Archive for the 'mazinger z' Category

Shin Mazinger site opens, title gets even longer

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

http://www.shin-mazinger.com/

It’s now up to “Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen on televison” and hopefully will stay that way. The bit of art on the website looks great, being 70s and modern while not being all 2000s and round-looking. There’s something wrong with Sayaka, though.

I noticed that all the voice actors were completely new people, except for one – the narrator Genda Tesshou, aka the narrator from Ippatsu Kikimusume and, apparently, Japanese Batman. Normally I’d be worried about that, but Imagawa does no wrong.

On a completely unrelated note I like this video.

Mazinger Z 6-10: Blogging is too hard for me

Monday, June 11th, 2007

I didn’t really watch anything at all today. In fact, I don’t really know where most of today went, aside from burning a lot of DVDs and doing some reading. Anyway, since I threatened that I’d do it last post:

Episode 6:
A two pronged attack
Sayaka sucks again but
Has a panty shot

Not much meat here at all. Skim.

Episode 7:
Ashura turns female
Turns the town against Kouji
Zambot 3… again.

You don’t want to fight?
Sayaka, get your shit straight.
That bitch be trippin’.

Oh fuck it’s King Kong
Guess who gets set on fire
Guess who saves the day

This summary is longer, so the episode must be better. Some of the conflict in the episode is like what episode 5 touches on, except it goes a little more in-depth, and it actually affects Sayaka to the point where she doesn’t want to fight. Thankfully, grandpa and little kid deliver passionate burning speeches on why we must fight, and so the day is eventually saved. Overall, a solid episode of old robot animes. Watch.

Episode 8:

Sayaka goes out
Gets her ass kicked by robots
Kouji saves the day.

A girl wants to fight?
They should know better than that.
Chauvinistic pigs.

By this show’s standards, Sayaka might actually be more moé than your average anime girl: tsundere AND uneducated! She might get out of line every once in a while, but because everything she does is doomed to failure, you’ll win her heart in the end! Did I mention goggles and a one-piece pilot suit? Although, considering that the last episode was nothing but SAYAKA, YOU MUST FIGHT, it’s hard to figure out what they’re trying to say here. Oh well, I can’t help myself–Watch.

Episode 9:

Robot Devilman
The doctors get hypnotized
Kouji saves the day

I’ve got a couple of issues with this episode: First off, Dr. Hell’s plan. First make a robot that can re-assemble itself when it gets broken apart, then hypnotize the scientists into letting Mazinger out so that you can re-assemble the robot that’s lying in pieces on the ground to beat up Mazinger in open daylight. I mean, first of all, couldn’t you put Mazinger somewhere where Kouji couldn’t just fly up into it? Second of all, why make your robot with the ability to re-assemble itself when you could just do something like drive Mazinger into wherever your robot is waiting? Or maybe take some of the money you spent for that technology and oh, I don’t know, figure out how to not get killed by breast fire YET AGAIN?. Really, now, Dr. Hell. I’m starting to think that you got your degree in villainology from a diploma mill or something. Skim.

Episode 10

Disembodied hand
Ashura shows up again
Brother gets kidnapped

Oh no, time to fight
Lazily designed robot
Evil rocket punch?!

Now, I complain about the uninspired robot design here, but at least they didn’t do something ridiculous like make an entire series based on the robot. However, this episode is notable in that Sayaka actually does something useful! Since the evil robot this time around apparently doesn’t know that Sayaka’s missiles are completely useless, he uses one of his rocket hands to destroy one of her missiles, allowing Mazinger to FINGER MISSILE him into oblivion. Good job, Sayaka! (`-‘)b Skim.

Mazinger Z 3-5: Driving From His Little Pilder, He Can Protect the Peace.

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

I’m not entirely sure why people would still be reading this, because anyone that wants to watch Mazinger Z probably already has, and anyone who read the first installment of this series is probably never reading this blog again anyway.

Episode 3:

Summary: Sayaka wrangles up the local bunch of no-goodniks who freely sling insults at each other “You this guy!” to challenge the new hotshot in town, Kouji Kabuto. But first, she has them clean up the house he’s going to move into. Once Kouji gets there and steps out of his van, (I don’t think he’s 20 years old but we’ll let that slide), he walks up to the troublemakers and says “Excuse me”. Because the directors are that awesome, this causes some dramatic music to suddenly start up, accompanied with close-ups of everyone’s faces looking really shocked, like he just set a box of stray kittens on fire. Coincidentally, this is much like what talking to natives in Japan as a foriegner is like, just without the dramatic music. They then engage in some fisticuffs until Sayaka shows up and gets them to stop. Men are such pigs.

