Remember when I said that I’d be totally cool with JoJo’s related songs being remixed into console soundcard tracks, Game Boy Shine on You Crazy Diamond and things like that, because of that Sega Genesis Roundabout? Yeah, that’s apparently already a thing.
The 8-bit Smells Like Teen Spirit made me go look for a lighter.
Oh, but that’s not all. See, the JoJo’s thing is only fairly recent, but this guy’s been doing 8-bit mixes of all kinds of things, including this playlist of 164 giant robot themes. There’s a lot to sift through in there, including tons of Macross, like PLANET WAVES, lot of Gundam themes, and many favorite super robots. Now, that’s a big playlist, and I encourage you to click that link and go listen to them all, but here’s a few choice picks from me.
Sure Promise from The Big O
You Get to Burning from Martian Successor Nadesco
Theme of Combattler V
Tope! Duke Freed! from UFO Robo Grendizer
Flying in the Sky and Trust You Forever from G Gundam
And all the Getter Robo themes a man could want, including…
HEATS by Hironobu Kageyama from Getter Robo: Armageddon
The mystery creator of these has my thanks for letting me show them and may now step forward and claim their “Pretty Cool Dude” prize, because that’s totally sweet. Ideally, it’ll lead to increased interest in this idea and we’ll finally get that 70s style movie, “Getter Robo tai Gurren Lagann.”
Today is the birthday of the man we all owe so much too when it comes to the robot genre, the magical girl genre, the… well, anime and manga in general. Go Nagai turned 67 today, so let’s take a little time to honor the man.
Such an innocent face for the man who would go on to write Kekko Kamen.
We personally have a large amount of affection for Go Nagai and his company Dynamic Pro. If it wasn’t for him, anime would be a very different thing. Maoh Dante and Devilman were his first big contributions. It was violent, controversial, scary, and very influential for manga authors for years to come. They really opened up this idea that extreme violence can be shown in manga no matter how much the PTA wants to boycot your nonsensical demons that wear no pants.
No. Pants. Either of them.
Then we have Cutie Honey. While it’s not the first ever magical girl story, it created a lot of the magical girl staples you see in modern works. Transformation sequences, powers by costume, lesbian overtones and many other things, maybe most importantly that Girly doesn’t mean weak.
Pink is Power.
Now, as sexy as Devilman and Cutie Honey are, Mazinger Z has a special place in our hearts and a very wide range of influence. Tetsujin-28 started the “Big Robot Super Hero” genre, but Mazinger helped define giant robot tropes that we’ve been using since. Mazinger Z was the first giant robot machine to be piloted from a cockpit and not by remote or it just being autonomous. Mazinger grew into Great, Grendizer, Kaiser, but that little seed blossomed into more than just a series. It blossomed into the modern robot genre
Someone, somewhere is totally fucked.
I know, I know, it’s what you’ve heard about Go Nagai every time he’s ever been brought up, but it’s his birthday and we wanted to show our respects since we can’t send him a cake. It not much, but Happy Birthday, Go Nagai!
Ever heard of the Mattel Shogun Warriors toy line? They were a couple of action figures based around some of the popular 70s super robots, including Great Mazinger, “Combattra,” Tosho Daimos, “17 Robot,” and a few others. You may have heard of a Marvel comic set with Combattler, Raideen, and Danguard Ace, which has the Fantastic Four piloting Combattler at one point to my understanding. That came about because of that toy line.
Well, it wasn’t just toys that were introduced. There were also other products like “Dragun,” the Americanized Getter Dragon, Coloring Book.
It’s no secret that we’re big Dynamic Pro fans, and by extension, big Getter fans. New Getter Robo was a really fun show to watch, I’ve featured it in Super Robot Awesome twice now only because if I did more I’d never stop using Getter, and stands as one of my favorite super robot shows of the last few years, but have you ever wondered what Ken Ishikawa thought? Well, there’s an interview waiting for you as done by Hideo Ishikawa, Ryoma Nagare’s modern voice actor.
Yep, it’s in Japanese and not translated. At least entirely. You may not have known this, but we have an English Dynamic Pro Fan Forum, Nagai Again. I should have mentioned them earlier because we need more members, but I’ve been hanging around there for a bit now. Forum member Kamon was nice enough to pay out of pocket for a brief translation of about half. Here it is:
’’Chougeki! Shin getter Robo, Ryouma Ga Kiru
Hideo Ishikawa (Ryouma’s voice actor): Hello everybody my name is Hideo Ishikawa. Once again, a new enemy has arrived. Now there’s only two episodes left, I wonder how it’s all going to end? With that said, I would like to present to you a special guest Ken Ishikawa-sensei!
Ken Ishikawa: Thanks. I’m Ken Ishikawa.
Hideo: And just like last time, we’ll talk with the director Kawagoe, thanks for coming!
Jun Kawagoe: Thanks for inviting me to come, I’m Jun Kawagoe.
Hideo: Did you watch Shin Getter Robo this time?
Ishikawa: Yes, I did.
Hideo: You’ve watched it? What do you think?
Ishikawa: It was really exciting. Not just exiting, it really had strength. I was surprised to see the powerful scenes.
Hideo: what does the director think?
Kawagoe: I’m very pleased to hear that from Ishikawa, it makes everything worth it.
Hideo: Me too. I’m glad to hear that Ishikawa liked the powerful scenes. Were they one of the things which you had extra focus on, when you wrote Getter Robo?
Ishikawa: Yes, It had to be convincing. As when the three machines combine into one, like I mentioned earlier; How do you show such an absurd thought, and make it convincing? What should the characters do? It must be the biggest challenge. When you watch anime it’s very convincing. In manga you have to show the Combination in frames, but in anime it can be shown so fluently, I think that’s very convincing.
Hideo: Is that something you’ve discussed with Kawagoe?
Kawagoe: well, we haven’t really discussed it like that. But when Ishikawa drew all kinds of designs, we all sat down, and talked about how it was going to work.
Hideo: How involved was Ishikawa in the plot? How many of the ideas were yours?
Ishikawa: They just asked me to make this and that character, and that’s all.
Hideo: Oh, so everything else were Kawagoe’s?
Ishikawa: Yes.
Kawagoe: at first, we wanted him to design the new Getter Robo, and we thought, he might as well design the new third pilot: Musashibou Benkei. And then the ‘’Kijuu’’, which arrives in the first episode.
Hideo: What do you think of Musashibou Benkei?
Ishikawa: They’ve simply taken Benkei, Musashi, and made a Musashibou Benkei.
Hideo: Yeah, pretty much. Do you also think that if you put Musashi and Benkei together you’ll get a Musashibou Benkei?
Ishikawa: I suppose.
Hideo: He’s also become a pretty memorial character, which I think Yanada (Musashibou’s voice actor) does a great job with. Have you used some of the ideas from Ishikawa’s other Manga?
Kawagoe: Yes, I’ve always wanted to make an animation for the historical inspired works of Ishikawa, like ‘’Juubei Shisu’’ I wanted to show the wooden air battleships in animation.
Hideo: Has Ishikawa watched that?
Ishikawa: Yes.
Hideo: I was very surprised to see flying battleships in the Heian-period, it’s unbelievable. Really awesome.
Swords to the eyes, lighting to the eyes, pure radiation beam to the eyes. Super robot team up movies from the 70s were always great. You may also recognize this monster if you played some of the Super Robot Wars games.
Great Mazinger vs. Getter Robo. I’m not sure what the song is for this one. I assume it’s the movie’s theme, but I don’t know what it’s called.
“Dragun” supporting his local paperboy union.
