Great Mazinger

Great Mazinger is a fun follow up watch after Mazinger Z, but it is not quite up to par with it. That's not to say it isn't worth while though, it was still a good series. I'll do my best not to make the entire review a Mazinger Z/Great Mazinger comparison, but it was hard for me not to constantly compare the two since I marathoned them back to back. Plus, I don't really see why anyone would watch this without having seen Mazinger Z first.

When the show first starts it's almost like you never stopped watching Mazinger Z. Mazinger Z directly transitions into this ... series and even introduces the new robot and some characters. Things pick right up and mankind's battle against the Mikene Empire continues, now with more of a focus on the Mikene Empire rulers themselves. Gorgon returns as a recurring henchmen, and Boss and his crew stick around with Boss Borot. Kouji, Sayaka, and Professor Yumi are absent for most of the series. Tetsuya Tsurugi is the new protagonist and pilot of Great Mazinger. He's a very manly character and one of the highlights of the show. You'll see him doing plenty of hand to hand combat, as well as driving around a motorcycle that can use rocket punch. Jun Hono replaces Sayaka as the female sidekick. Watching these two characters interact is quite a bit different than watching Kouji and Sayaka, Tetsuya and Jun are far more responsible and mature. There is little comedy that goes on between them, something constantly around in Mazinger Z. Boss is goofier than ever though, so the comedy still makes it's way into the show. The new professor character is Kenzo Kabuto, who is actually Kouji and Shiro's biological father. Supposedly he is a much grizzlier character in the manga, like he is in Shin Mazinger, but here he's mostly a collected leader and acts very similar to Yumi. The new cast is good and gets the job done, but the chemistry that Kouji, Sayaka, and Boss had is irreplaceable.

One area I thought Great Mazinger was particularly lacking in was the henchman department. You gotta have good henchmen to make a good episodic robot show. The Ankoku Daishogun (also introduced at the very end of Mazinger Z) was probably the most memorable one, but even then he paled in comparison to the legendary cast of henchman in Mazinger Z. Gorgon returns, but he is ultimately under-utilized. The character design of the henchmen is whacky, creepy, and sufficiently Go Nagai, but there are too many of them and none of them really stick out. There were like a dozen of them and most of them look and act the same. Eventually I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, and then eventually just stopped caring. Aside from Gorgon and the Ankoku Daishogun, there was a surprise henchman that was kind of cool to see, but you'll have to see that for yourself.

Music and art is basically on the same level of quality. Like Mazinger Z, there is really classic old school insert songs galore that you find stuck in your head and anticipating. Somehow these songs never get old and always bump your attention level up. Most episodic robot shows have a song or two that always plays during the pilot docking/combination sequence, but having a vocal theme (other than the OP) that always plays is something pretty unique to the 70s Mazinger shows. As I said before, art is pretty much more of the same thing, which is a good thing. The apocalyptic red skies that are always in these old monster of the week shows are present and the cool 70s art is pleasing to watch. Great Mazinger has it's own repertoire of attacks, most of which are based on Mazinger Z's. Great Mazinger has a sword though, so that changes things up a bit sometimes. One of the best and most memorable episodes was a brutal sword fight with the main henchman.

Plot wise, there really isn't all that much to talk about or criticize. Little happens in the way of plot aside from the beginning and the last stretch of episodes, but I will say that the last stretch of episodes were very good, it was a satisfying ending for sure. Something that made Mazinger Z so unique was how Kouji had to start from scratch and learn how the use the machine. I remember thinking that the show was more in-depth in training the pilot, showing his development, and explaining the cockpit more than any Gundam show I've watched. With Great Mazinger though, Tetsuya is already a trained expert so there is no development with him really. The other major difference, which I kind of alluded to a little bit while talking about the characters, would be the tone. Everything is more "serious", mainly due to the leading characters being more stoic and professional. Sexual jokes are toned way down, and the only humor we really get is through Boss' crew and this bizarre supporting character that is an annoying talking Crow. I should note that having Boss around is really one of the show's greatest strengths. It was probably my favorite part of the entire thing if I'm being honest.

