#Great Mazinkaiser

[selketshaula]

Great Mazinkaiser - Iron Saga 「真マジンガーZERO VS 暗黒大将軍」

[art-o-bart-o]

Bugs

[no1ryomafan]

Me when I’m fucking hungry (also yes I did in fact watch the mazinkaiser movie finally)

[therosecrest]

[kenro199x]

Mazinkaiser vs. Great General of Darkness -マジンカイザー 死闘! 暗黒大将軍 (2003)

Discotek Media Blu-ray 2023

I've waited 20 years to get this on physical media. That's a long time to wait. My old fansub has served me very well, but it's finally time to retire it.

[everydaydg]

Hey guess what im watchin this weekend.

[wanderersrest]

The Mazinger Z Experience

Spoiler Warning for basically everything Mazinger-related; specifically the original Mazinger Z, Mazinger Edition Z/Shin Mazinger Z, Shin Mazinger Zero and its sequel, Mazinger Z: Infinity, and Grendizer U

Also, if you want to read Shin Mazinger Zero and its sequel, I'll just say it now: BIG FAT CONTENT WARNING FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT IF YOU DECIDE TO READ THEM.

Ah, Dungeon Meshi Mazinger Z. My beloved Iron Fortress. Few machines can hold a candle in terms of importance to you, those few being either Tetsujin-28, Getter Robo, the RX-78-2 Gundam, the VF-01 Valkyrie, and Evangelion Unit 01. I might be a little bit biased though. Just a little bit.

Recently, I decided that I would start reading more manga. As I had said in my second Idle Thoughts post on Patlabor, I had started reading the manga version of Patlabor. Well... I read a lot more than just Patlabor (which is great, by the way; if you like Patlabor, go read the manga if you haven't already). I managed to read through all of Getter Robo (I blame the YouTuber CheeseGX exclusively for making me Getter-pilled), Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon (which is amazing, btw), and, of course Mazinger Z.

And boy oh boy was that a wild ride. To say nothing of the fact that Grendizer U is currently airing, I figured now would be a great time to just talk about random stuff involving the Iron Castle, Mazinger Z!

Oh, also, for future reference: there are two series tied to the name Shin Mazinger. For all intents and purposes, the TV series will be referred to as Mazinger Edition Z, while the manga series will be referred to as Mazinger Zero.

Yasuhiro Imagawa Will Cause Me to Overdose on HOT BLOOD

My first experience with Mazinger Z was watching 2009's Mazinger Edition Z: the Impact, otherwise known as Shin Mazinger Z. I would only learn later on that this series was directed by Yasuhiro Imagawa, but I remember feeling my body temperature rise as I continued to watch the series. It was that familiar sensation. A sudden increase in fighting spirit. A boisterous energy that makes you want to yell at the top of your lungs.

It's what a lot of people call HOT BLOOD. Mecha heads, especially those who love the classic giant robot shows made in the wake of Mazinger Z, will know this feeling well. HOT BLOOD is a common trope with a lot of these shows, with some of the big names associated with the term including the aforementioned Mazinger Z alongside Getter Robo, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann among others.

Really, what I wanted to highlight is that Imagawa-san is a purveyor of HOT BLOOD. Because this is another moment of Imagawa helming a HOT-BLOODED mecha series, the other two being G Gundam and the first three episodes of Getter Robo Armageddon. And those are just the shows I've actually watched (I will get to Giant Robo one day, I swear). It's why I enjoy a lot of these shows.

Also Imagawa and the people working under him are really good at mecha introductions. Not necessarily tied to HOT BLOOD per se, but a good HOT BLOODED giant robot series does need a good introduction. And man, does Imagawa and company deliver. Let's just say that there's a reason why I use the gif at the beginning for Mazinger. And that's saying a lot, since the original Mazinger Z's introduction is just as iconic. All Edition Z does, as Edition Z is wont to do, is lean into the idea of Mazinger Z being either a god or a devil.

