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’.
