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Mazinger Z, in Japanese: マジンガーZ, known briefly as Tranzor Z in the United States, is a Japanese super robot manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai.
The first manga version was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from October 1972 to August 1973, and it later was reissued in Kodansha TV Magazine from October 1973 to September 1974.
It was adapted into an anime television series which aired on Fuji TV from December 1972 to September 1974. A second manga series was released alongside the TV show, this one drawn by Gosaku Ota, which started and ended almost at the same time as the TV show.
Mazinger Z has spawned several sequels and spin-off series, among them being Great Mazinger, UFO Robot Grendizer and Mazinkaiser.
Mazinger Z: Infinity, a theatrical film sequel, taking place 10 years after the Great Mazinger series, was animated by Toei Animation and released in theaters on January 13, 2018.
In his Manga Works series, Go Nagai reveals that he had always loved Tetsuwan Atom and Tetsujin-28 as a child, and wanted to make his own robot anime. However, for the longest time he was unable to produce a concept that he felt did not borrow too heavily from those two shows.
One day, Nagai observed a traffic jam and mused to himself that the drivers in back would surely love a way to bypass the ones in front. From that thought came his ultimate inspiration: a giant robot that could be controlled from the inside, like a car.
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In his original concepts, the titular robot was Energer Z, which was controlled by a motorcycle that was driven up its back and into its head, an idea which was recycled for the Diana A robot. However, with the sudden popularity of Kamen Rider, Nagai replaced the motorcycle with a hovercraft. He later redesigned Energer Z, renaming it Mazinger Z to evoke the image of a demon god (Ma, 魔, meaning demon and Jin, 神, meaning god).
The motif of the Hover Pilder docking itself into Mazinger's head also borrows from Nagai's 1971 manga Demon Lord Dante, the prototype for his more popular Devilman, in which the titular giant demon has a human head of Ryo Utsugi, the young man who merged with him in his forehead. Koji Kabuto takes his surname, the Japanese word for a helmet, because he controls Mazinger Z from its head.
Mazinger Z helped to create the 1970s boom in mecha anime. The series is noteworthy for introducing many of the accepted stock features of super robot anime genres, including the first occurrence of mecha robots being piloted by a user from within a cockpit.
In 2001, the Japanese magazine Animage elected Mazinger Z TV series the eleventh best anime production of all time.
Guillermo del Toro has cited the show -which was a huge success in his native Mexico during the 1980s- as an important influence on Pacific Rim.
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no less than 5% of the total combat strength
of the world's major military powers!
Kouji Kabuto
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