I'm So Mazinger, Even This Acronym

Another entry in the Mazinger franchise that I read was Shin Mazinger Zero and its sequel, Shin Mazinger Zero vs The Great General of Darkness. And like it's TV Anime counterpart (that being Mazinger Edition Z, or more aptly, Shin Mazginer Z), Mazinger Zero leans in to the core themes of what make Mazinger, well, Mazinger, arguably even more so than even Edition Z. And this is best exemplified not in the original Mazinger Zero, but its sequel series.

Based off of its title, the sequel manga is named after what is arguably one of the most important of the original Mazinger Z: Kouji Kabuto is eventually defeated. Not by Doctor Hell, but by the Great General of Darkness and his Mycenaean Empire. This is treated as a darkest hour kind of thing, until Tetsuya Tsurugi shows up to save the day with his Great Mazinger. This introduction acts as a general bridge for Mazinger Z to transition over to its sequel series Great Mazinger.

Shin Mazinger Zero vs The Great General of Darkness throws a wrench into this with one major change: Mazinger survives and ultimately beats the Great General of Darkness. But before we get into that, I might be burying the lede a little bit here.

Something that should be noted about Mazinger Zero is that the titular robot is actually a twisted incarnation of the classic Mazinger. Whereas Edition Z's Mazinger leans into a little bit more into the idea of Mazinger as a god, Zero's version of Mazinger leans more into the idea of the machine becoming more of a devil. If we're comparing this to the other members of the Holy Trinity, Mazinger Zero would be comparable to both the Getter Emperor or the Turn A Gundam.

Also there's time travel involving Minerva X, but I'll get to that... right now, actually.

See, Mazinger defeating the Great General of Darkness in their first encounter in the Zero timeline is important, because it messes with the timeline of the setting. This causes everything to go haywire in a series where, up to this point, the timeline has been relatively stable thanks to Kouji and Minerva X. But because Mazinger could not handle the idea of losing and being saved by Great, it went out of control.

Mazinger getting totaled is kind of a landmark scene for this franchise, since it's what establishes Great Mazinger and later Grendizer as its successors. But Mazinger not accepting this outcome in Zero means that Mazinger keeps on winning. And it keeps on winning to the point where it creates an alternate timeline where the only giant robot show to exist are Mazinger Z and the shows and manga that came out before it. So while things like Tetsujin 28-go, Giant Robo, and Ambassador Magma would still exist in this timeline, shows that would come out after Mazinger Z like Kotetsu Jeeg, Getter Robo, Voltes V, Zambot 3, Mobile Suit Gundam, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Gunbuster, Neon Genesis Evangelion, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Pacific Rim all do not exist.

Heck, even both Great Mazinger and UFO Robot Grendizer never happen in this specific timeline. The only reason Kouji is even able to bring Tetsuya is that he creates a film explaining the events of the manga up to that point in an attempt to will Tetsuya back into existence. The only reason he can't do the same for Duke Fleed is because, as Minerva X explains to Duke Fleed in the manga, Mazinger Z never meets Grendizer. Sure they both exist in the same shared universe due to Duke and Kouji being friends, but officially Mazinger Z and Grendizer never officially meet (there is a one-shot chapter in the Grendizer manga featuring the two of them as well as Great Mazinger, but I don't think that's officially canon).

Fun Spoiler Fact: I didn't pick those post-Mazinger series at random. If you read Mazinger Zero vs The Great General of Darkness, you'll see what I mean.

Mitsuo Fukuda is a Good Fit For Grendizer; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and... uh... Respect the Saudis?

As I've said in An Abbreviated History of Mecha, I am not terribly familiar with Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. What I AM familiar with is its, shall we say, rather divisive nature as a series. I am also familiar that a lot of the blame also tends to be thrown at series director Mitsuo Fukuda. As I understand them, a common criticism of SEED I can recall was the fact that the series overly relies on melodrama in a rather ridiculous manner.

If I remembered that correctly, then it pleases me to tell you that 2024's Grendizer U is, in my humble opinion, a great fit for Fukuda. I believe a lot of this stems from the fact that our protagonist Duke Fleed is a better fit as a melodramatic messiah figure than, say, Kira Yamato. It also helps that Grendizer U also has preexisting source material like the original UFO Robot Grendizer, whereas Gundam SEED can only take the more surface level aspects of the original Gundam.