The action then cuts to Baron Ashura, who finds Dr. Hell destroying his robot army, because he has to build a new robot army to defeat Mazinger Z. Destroying all that recyclable metal? What an asshole villain. We’re then treated to Kouji not being able to control the Hover Pilder/Mazinger Z some more while Sayaka yells at him. He gets really confident once he figures out how to walk, then manages to injure himself in a fairly violent way while trying to stop running. It’s no Ideon-style toddler decapitation, but it’ll do. Ashura/Hell figure that now is their chance to attack, and send out the fearsome GROMAZEN R9. The bad guys send out their faceless generic evil dudes to distract Kouji in his home (featuring posters such as MODERN JAZZ, I hope he goes to John Zorn concerts and grows a goatee on the weekends) while Gromazen goes off to destroy the research lab. Kouji gets warned about the attack, then takes off in the Hover Pilder, confounding the generic evil guys. Kouji gets into Mazinger Z. Some time during all of this, Sayaka decides to get in the completely unarmed Aphrodite A and stop Gromazen. Shockingly, Gromazen literally disarms her and almost steps on her until Mazinger Z wrecks his shit with his rocket punch. This will not become a common theme, I swear to god. While rescuing Sayaka, Kouji unintentionally dodges a heat laser or something, and Aphrodite A gets damaged even more. Kouji presses buttons until he hits the BREAST FIRE button and then he wins. It’s then decided that Kouji needs a battle suit that’s straight out of the 80s to keep him from hurting himself some more. The episode then ends with another threatening message from the bad guys. (“Those dare to turn against Dr. Hill won’t have good end!” Perhaps this means they will have a BAD END.) I think they get the point, but whatever.

Closing Thoughts: This seems to be the point in every long kids show where you’re right on the cusp of the monster of the week episodes. Kouji pretty much has everything down, he’s got his battle suit, and he’s starting to figure out which buttons to press to deal massive damage to the giant enemy robots. However, at this point, it’s still kind of fresh, so Watch.

Episode 4:

Summary:We start off the episode with the robot of the week, GAIA Q5. It has ultramagnetic power, and with it, they can control other robots. Neato! Then we find out that some people want to put missiles on Aphrodite A so that it can defend itself from attacks. (Massive spoilers: THEY NEVER DO SHIT) Where will the missiles go? Oh, in her breasts. Duh. Cut to Kouji being introduced to a new school as a mysterious transfer student. All the troublemakers he dealt with last episode, including the ringleader known only as BOSS, also go to this school. How will they settle their differences? It’s so easy, Kouji answers, by a BIKE RIDING COMPETITION! And when is a better time to have this competition then during school? So immediately after being introduced to the class, Kouji walks out on class, along with everyone else in it. Kouji wins the competition because he can do flips with his motorcycle while jumping over a dumpster, and he can also jump off of a moving bike and then back onto it. Sayaka eventually comes along in Aphrodite A. Apparently, she dropped out of school after middle school. Good, girls don’t need education anyway! While she’s visiting the school, she suddenly gets controlled by Gaia Q5. Then she gets beat up. Good thing Kouji is there to save the day! Unfortunately for Kouji, Gaia is immune to rocket punches, and then starts to control Mazinger. Good thing the scientists have some sort of anti-magnetism gun that they can get Kouji’s brother and Boss to shoot at Mazinger! Kouji starts his ultimate “randomly press buttons” attack until a missle comes out of Mazinger’s stomach and blows Gaia up. The episode ends with Kouji and Boss getting in trouble for skipping class. Glad to see they got what’s coming to them.

Closing Thoughts: I’m pretty sure that we’re firmly into Monster of the Week territory at this point. But, between the various missiles and Boss, we get a tiny bit of plot/character development, so I’ll say Watch.

