classic to finish up this end of the 2000 era. Ironically, Mazinger Z was the first one that started the whole mecha genre from the very beginning and now I sense there’s a clear sense of deja vu’s presence going on with this.

In this link, you will find all great facts about the show that’s currenty running in Japan only (hence it’s a Japanese webpage). They mention where story is currently up to at the moment while it’s still airing, the introduction of the old and new characters, including our hero Kouji Kabuto, Sayaka Yumi, Dr Yumi, Dr Hell, Baron Ashura, etc, and the return of many of the recognizable mechanical monsters from the original TV 70s series, if you watched them that is.

Now you can also purchase the first DVD volume of the series which is on sale from 25th August onwards this year, selling for about Yen 2100 (USD $38). A cool Chogokin Mazinger toy model from Bandai is also on sale as well (see image below).

Shin Mazinger Z Chokogin GX45

According to this poster, they’re selling it for Yen 7140 (USD $143).

Source: Shin-mazinger.com

I  bumped onto this link the other day from someone’s blog (which I couldn’t remember the life out of me) on Mazinger Z.  Basically, it’s one of the collectible toys that’s released by Bandai that conforms with standards of “Soul of Chogokin” disciplines.  I do not know a great deal of what “Soul of Chogokin” is about, but my understanding is (after reading from Collectiondx.com) they’re all the up-market action figures of famous classic robots, normally imbued with very high-durable materials when manufactured, which sets them apart from other ordinary robot toy lines children get to play such Lego’s Bionicle.  These items are targeted for the more mature audiences who are keen to collect them as part of their growing memoriabilia in order to reconnect their former childhood memories of fun they had when watching them.  Much like myself.   (Though I am not really a collector, only because they’re slightly out of my personal budget. For the moment…)

Regardless, I just thought it would be nice to share this with everyone, just to take a glimpse of the incredible designs it’s formed (see below).  Aparrently, according to the link, you can purchase this online for Â¥4907 , saving of 22% discount.  I don’t speak or write Japanese but looking at the store’s link, it’s pretty clear about their layout when they highlighted the slashed price in bold and red. (Go figure!).  It also comes with other accessories that assemble with this unit as well.

Mazing Z Model with its pilot Koji Kabuto, as a model also.

Source: CollectionDX.com, Amiami.com

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.

Mazinger Z.  Yes, the greatest robot anime of all time in Japanese animation industry as anime industry analysts said.  I heard so much about it from many great accolades of fans(old and new) that the show trully defined its own special subgenre of anime , of that we all  now know as ‘Mecha’. The show’s popularity had grown exponentially over the years between 1972-1974  and many children at the time gave incredibly high ratings for it.  The scale of its popularity is almost comparable to likes of the Beatles’ mania that exploded throughout the 70’s!  But at a much smaller scale, matter-of-factly, within the shores and soils  of Japan. But sources gathered that it became a

major hit in Spain and Italy so the show made quite an impact that Mazinger Z is recognized as a symbol of ‘cult’ status just as much as what Beatles did in other specific continents of the world.  Yet, personally I never knew anything about Mazinger until last year when I run into Wikipedia, and looking up for all great super robot shows.  As I read the history on the developments of this genre, I arrived at the conclusion that (hence my post’s title) our infamous anime creator, Go-Nagai, delivered a simple manga produce that turned itself to be the great ‘mother’  of all super robot genre shows in our lifetime so far.  Without it, we would not have seen so many talented anime artists coming out of Japan to produce great mileage of robot series and ever growing fan base of robot anime enthusiasts out there, across the globe.

So what is Mazinger Z, truly?  What is it all about?

Mind you, I never watched this show in my country of Malaysia while growing up, but I distinctly remembered seeing programmes produced by Go Nagai, but it appeared under a different broadcasting agency called Force Five series.  And I saw the opening credits that went by saying ‘Animation created by Go Nagai’ for the shows of Getter Robo(known as Starvengers) and UFO Robo Grendizer (also known as Grandizer). I was deeply shocked about this because we lacked the public information that Go Nagai was truly

the great genius behind these shows and we didn’t have the privilege to watch Mazinger Z which started it all??  It doesn’t make any sense.  How can we supposed to acknowledge his great works of art when the media came and made us to think these programmes were made in USA, but it’s all because of licensing and broadcasting rights USA companies like Force Five Series can take and rebrand the product to get a different name and the kids just watched thinking these are memorable cartoons on Saturday mornings??  I felt my mind’s been plagued by these distortions and I find it sad I only came to know the truth at the later stages of my life.  Tsk…. Tsk….

But still, I’m glad to say even where I’m at in my life now, I finally get to know what Mazinger Z is thanks to the ever-growing presence of internet that lets you connect people in so many ways.  Especially in the mecha community field.  I’m glad this technology has allowed me to seek the bigger and better picture of what mecha anime industry is going about.  I’ve learnt heaps about this in particular.  Go Nagai pioneered the whole mecha genre inside out and that’s how many animators in Japan could produce several, if not all, successful anime programmes of this genre for last 30 years.  His visual concept of a person ‘piloting’ a robot as if he was riding an aeroplane was a genius idea in the making.  The coolest part of his design is that when giant robots are given special commands for attack, the pilot would yell the attack sequence and the robot will launch them.  And suddenly everybody’s gotten completely bonkers over this and soon many robot shows are following the same ‘format’.  Really ingenious and stupendous. So it would be fair for me to acknowledge that his series also sparked another new mecha subgrene, called “Real Robot”.  Go Nagai  was not involved with any of Real Robot developments.  It was one of other famous Japanese mecha artists and producers by the name of Yoshiyuki Tomino, who’s responsible for converting Super Robot mecha genre into Real Robot genre (click here on his Wiki page for more info). Yoshiyuki used to do a lot of previous work on Super Robot genre for several years before he’s decided to make Real Robot a success with his life-long series of Gundam shows.  Officially, he’s the godfather of “Real Robot” since then.  Thanks to ongoing success of several super robot anime series in the early 70s, 80s this part of animation industry enjoyed, Real Robot became a possibility.  You gotta give plenty of credit for Go Nagai how much impact his Mazinger Z did on Tomino’s works, including others.

One other interesting element I find about Mazinger Z is how so many successful super robot series shared the same element of story-telling Go Nagai had for Mazinger Z ie “father-builds-robot-for-son-so-he-can-ride-it-to-save-the-world-from-bad-guys” part to  having every new enemy robot featured on every episode.  Examples for these are Toshi Gordion, Steel Jeeg, Groizer X , Mechander Robo, Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3, Trider G7 etc.  It’s very refreshing to think back how great every robot anime I watched in those days all shared one common thing.  And that to me that’s the winning formula for making great mecha anime series, all the time.

I’m looking forward to watching the original series from beginning till the end now that I have the copy of its DVD release.