This is, of course, only a theory. As I have also heard, the production history of Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny is arguably one of the more troubled productions in the franchise. But that's another story for another day, and one that requires me to do more research.

What I can talk about is the production history behind Grendizer U. It should be noted that the original UFO Robot Grendizer, and really most of the Mazinger Z franchise, is popular in countries outside of Japan and the US. And while this isn't unheard of (See: Voltes V and The Philippines), Grendizer is a frustrating case since the country it is most popular in is Saudi Arabia. The reason why this is frustrating is because the Saudis are the ones bankrolling Grendizer U. And because they are bankrolling Grendizer U, it means that the series (which is a summer anime in Japan) has not been localized outside of Saudi Arabia. The only way to watch Grendizer U currently is through, shall we say, alternate means. It's vexing, because Grendizer U has been a pretty fun romp so far. Hopefully there are plans for a global release outside of Saudi Arabia in the future.

There Is a Charm to Robots That Can Do Everything

Something that is refreshing about a giant robot like Mazinger Z is, surprisingly enough, the very toyetic nature of the Iron Fortress. The fact that Mazinger is a giant humanoid machine standing at least 50 feet in height and is armed to the teeth with rocket punches, axe blades, missiles (a lot of missiles, by the way), two lasers (depending on how you classify Breast Fire), and a breath attack that turns most metals into dust. Oh yeah, it also has a winged backpack that allows it to fly, and said backpack's wings are sharp enough to cut buildings and monsters in two. And when I say it's refreshing to see a robot like Mazinger, this is even going into things like how the Black Castle is designed.

Why? Because mechanical design for giant robots did not exist when Mazinger Z was created.

No seriously. Mechanical design in relation to giant robots wouldn't be taken seriously until arguably Combattler V and at most the original Mobile Suit Gundam. But before then, giant robots were, to my understanding, largely designed by the rule of thumb of "this looks cool" (or in the case of Getter Robo specifically "this looks like three jets smooshed together"). There's a certain wonder to these early machines who I would assume go on to inspire a whole generation of people in become righteous people (pay no attention to the militia who named their armored vehicles Mazinger Z).

Even moving outside of the mechanical design of Mazinger, part of the charm of these older machines (and the ones that harken back to this era of robots like GaoGaiGar and Dai-Guard) is that they tend to tell simpler stories. To be clear, I'm not advocating for stories to be dumbed down. It's just that a lot of mecha stories, especially in the wake of both the original Gundam as well as Neon Genesis Evangelion, have felt a need for stories to be more and more complicated themes. And that's good! That's a good thing! It shows that the vague and nebulous genre known as mecha has matured from where it started, but information overload is also a thing that exists.

Mazinger Z, as far as stories (and especially as far as mecha stories are concerned), is a fairly simple one. This is not a bad thing, as I have argued that Mobile Fighter G Gundam benefits from having a simpler story. We tend to assume that serialized storytelling is objectively better than episodic storytelling, but I would argue (as I did with G Gundam) that that is not always the case. Think about how US darling series New Mobile Report Gundam Wing is thought of today as this incoherent mess that, while having some pretty interesting critiques of war, is wrapped up in this ball of unlikable and arguably insane characters and bizarre story beats. I could go on about how bad Gundam Wing is, but my name is neither Arin Hanson nor Barry Kramer. The important point is that being episodic does not necessarily mean that a series is lesser. Just remember that the original Star Trek, arguably one of the most important shows in all of science fiction, is largely episodic in nature. The same applies to seminal science fiction shows like The Twilight Zone and, to a lesser extent, Doctor Who are also episodic affairs.

(I'd like to clarify one more thing: I'm not saying that Mazinger Z does not have anything substantial to say. That's folly; every story has a message that people can take away from it, the author's original intent be damned. If anything, downplaying what Mazinger Z brings to the table is disrespectful not just to the series itself, but also mecha as a whole.)