Episode 5:

Summary: Dr Hell has a new weapon! It makes lots of illusionary copies of things. His “Ghost Plan” is so perfect, he’s sure Mazinger will be defeated. Defeated by what, you ask? By Kingdan X10, that’s who! Stuff happens, like Kouji getting attacked by faceless guys who manage to commit suicide by climbing up an electric tower and electrocuting themselves when they get caught by Kouji. We then learn what the “Ghost Plan” actually entails, as a mysterious copy of Mazinger Z appears, which Dr. Hell tells the good guys that he created. The town-folk see fake Mazinger destroying things on TV and then get mad at Kouji and co when Baron Ashura starts to rouse some rabble. Oh no, what will they do without the support of the normal citizens? Get in their robots and blow things up! It’s just like a Zambot 3 episode! Anyway, the bad guys use the illusions to get Mazinger to waste all his energy while they plant a bunch of landmines. While this is going on, the supporting cast of children try to see what’s going on with all this fake Mazinger nonsense, but then get captured by the bad guys and promptly are crucified. Why don’t we do that here in America? As it turns out, this is all part of the trap to lure Mazinger into the landmines. That weakens Mazinger some more. Then, Kingdan comes out and makes a bunch of copies of himself, then does what every Japanese villain does when he makes a lot of copies of himself: Circle around the good guy really fast! This uses up some more energy. Oh no, now Mazinger is out of energy! What will he do now? He must destroy X10! (you knew the joke was coming.) Fortunately, he’s not so out of energy that he can’t use breast fire and melt Kingdan X10. Kouji shakes hands with Boss and they settle their misunderstanding. Dr. Hell gets mad at Ashura. Episode over.

Closing Thoughts: This Monster of the Week episode is somewhat unlike most other monster of the week episodes, mostly because Sayaka doesn’t get in nearly as much trouble as she normally gets into. However, breast fire is still incredibly imba. Nothing particularly great about this one, I have to say. Here begins what may be a long series of Skims. Make sure to watch the kids get crucified, though! Too bad they don’t get set on fire while on the cross, though, then I could accuse them of ripping off Drifting Classroom.

This takes entirely too long. Maybe I’ll do the next round of filler episodes in haiku format.

Mazinger Z 1-2: Mazinger Sheds No Tears

Saturday, June 9th, 2007

Because he is a robot. Because he is a machine.

Before I start this post, I’d like to take the time to mourn the passing of youtube user Koike68, mentioned in the previous post. I assume that he was cut down in his prime by an overzealous PPGZ fan.

Anyway, while the rest of the internet was busy being outraged that a very minor manga publisher made a last-second business move by cancelling a series that at worst could have cause their own financial ruin, and at best could have lost them a modest amount of money, I was busy doing far nobler things. Namely, translating Sakigake!! Otokojuku and watching Mazinger Z. Who needs to keep current with one of the best seasons in recent memory when I could be watching rocket punche– scratch that, breast fires? Certainly not me. I’m only about 14 episodes in, but I already wish that one of these newfangled web blog 2.0 things had episode summaries so that I could know when to just skim through an episode and when to actually try to pay attention. I’m planning on having these posts go Summary, closing thoughts, and then a rating of either Watch or Skim for those who can’t really afford to watch all 200,000 episodes of this show. Note that paying attention is somewhat of a feat, since I’m normally playing WoW while watching Mazinger. (oh no my summer)

I’ve already talked too much for a post that’s supposed to be episode summaries/thoughts on each episode so here goes:

Episode 1:

Summary: The episode/show starts by introducing Intersexed (I will be noting awesome HK bootleg terminology in these posts whenever possible) demivillain Baron Ashura (Asla) and major plotting villain Dr. Hell (Dr. Hill, the HK version of this show must have propane-powered robots). Dr. Hell is the fairly standard hunched over supervillain that builds a lot of robots because he’s crazy while Baron Ashura is freaky as hell and is pretty much Herm Twoface. It’s very interesting to note that whichever side of the Baron’s face is shown on camera is the side that talks. This seems very impractical in real life, and I’m sure that if I was a film major that there would be a very interesting term for this camera technique. Many Giant Evil Robots are introduced. With such powerful army is equal to have the whole world. But one man is stumbling block.

Dr. Kabuto, with his newly discovered Japanium (Japanese Aluminum), only found in Mount Fuji (groan) can do all sorts of crazy shit with this metal, like shoot lasers at it and nothing happens. This is No.1 invention in the world. However, he gives up his lab, probably because he knows that 75% of important old professors in giant robot shows die before the second episode. Right as he does this, Baron Ashura is on the way over in a submarine to kill him. We then get introduced to Kabuto Koji, who has awesome hair and an awesome bike and if you can’t tell that he’s going to pilot the giant robot then you’re pretty dumb. Dr. Kabuto’s lab gets bombed, which is an excellent lead-in to one of the excellent insert songs. Also, Koji swims his motorcycle through the sky around town some more. Koji finds his grandfather (Who cause grandpa like this? he asks) who gives him Mazinger Z, the awesome robot that wears black briefs. Grandpa then promptly dies.

