Mazinga, Goldrake, Jeeg, And Other Japanese Super Robots From My (Italian) Youth

There was no Sesame Street for me growing up in Italy. I'm guessing this is because Big Bird translates literally into Uccello Grande, which is slang for "Big Dick", and who wants to learn anything from a walking, eight-foot-tall dick joke? Not me, that's for sure.

There were, however, a slew of Japanese cartoons that managed to keep my eyes on the television long enough for my mother to get stuff done around the house. Around the late 70s to early 80s especially, there was a huge influx of Japanese Super Robot anime to Italian television.

This genre is characterized by, as some nerd on Wikipedia puts it:

a giant robot, or mecha, with an arsenal of fantastic super-powered weapons... sometimes transformable or combined from two or more robots and/or vehicles usually piloted by young, daring heroes, and often shrouded by mystical or legendary origins... The Super Robot anime shows are usually named after the title robot, and tend to use a "monster of the week" format in that the villains introduce a single antagonist at the beginning of the episode that the heroes usually defeat by its end. Antagonists tended to come from either outer space or ancient civilizations... Many foes employed robot or cyborg henchmen, whom they often sent against the heroes in their robot. The goals of these antagonists varied, although many were megalomaniacal or outright genocidal in their ambitions.

The best-known example of this genre to American viewers is the 1981 cartoon, originally called Beast King GoLion in Japan, that was dubbed and edited in the mid-8os as Voltron to become a hit series and pop-culture icon in the States.

But before there was Voltron, there were oodles of other cool Super Robot series around—in fact, over 60 mecha shows were created in Japan between 1972 and 1988. These led the way for shows like Transformers, Mobile Suit Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even live action Super Sentai shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

While most of the Super Robot shows were practically interchangeable, from their storylines down to their characters, each one managed to have at least a few memorable characteristics that have stuck with me throughout the years. I've listed some of my favorite Super Robot animes from the era, complete with their obligatory Italian-dubbed theme songs, below.

Enjoy:

Mazinga (aka Mazinger Z; Tranzor Z)

Original Run: 1972-74 (92 Episodes)

Legacy: The O.G. of Super Robot shows, Mazinga was the mold around which the genre was shaped.

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Tekkaman: Il Cavaliere Dello Spazio (aka Uchu No Kishi Tekkaman)

Original Run: 1975 (26 Episodes)

Legacy: Tekkaman was the first Super Robot that was a humanoid instead of just a big machine piloted by a human. However, this did not change the fact that, even at an early age, it was confounding to me that a civilization that possessed the technology to build giant space robots, would still choose to send them into battle wielding swords, instead of cannons, or lasers, or smart bombs, or anything remotely more sophisticated than a fucking sword.

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Goldrake (aka UFO Robot Gredinzer)

Original Run: 1975-77 (74 Episodes)

Legacy: Probably the most iconic Super Robot show that was ever shown in Italy, Goldrake was wildly popular. In fact, I still have my diecast toy figure from the late 70s; it's perhaps the only toy I've hung on to after all these years. Goldrake was also the coolest looking Super Robot, there was something art deco about its lines that really appealed to me.

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Jeeg: Robot D'Acciaio (aka Kotetsu Jeeg)

Original Run: 1975-77 (46 Episodes)

Legacy: The opening theme song is by far my favorite from the period. Even though it's dubbed in Italian, the phrasing is totally Japanese and it's fun to hear the singer try to match all the wild inflections. As a child, I made up my own gibberish version of the lyrics which I would sing ad nauseam to amuse/annoy my sister.

*Starting at 0:31 in the video, sing along: "Yak bau! Niraianisu. Yak bau! Niraianisu..."

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Daitarn 3 (aka Muteki Kujin Daitan 3)

Original Run: 1978-79 (40 Episodes)

Legacy: The 3 in Daitarn's name is derived from the three parts that make up the Super Robot. This tranforming and conjoining aspect was later borrowed by iconic shows like Voltron and Transformers.

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Gordian (aka Toshi Gardian)

Original Run: 1979-81 (73 Episodes)

Legacy: Gordian took the matryoshka (or Russian nesting dolls) approach to how the Super Robot would transform. The pilot would get into three progressively larger robotic body suits that eventually made up the largest robot, Garbin. They could have probably done away with the smaller suits and saved some time.

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Trider G7 (aka Muteki Robotoraida G7)

Original Run: 1980-81 (50 Episodes)

Legacy: I actually don't remember anything about this show except for the opening theme. Seriously, these shows were pretty much all the same.

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Baldios: Il Guerriero Dello Spazio (aka Uchu Senshi Barudiosu)

Original Run: 1980-81 (32 Episodes)

Legacy: This show had the most depressing ending to it than any other Super Robot series. Spoiler alert: the bad guys destroy Earth by triggering a giant Tsunami that floods the planet, killing everyone. The heroes lose, the end. That's some heavy shit for a child to deal with, believe me.

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Voltron (aka Beast King GoLion)

Original Run: 1981-82 (52 Episodes)

Legacy: Well, this one is easy. By far, the most popular Super Robot exported to America from Japan ever. They're even making a big budget live-action Hollywood movie about it, for chrissakes. Look for it in 2011 to possibly suck even more than Transformers and GI Joe.

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Stay tuned for a second instalment featuring non-Super-Robot-related Japanese cartoons from my youth, such as Devilman, Kenshiro, Knights of the Zodiac, and Tigerman.