Extra Thoughts

Before I go, I do have a couple other stray thoughts about Mazinger in its various iterations. These are little things that I thought were interesting or funny.

I haven't watched all of Mazinkaiser yet, but I love that Mazikasier in general is basically "What if Mazinger, but Getter?" No really, the origins behind Mazinkaiser was basically a what-if scenario from Super Robot Wars that conjectured what would happen if Mazinger Z was subjected to the effects of the Getter Rays. Mazinger Zero's iteration of Tetsuya Tsurugi is basically "What if Tetsuya, but Getter pilot," and guess what Tetsuya eventually pilots? Great Mazinkaiser. Hell, Mazinkaiser SKL is directed by Jun Kawagoe, the man who directed every Getter Robo OVA and the Getter Robo Arc Anime. I'm sorry Mazinkaiser faithful. I know I tagged you all in this post, but I promise I'll get to it one day.

Mazinger Z protagonist Kouji Kabuto has never had a consistent voice actor, which is surprising when compared to fellow Holy Trinity compatriots Ryouma Nagare and Amuro Ray.

Grendizer U has revealed to me that Kouji x Duke is a thing, and I'm not going to lie: I can see it.

Mazinger Z vs the Transformers is amazing. Definitely read that when you get the chance. The friendship between Boss and Grimlock is peak, by the way. It's... it's just peak.

Anyways, if there are any specific series I'd recommend, definitely give Mazinger Edition Z a shot if you like Imagawa's previous works (specifically G Gundam) and also like Go Nagai's stuff in general. As I said before, Mazinger vs the Transformers is also peak, and I've also been enjoying Grendizer U. Maybe one day I'll finally get around to watching the original Mazinger Z. Who knows. I finished all of the City Hunter anime once. I'm currently rewatching City Hunter 2. I think if I can watch City Hunter twice, I can do all of the Toei Mazinger series.

[ladylichhangar]

Have this experiment I tried on CSP. It's a (sort of) frame redraw. Usually when you redraw a frame you redraw it as it is, background included. While I wanted to take a tiny bit of freedom from it, tried a different perspective (therefore using two frames to get the background of the scene), and fiddled with filters, trying to give the vibe and warmth of a CRT TV palette.

I love Boss Borot this big chonk mech is legendary, got me through all Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Mazinkaiser with the laughs it gave me and with all its personality. Great classics.

This is the unfiltered one in case the other gives you a headache lol (I've seen worse)

[shortruler]

SDCS Shin Getter and Mazinkaiser!

Definitely will get Great Mazinger in the future, so I'll probably also get GaoGaiGar to complete the SDCS super robot line-up. Wish Bandai would do more of these kits, like at least give us a Grendizer and the OG Getter Robo or Getter Dragon.

[jknighttoku10]

MADE BY https://www.deviantart.com/melspyrose Thank you for making this meme :D https://www.deviantart.com/melspyrose/art/OC-Inspiration-Meme-952375649

Done here are the characters that inspired me and the person that made this meme. Their name is in the pic. These characters inspired me growing up as a child. Some of them started off as bad guys but turns out becoming heroes as they grow and they experienced bad events negative events but they keep on growing regardless of their past. It doesn’t divine them who they are as they grow more they let it drag them down they try and try as they grow and develop as a character and a person in each in their own way and get through their own personal struggles as with help of others around them even though it’s hard to open to those they know. each of us has a Dark Dilemma and struggles of the past we each have to overcome same with self doubt and anger. and these characters are a great example of these things. wish is why i picked them for lexamus :)

Black panther t'challa marvel

Spawn Al Simmons.