We then get introduced to the Hover Pilder, essentially the cockpit of Mazinger Z. Koji’s not very good at piloting it, and tries to beat it up. (It’s useless for his insignificant skill, his brother deftly notes. Don’t verbiage! Koji admonishes him.) Naturally, Koji figures out how to dock within a few minutes. Of course, he then figures out that he has no idea how to actually pilot Mazinger, and it runs around in a forest a lot and recycles a lot of footage. Right before Koji crushes his helpless, annoying brother, another giant robot appears and holds him back! It’s Aphrodite A(Afrota S), piloted by the foxy Sayaka. Koji gets mad at her for stopping his lack of piloting, and kicks her away. (You this guy! Sayaka curses.) After a bit of coaxing from her dad, she stops being mad at him. However, Dr. Hell has begun to destroy the city, and Mazinger Z is the only one who can save them! Too bad Koji still can’t keep it from doing anything but running in a straight line! What will happen next time on Mazinger Z?? Seriously, these robots are evil, they’re shooting missiles at tanks labeled “MOON OIL”. He’s gotta do something.

Closing Thoughts: For an introductory episode to a giant robot show, this was paced surprisingly well, and seemed to diverge at least slightly enough to make it interesting. Between the freakiness of Ashura, the immense moetic appeal of Sayaka, and the pure burning passion of Koji’s hair and motorcycle, the characters hold your attention. I’ve seen a pathetically small number of old robot shows, but the first episode here seemed pretty great for what it is. The HK subs help too. Naturally, Watch, it’d be pretty dumb not to watch an episode that probably has 20% of the entire show’s plot.

Episode 2:

Summary:The city burns while Koji tries to learn how to pilot Mazinger Z. Sayaka tries to teach Koji, but he’s too manly to learn things from others, for the most part. He starts to get it, then walks robot hand in robot hand with Aphrodite A. A dash of recap here, a sprinkle of predictable guy blushing in front of girl there, and then we get some more plot background: Dr. Hell was researching an ancient civilization when he found a mythical giant! No, not the Ideon. Anyway, Dr. Hell goes kind of crazy and builds himself an Evil Robot Army and turns on the other researchers. Dr. Kabuto was the only survivor, and thus decided to spend the rest of his life trying to figure out how to fight said Evil Robot Army. Oh, wait! They’re still attacking the city! Koji doesn’t know how to pilot Mazinger, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting! Devil Z”is powerful, butKouji’s control is so poor.He may lose in the fighting.

The robots face off and knock him down, then injure Sayaka. Sayaka gets beat up a lot in this show, and Koji saves her a lot, too. It gets kind of annoying after a while. Oh well! With a little help from Sayaka, his armor that his opponents can’t damage, the spirit of his dead grandfather, eye beams, hurricanes and ROCKET PUNCH (all unleashed by the secret Japanese martial arts technique of “press buttons on this panel until things happen”), he absolutely demolishes the bad guys. Mazinger carries weak, unarmed Aphrodite back to the lab, where Sayaka sits in a bed to recover. Then, all of a sudden, Dr. Hell calls them up on videoconference and tells them that he’s totally going to wreck their shit so they best watch how they step! Thanks for the heads-up, Dr. Hell.

Closing Thoughts: The show already begins to slow down, but thankfully we haven’t already hit filler. We’ve got a first fight scene here, as well as some great scenes of Mazinger Z spinning in circles because Koji is incompetent. We also have a little more backstory in the form of Dr. Hell’s flashback. The theme of Sayaka/Aphrodite A being in danger, then Koji saving her begins here, too. It’s kind of 70s-pleasant the first time it happens, but around the 10th time or so, it gets kind of ridiculous. As it stands, the only thing Sayaka has over Koji is the fact that she actually can pilot a giant robot. That, and her slim, sexy figure that’ll drive any man mad. MAD… MAD! er, Watch.

Well, originally this was going to be summaries of the first ten episodes, but it has taken me a good hour to do the first two episodes, so I’ll quit here. Since the filler starts to ramp up in the next few episodes, things should go faster from there. Hopefully.