Some forty years ago a man named Go Nagai was sitting in a car. He was stuck in the traffic, unable to move anywhere. There he imagined to have a giant robot to control and most likely to step and throw all those assholes to the side of the road. Well, he liked this idea quite a lot and decided to make a comic out this idea as well as use it as a proposal for a TV-series to Toei. They took the idea and the rest is cartoon history.
The comic itself served as an escape route to Uncle Go himself, as he intensely drew another small body of work known as Devilman.
You might ask why this matters. Well, Mazinger Z has affected pretty much every robot series that came after it either directly or indirectly. Mazinger Z has all the archetypical super robot weapons; rocket punch, chest beam and eye beams. It created the old tested and tried story of a boy getting a giant robot from his relative and fighting against evil forces and more. Modern animation does continue making references to Mazinger Z, mainly in Japan, but sometimes few European works have a hidden Goldorak somewhere in there. Granted, that’s a bit of a stretch but let that slide for now.
Mazinger Z has a place in the history among as such works like AstroBoy (or Tetsuwan Atom if you want to be a prick) and I do hope that you’ll support the official English release next year from Discotek.
Aaltomies 