JAK JAK AND DAXTER

Venom Eddie Brock and Flash. marvel

ryu hayabusa ninja gaiden

Ultraman TIGA

Tommy oliver Power rangers

Kamen rider amazon

Robocop(both classic and 2014 AND ALPHA COMANDO)

GODZILLA

TFA OPTIMUS PRIME AND UNICRON TRILOGEY OPTIMUS PRIME/OPTIMUS PRIMAL

FOC GRIMLOCK

DOOMSLAYER DOOM

DOMON G GUNDAM

BATMAN THE BATMAN/ARKHAM/BEYOND/90'S

COLE INFAMOUS PS3

MILES MORLES SPIDER-MAN MARVEL/2099/TOEI

mandalorians( Tarre Vizsla, din djarin, jango fett, but whole concept of them too)

GREYMON DIGIMON

Vectorman

TAHU

Mazinger/mazinkaiser

MEGAMAN EXE, TRIGGER AND MEGAMAN-X/MODEL-X

[selketshaula]

Great Mazinkaiser - Iron Saga 「真マジンガーZERO VS 暗黒大将軍」

[over-the-time-flow]

Super Robot Rollcall - The Photon Power Lab Crew

Koji Kabuto

"Mazinger Z is a god! It won't just break down over something like this!"

Source Material: Mazinger Z Age: 16 Hobby: Motorcycling Voice Actor: Hiroya Ishimaru Character Designer: Go Nagai

A young man who was burdened with enough power to become a god or a devil, Koji Kabuto is a cocky yet ultimately good-natured kid.

When the wicked Dr. Hell marched upon Japan with his army of ancient Mycenaean Mechabeasts, the tremors caused a cave in within Koji's grandpa's secret underground lab. With his final breath, he told Koji to wield the Mazinger Z's unmatched power to change the world...

After many tough encounters against Dr. Hell, his minions, and their Mechabeast Army, Koji and the Mazinger came out victorious... or so it seemed. From within the Earth, the Mycenaean Empire merely laid dormant, and awakened not too long after Koji's final battle with Dr. Hell, they were also intent on world domination.

Though Koji bravely fought them back even when clearly outmatched, he and the other members of the Photonic Power Labs crew only barely made it through thanks to the intervention of Tetsuya Tsurugi and his top-secret successor to the Mazinger, created by Koji's own (once assumed dead) father; the Great Mazinger.

Now, Koji, Tetsuya, and their respective teammates work together to thwart the ambitions of the heartless Mycenaeans.

High Melee, VERY high Defense, and a Potential skill that can reach even the max level 9. Koji is one hell of a defensive behemoth, and his Spirit Command learnset matches that. Not much else to add.

You can swap him (and all the other Mazinger pilots) around to other machines, but there's hardly much point in doing so when the side cast's machines are so bad. I suppose you could put Koji in the Great Mazinger in case you really really liked Grendizer vs Great Mazinger.

Fun Fact: Koji was originally to have a scarf, but Kamen Rider came out and became explosively popular around the time Mazinger would come out, and Nagai decided to cut it so as to not look like he was just riding the trend.

We were robbed.

Mazinger Z

Source Material: Mazinger Z Height: 18 meters Energy Source: Photonic Energy Real World Designer: Go Nagai

The sky-soaring fortress of steel that grants its pilot the power to become a god or a devil! The mechanical devil god itself! Mazinger Z!

Designed by Koji's grandfather, it both grants Koji the power to shape the world and burdens him with the tremendous task of controlling its power.

A mainstay of Super Robot Wars, with a nearly perfect track record.

High-ish Armor, decent HP. It's not unfitting for Koji, but it's hard to say it truly lives up to his stats. On the attacking front, it's decent as well, but has the usual issue that Mazinger has in a lot of games with Great and no Mazinkaiser; Great has better finishers on top of having the Great Booster, a one-use only finisher that serves as a proper nuke.

If only Mazinger got its own high damage one-use finishing move... Alas, that is but a dream. Unless...?

Sayaka Yumi

"Don't you know an angry girl is MUCH scarier than an angry guy? Huh? C'MERE!!"

Source Material: Mazinger Z Age: 16 Voice Actress: Minori Matsushima (among others, but she's the one who voices her in SRW) Character Designer: Go Nagai

Daughter of Professor Yumi of the Photonic Power Labs, pilot of the Aphrodite A and Diana A, and Koji's rival/love interest/comedic foil.