So if you enjoyed Mazinger Z it only makes sense to give this a shot. You may not like it as much, but it's a solid sequel to one of the most successful mecha franchises of all time, and perhaps worth watching for that reason alone.

Toei Great Mazinger is a darker follow up of Toei Mazinger Z , its a little weird at first seeing this is a Super Robot show , it's pros are the music and Kaiju designs, its cons are the storyline, and lack of Jobbers , this show is not long , nor is it drags like OG Toei Mazinger Z , this is a worthy sequel towards Z , also the opening is killer too , Its a shame the next show got rid of both Mazingers , Great Mazinger is a good Super Robot Anime , with flaws of its ... Episode by Episode writing , and it's very Monster of the Week Formula heavy episodes

If Mazinger Z is the forgotten legend, what does that make its sequel, Great Mazinger? Its score is about .2 points lower than its predecessor, and there is little if any online discussion about Great Mazinger as a series. While this isn't too surprising considering it's been 50 years since its release and that Mazinger Z is by far the more influential series, I do think Great Mazinger deserves more respect than it gets for taking the episodic super robot formula and improving it, turning it into something far more watchable and far more enjoyable.

Great Mazinger picks up right where Mazinger Z leaves off and ... follows Tetsuya Tsurugi and his friends and allies at the Science Fortress Institute as they take on the Emperor of Hell and his army with the titular super robot, Great Mazinger. If that sounds familiar, it should. The premise is functionally the same as that of Mazinger Z, and the episodic structure the show uses to tell this story is pretty much the same, as well. But it's what Great Mazinger does with this structure that sets it apart from its predecessor.

There is a notable uptick in quality in the animation. There were a few moments in Mazinger Z that did some pretty cool stuff with shading, but it's nothing compared to the lightwork that does on in Great Mazinger. Great Mazinger's signature move, Thunder Break, is a testament to how good the animation team got at portraying flashing light, and the different uses of lightning throughout the series showcase this well. More generally, the battles just feel more fluid and cleaner as a whole, and there are some frankly amazing-looking shots of character faces and Great Mazinger just looking cool.

The other notable difference in the presentation of the two series is that Great Mazinger feels like an actual super robot. Surely this is influenced by me being a modern viewer, used to a certain style of robot associated with the mecha genre, but the upgrades made to Great Mazinger from Mazinger Z make it feel more like the all-powerful weapon it should be. The Thunder Break really helps drive this point home, as does the fact that Great Mazinger's wings are inside of it and controllable at any time, not leaving it reliant on some separate device that frankly left Mazinger feeling a little more campy.

In fact, I think the biggest improvement Great Mazinger makes is that it tones down the campiness and frivolity of the original. Tetsuya and Jun are far more serious characters than Koji and Sayaka, and you can feel this in their interactions. Kenzo, the head of the Science Fortress Institute, feels a little more intimidating, a little more in command, than Professor Yumi did in Mazinger Z. All in all, the show tends to spend less time on hijinks and shenanigans, and what time it does spend on them often influences the plot of the episode in some way or another, making each episode--and the series as a whole--feel a little more connected with its tone and themes.

Even in a series that's episodic, it's a wonderful thing when the characters feel like people. It's a good feeling as a viewer when you can watch them grow and progress over the course of 56 episodes, however minimal this development may be. And while I don't think anyone, even in 1974, was coming to Great Mazinger for character writing and psychological drama, I do appreciate that this show went further than its predecessor in dealing with its character. Koji, Sayaka, Boss, and all the rest often feel like caricatures in Mazinger Z, shallow representations of character tropes that are static and unchanging. And while I praised Mazinger Z for learning how to tell dramatic and compelling stories within its episodic formula, Great Mazinger goes a step beyond in writing internal drama for its characters, and allowing them to grow because of it.

