Anime Review: God Mazinger
In a time before history as we know it, the ancient kingdom of Mu is under attack by the Dragonian Empire. King Dorado, leader of Dragonia, has slain the previous rulers for refusing to give in to his demands, and the modified dinosaurs he creates using superscience are nearly unstoppable with the at best Iron Age technology of the current Muvians. But their ancestors once had superscience of their own, and left behind a great stone statue, the god known as Mazinger. According to prophecy, when the kingdom is at its greatest peril, a hero named “Yamato” will appear and join with Mazinger to save it.
Meanwhile, in modern Japan, Yamato Hino is a high school rugby player. He’s very athletic, but not one for the books. Unfortunately, the girl he likes isn’t into jocks. Plus, he keeps hearing a voice in his head calling him somewhere. He goes down to the docks to clear his head. His little sister Kaoru shows up to fetch Yamato home, but before she can convince him, a lightning storm shows up, and Yamato is pulled through a portal into the past.
Although understandably confused, once Yamato sees the Dragonian monsters attacking civilians, he’s more than willing to become Mazinger’s pilot and serve as Mu’s hero. His choice to stay is also influenced by the fact that Mu’s new queen Aira is very pretty and about his age.
Also on Mu’s side are the Four Swordsmen, the local elite unit. At first they seem pretty useless, and one of them has a bone to pick with Yamato, but they’re actually very effective against human-sized opponents. After Yamato proves himself in battle a few times and starts learning swordsmanship, he bonds with the quartet.
Over on the Dragonian side, the always-masked Dorado is served with variable degrees of faithfulness by a general in charge of the dinosaur units (I forget his name and he dies early on); an all-female unit of shamans with goat eyes led by the wicked Yoname, and his son Prince Eld. Eld is a tall, handsome fellow with refined sensibilities and a desire to be ruler of Dragonia much sooner than his father would like.
Dorado’s motive is not merely imperialism, though he’s always down for adding to the empire. The king has a medical condition that will kill him inside of three months, incurable by Dragonian methods. But if he can get hold of a piece of lost technology called the Lightbearer, it will allow him to “transcend time” and become immortal, so he can rule forever. And supposedly the Mu Kingdom hid it somewhere.
Even if the people of Mu wanted to turn over the Lightbearer, no one alive knows where it was hidden, so trying to locate this war-winning device is a running subplot.
This 1984 anime is based on a manga by Go Nagai (Devilman) and was originally proposed as a sequel to Mazinger Z before major changes were made that turned it into its own thing. While no ties to the previous anime appear in this one, it’s considered part of the overall Mazinger continuity.
Even for a “super robot” anime, this one’s heavy on the science fantasy, with the technology basically being magic 90% of the time and the shamans with what sure enough look like magical shapeshifting abilities.
There’s a lot of background stuff that’s never explained. Are the shamans variant humans or some kind of humanoid alien? Why do they all except Yoname look identical and dress in impractical outfits modeled after Space Adventure Cobra? Given the last minute reveal of what’s under Dorado’s helmet, what’s up with Prince Eld’s parent situation?
One minor touch I do like in the character design. Yamato and Kaoru are the only named characters who have epicanthic folds for their eyes, marking them out as Japanese as opposed to the more “generic anime people” look of the Muvian characters.
The monster design is just okay. “Modified dinosaurs” is a strong basic concept, but past that, none of them are particularly memorable.
The ending is…abrupt. Apparently one of the early episodes got pre-empted by a special event, and the network wasn’t going to let the series run into the next show’s timeslot. So the 24th episode got cut. The Lightbearer is a huge letdown as superweapons go, and the last named villain is dead, so the story just stops at episode 23 with no wrap-up or final background reveals.
Content note: Lots of violent death, often gory (though most corpses just kind of vanish–it’s a dramatic moment when one doesn’t. This includes a couple of the good guys. The weird “sexy” costumes on the shamans. Dinosaurs are painfully modified to become monsters. Prince Eld does not believe in unforced consent for marriage. (I am told that the manga makes him even worse.) By Go Nagai standards, this anime is pretty subdued.
Overall: This older anime is pretty average, all told. It doesn’t have any true standout qualities, but is competently made for its time period. Most recommended for Go Nagai or super robot fans.