As she's rather short-tempered, Koji often picks on her by saying crazy misogynistic stuff. From how he acts around other women in the show, it seems like it really is just to pick on Sayaka. In any case, Sayaka rarely chooses to be the bigger man and instead beats the everliving shit out of Koji. Kids anime in the 70s was not here to give you healthy relationship role models, it was here to make you watch Koji and Sayaka throw furniture at each other, scratch and hit each other, and make the rest of the cast visibly worried.

This relationship might have been a bit more palatable if Sayaka ever got a single W against a mechabeast, but she's below Boss in that regard. Still, she does get her own mini-arc later in the series where Koji apologizes to her for a lot of his past deeds, which is surprisingly nice for a show of its age. She still continues to job afterwards.

In SRW, Toei Koji and Toei Sayaka's love-hate dynamic is usually very toned down if at all present, which is an understandable approach, even if it makes her less distinct than other versions of Sayaka.

No way around it, Sayaka is terrible. Awful stats and absolutely nothing good for her to pilot. That's right, you can't even fix her by shoving her in the Mazinger or the Great, because if her other stats are terrible, her Melee is ABYSMAL.

At level 40 she does learn one of the best support Spirit Commands in the game, but that'll be a LONG while of dragging Diana A around the battlefield to Repair to slowly crank up those levels.

Diana A

Source Material: Mazinger Z Height: 16 meters Energy Source: Photonic Energy

After the Aphrodite A gets destroyed by Harpia π7, Diana A rises from the ashes! Even Koji, who once advocated for phasing out Aphrodite A altogether, ended up being in support of the Diana A's construction after seeing how hurt Sayaka was to lose Aphrodite.

Born from Sayaka's determination to keep on fighting, Diana A will never die! (but it WILL endlessly job)

Decent Armor, but pathetically low HP makes Diana hardly fit for even its Repairbot role. As a Super (even if only nominally), it also has no Mobility to speak of. To make matters worse, it's got a Movement Range of 5.

If it has any upsides, it's that it's a version of Diana A that actually has its Ranged-attribute attack be its strongest move, to go with Sayaka's higher Ranged stat (even if it's technically only tied with the Melee-attribute Scarlet Beam).

Even the Methuss is a better pick. Don't bother unless the Diana A episode moved you so much it made you cry. Which i wouldn't judge you for. It's rather earnest and truly makes you feel for Sayaka's pl- huh? N-no, i didn't cry at it. Shut up.

Boss

"If it means I can buy time for even a few of the kids, I don't mind getting chopped into pieces. And if i die... tell Kabuto he was my best friend in the whole world."

Source Material: Mazinger Z Real Name: Not Even The Author Knows Age: 17 Character Designer: Go Nagai

Delinquent with a heart of gold, Boss is the mysteriously-named gang leader in Koji's town. Though initially they fought over Sayaka's affections, they would eventually become closer than even brothers.

Between the line quoted above, Boss' constant dreams about being saved from the clutches of the heartless Tetsuya by Koji in Great Mazinger, and following Koji to bumfuck nowhere, Japan, to fight literal aliens in Grendizer, Toei Boss is likely the incarnation of Boss that is most fanatically dedicated to Koji.

He's often followed by his two incompetent lackeys, Nuke and Mucha, but most SRW games featuring Toei Mazinger cut them for one reason or another.

Statwise, Boss is... alright, all things considered. He's completely outclassed by Koji and Tetsuya both, but he's still a few degrees of magnitude better than Sayaka.

Of note though is that his Spirit learnset is very underwhelming. He starts out with Daunt, letting him lower enemies' morale and helping with boss slaying, but other than that, he doesn't get much of interest.

Not really much of a point to using him, unless you hate Tetsuya for some reason like i do but still want the Mazinger combo moves.

Fun Fact: Not even the author knows his real name!

Boss Borot

Source Material: Mazinger Z Height: 12 meters (20m in Great Mazinger, inexplicably) Energy Source: High-Octane Gasoline Real World Designer: Go Nagai

Dan-da-daaaan!!! Lovable lug and friend to children all over the world, the Boss Borot is here! It's made out of scrap, it's a miracle it even moves, it's falling apart at every seam, and yet it somehow jobs less than any of the girl robots. Thanks, 70s Toei!