For example, there's a great episode in the first half of the series where Jun deals with feelings surrounding the colour of her skin, learning that it isn't someone's race or gender that makes them who they are, but what's inside. Around the midway point of the series, there are a couple of episodes where Shiro learns that Kenzo is actually his father who he thought was dead, and dealing with that new information. There's another episode where Tetsuya develops a fear of death piloting Great Mazinger, and another where he comes face-to-face with the consequences of his battles as a little girl's dog is killed in a fight. And finally, there's the consistent reminder of the fact that Tetsuya and Jun are orphans who fight as they do to save others from losing everything like they did. Whereas Mazinger Z felt as though it was mostly about the super robot, there are many episodes where Great Mazinger proves it is about the people inside and behind the mecha that matter.

The final four episodes of the series are a great culmination to this newfound interest in its characters. Koji returns from America and steps back into Mazinger Z to help fight the Great Marshal of Hell (who, by the way, is the reborn Dr. Hell who Koji defeated) and the impenetrable battle fortress Demonica. This reunion between Koji and Kenzo as father and son leaves Tetsuya feeling alone, as though his family has been taken from him. These feelings of loneliness ultimately lead to selfishness from Tetsuya, which in turn leads to Kenzo's death. It's the lowest moment of either series and it forces Tetsuya to admit his mistakes and understand that Kenzo really did love him as a son and that the family he was looking for was there all along. It's a really nice end to a storyline that had been lingering throughout the series, and raises the stakes not only by killing an important character but by asking serious questions of the protagonist, and allowing consequences for his actions. It helps that the animators did this really cool thing with Koji's eyes that made him look a little evil, certainly a little jaded, and overall I thought this drama worked wonderfully.

None of this, however, is to say that Great Mazinger is perfect, and while I do think that it solved a lot of the issues present in Mazinger Z, I also think by doing so it created some different problems. The first is that because of the more serious approach to the series and the battles, the more comedic side of the series feels a little out of place and a little more annoying than it did before. I'm talking specifically about Boss, Nuke, Mucha, and Shiro, the holdovers from Mazinger Z. Boss and his gang especially went from probably my favourite characters of Mazinger Z to my least favourite in Great Mazinger, all because they didn't really fit with what the show was tryng to do. Similarly, Shiro felt much whinier and much more childish than he did in the previous series because he was contrasted with adults instead of teenagers who also tended to act a little childish. The result of these characters being there and plotlines still being written for them was that there were times when the show felt confused, when it wans't sure how campy to be or how serious to be, caught between the light-heartedness of Mazinger Z and the more serious direction Great Mazinger began to lean in.

This series also has a big issue with pacing. There are a number of episodes where the majority of the episode is just the battle. And while I do in some ways prefer this to Mazinger Z spending half an episode on nothing, I don't think the fights are interesting enough to warrant 17 minutes, either. There are also a few times where an episode ending showed the enemies celebrating the defeat of Great Mazinger only for it to appear a moment later safe and back at the SFI, with no acknowledgement from the antagonists. There were only a few of these instances but they were pretty jarring and screamed of the staff trying to fit as much in as possible. Speaking of cramming, Sayaka's inclusion in the last two episodes literally came out of nowhere. She kind of just shows up in a scene, and it's as though she's always been there, which again speaks to issues with pacing. It's more on an episode-to-episode basis rather than the pacing of the series overall, but still, it does leave things feeling a little cheap.
The question, of course, is does it hold up today? To be honest, I'm not sure. I think it's far more watchable than Mazinger Z, mainly because of the improved animation and character writing, but as with its predecessor I think you can leave it on the shelf unless you're a mecha nerd. One thing I will say is that it's influence, while not comparable with Mazinger Z, is definitely underrated. I only realized while watching how much of an impact it had on my favourite anime, Gurren Lagann, with it's Drill Punch and Thunder Break and two-faced enemies.

But while Mazinger Z might have had a greater impact, I do feel like Great Mazinger is the better show, and, at least for me, far more enjoyable. It takes some really great steps forward and while it doesn't always work perfectly, I have to give the series credit for trying and ending up in a pretty cool place.

I think it's fair to say Great Mazinger is the forgotten younger brother of the franchise, but I don't think it should be. It's a good show in its own right, and I hope it one day it gets that respect.