#matsushima minori

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Original title: TaoTao Ehonkan Sekai Doubutsu Banashi | タオタオ絵本館.

[onepiece-song-tournament]

One Piece Character Song Tournament

Round 1, Part 2

Kokoro no Sentaku | Bone Holiday

[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.

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