Well, you can't complain much because the Borot is such a perfect design.

Originally designed by the (then) trio of brilliant scientists from the Photonic Labs, who were kidnapped coerced convinced to make this thing at Boss and Sayaka's request. Since they made it in secrecy in a dumpster, this is the best they could come up with.

Boss is always coming up with convoluted plans to make the Borot fly... it rarely works.

It's bad, even for Borot standards. 5 movement, Boss has no sub-pilots, all of its moves are 1-range, until it gets upgraded with a 1-3 range move (which is also its only option to attack flying foes). It doesn't even have high HP to make use of Boss' Self-Destruct Command and its Repair Cost of 10.

Making matters even worse, it is completely outclassed by later Resupply machines. Diana A might be outclassed by the Methuss in terms of Repairing, but at the end of the day they're both pretty meh. You get actually decent Resupply-capable machines in this game.

Do not bother.

Fun Fact: In Mazinger Z VS The Great General of Darkness, Boss Borot is the only Photonic Power Labs machine to successfully down a Battlebeast... though it did destroy itself in the process.

Also, sometimes this thing is fucking sentient. Eva-01, eat your heart out.

[shoudesuka-mechadork]

Super Robot Wars is a tactical RPG video game franchise that crosses over a bunch of mecha anime, it's been going on since the early 90s. Three of the mainstays are Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Gundam. Each are considered part of the 'holy trinity' of mecha (The first super robot, the first combining super robot, and the first 'real' robot; this is a dichotomy I'm not going to explain here, since it's not the focus of what I'm adding, you can find definitions of these pretty easily).

Gundam and Getter Robo both had big upgrades for their main characters in the form of the Nu Gundam from the movie Char's Counterattack, and Getter Robo had the Shin Getter Robo from the original manga..

There was just one problem: Mazinger didn't have an upgrade. Sure, there was its older brother, the Great Mazinger, but that's not piloted by the 'main' character of Mazinger. It's not even an upgrade, anyways, it's a sibling unit that fights alongside it!

So, when it came time to end what is now known as 'classic' Super Robot Wars (the original story-based games consisting of 2, 3 EX, and F/F Final), Winkysoft and Banpresto (the developers) took it upon themselves to create an original upgrade for Mazinger Z that could stand head and shoulders alongside the Nu Gundam and Shin Getter Robo.

So, with a bit of a handwave in story, Mazinkaiser was born.

Mazinkaiser became the bog-standard upgrade for Mazinger Z in the games from that point onward. It got an original theme song, and it was super popular with the fans. You know who else it was popular with?

Go Nagai, the original creator of Mazinger (and like a bajillion other super influential manga...but not Getter Robo! That was his student, Ken Ishikawa). In fact, Go Nagai liked it so much, his studio made an OVA that adapted Mazinkaiser into Mazinger canon proper.

Personally, I prefer the more heroic-looking blue of the original Super Robot Wars design, but there's something majestic about the traditional black from the OVA.

Sorry if that was a bit rambly, it required a lot of context to explain.

idk if there’s some kinda term for this, but I like when writers give real props to adaptations of their work:

-akira Toriyama admitted the bardock father of goku TV special made him cry, he said it told a great story in a way he would’ve never come up with. This led to him giving the special a direct nod in the manga

-dav pilkey loved the captain underpants movie and saw it in theaters multiple times. He said he appreciated the movie giving Principal Krupp a softer side, saying he kinda wishes he’d done the same in the books

-dunno if this counts but some bits from western sonic media (such as Sonic’s love of chili dogs) were worked into Japanese works/stuff SEGA made

-above all, Gary K. Wolf thought the who framed Roger rabbit film was so much better than his book (who censored roger rabbit), that he retconned the original story into being a bad dream Jessica had and the rest of the book series is based on the movie instead

feel free to add any more pls

[therosecrest]

[shin-hero-buster]

the ZERO collab is also bringing in Great Mazinkaiser im boutta nut