Bazookaluca Classics: One Thing I Love About Japanese People

Since writing new content for this blog takes time, energy and, let's face it, I'm inherintly lazy, I thought I would revisit some of my favorite entries from over the years.

Here's one where I examine my infatuation with a little Japanese program called Sasuke, better known in America as Ninja Warrior. I use it to make some parallels about Japanese culture versus American culture and how failure and success are evaluated in each respective society.

It's a fun piece, perfect for a nice little Saturday. Enjoy:

One Thing I Love About Japanese People

One Thing I Love About Japanese People

Japanese culture has always fascinated me. I think this is mostly due to the fact that it seems so palpably foreign to a Westerner like myself that it might as well be from another planet. Some aspects of it appear utopian, some seem alien and extrinsic, and others are downright wacky.

There's a Japanese television show on G4 that you might have seen called Ninja Warrior (Sasuke is the original title) that I find fascinating on several levels and taught me a thing or two about our Asian friends. If you haven't seen it, it's basically a game show where 100 people attempt to complete a set of increasingly difficult physical challenges in order to be crowned the ultimate Ninja Warrior.

The 4 Stages involve obstacles that test the competitors' agility, strength and stamina, all characteristics vital to a stealthy feudal assassin. Most stages are stringently timed in order to weed out the unninja-like weaklings and ensure that only the Darwinian cream of the crop advance. The contestants range from Olympic athletes, to common working folk, to downright crazy people seeking some notoriety. The show has been very popular in Japan since its inception in 1997 and some of the recurrent contestants have become local celebrities.

Here's one of the show's more colorful elderly contestant, known as The Octopus, going through Stage 1:

As you can see, watching people fail is a pretty entertaining part of the show. It's also the typical outcome since only a handful of the original 100 contestants even make it to Stage 2, and it only gets exponentially harder from there in Stage 3 and Stage 4. This is what really fascinates me about the mindset of the show (and, in turn, of Japanese culture) because over the course of nineteen seasons, only two men have ever completed all four stages, Kazuhiko Akiyama and Makato Nagamo.

100 contestants have competed for every one of the show's 19 seasons, so that means that there have been 1,898 failed attempts at becoming the ultimate Ninja Warrior. Only 0.00105% of the people that participate reach the ultimate goal.

This ratio of success to failure would never fly in the United States, where the ostensibly trivial Ricky Bobby motto, "If you're not first, you're last", is pretty much the raison d'être and the basis for all state sponsored propaganda. It's so American that it might as well be on the tail side of all the coins and engraved on the crown of the Statue of Liberty.

In the U.S., after one season of no one reaching the end, the producers would have certainly made the stages progressively easier until someone could reach the ultimate goal and sate the audiences' intrinsic appetite for a conventional victory at the end of every show.

But this is where the Japanese are different. Not only did they NOT make the stages easier after multiple seasons of failure, but they kept making them intensely harder. This is why no one even finished the challenge until season 4 and not again until season 17.

I love this irreverence to the notion of what it means to succeed and what a true challenge should be.

Could you imagine this approach to competition in American game shows?

It's inconceivable.

If a show is deemed too difficult on American television, the bar is lowered until someone wins. This is why we get the "Million Dollar Mission" on Deal Or No Deal where they keep changing the odds in favor of the contestants until someone eventually wins. This is why most of the current game shows don't involve any skill whatsoever but merely rely on chance--or in the case of Fox's Moment of Truth, just telling the truth gets you money.

American Gladiators is the closest in spirit to Ninja Warrior (they actually lifted a few of the new challenges from it), but there's always a winner and a loser at the end of every show and the challenges are reasonably winnable by most contestants. If they weren't, people would not watch it.

The American audience seems content with the perception of success even though the reality is only made possible by establishing lower standards. So in this case, the means are inconsequential to accomplishing an end. In Japan, it's all about the difficulty of the means, therefore making the end more fulfilling when it finally materializes.

Which viewpoint do you think is a more favorable approach to progress and benefits the advancement of the human race?

The answer is pretty clear to me.

If game shows are a barometer for the values of the culture itself, we're in deep trouble. It's yet another sign of the dumbing down of America to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and evidence to the growing glorification of ignorance. Instead of giving people something to aspire to, we're given something that's easily accessible but ultimately less substantial. Without the challenge, the rewards are less meaningful.

And I, for one, can't get behind that.

The Japanese, however, are setting the bar high and not only that, they're constantly raising it. They seek and glorify the perpetual pursuit to produce perfection. And that puts them ahead of us as a culture.

It is also worth noting that the Japanese seem to revel in public humiliation and, as far as competition goes, favor a good effort and humility over domination and boastfulness. Ego takes a backseat. This is evident in Ninja Warrior as the audience always seems to laugh with, instead of at, the contestants that epically fail, and always applaud their efforts, feeble as they may be.

Contrary to this, in the U.S., seemingly every reality show is based on ridiculing people's shortcomings and pointing out their flaws with no redeeming value whatsoever to the viewer, except maybe for a cheap laugh. This only perpetuates the importance of the individual over the masses and the lowering of expectations. It's easy to see that in turn an individualistic world view is only self-serving and does not lead to betterment of the species.

And again, I can't get behind that. I want to be inspired by true greatness, I don't want to be appeased by mediocrity.

You should want the same for yourself.

You can start here with sailor Makato Nagano making his glorious run through the various stages and proving to us that he is the ultimate Ninja Warrior:



Amazing.