Archive for Doublas M2

“With a Little Focus, I Can Fire Missiles out of My Eyes!” Super Robot Girls Z First Impressions

Posted in Anime Seasons, Go Nagai, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinger, Super Robots, Text Articles, Videos, Winter 2014 with tags , , , , , , , , , on 2014/01/08 by OnePixelJumpMan

I mentioned when this show came up before that this is must be what it feels likes to be a fanboy. Were you to describe this show to me in passing assuming I know nothing about the source material, a group of three girls fight a group of monster of the week girls who attack them at the behest of crotchety set of eyeballs in their house with inane fanservice because there has to be so people will buy the figures, I’d probably punch you for wasting some of my braincells. Hell, I’m not sure I don’t want to punch someone even being familiar with the old shows in question, and yet here we are. Not only am I actively watching the show, but I’m actually going to vouch for it. Somewhat.

Super Robot Girls Z is a madcap set of cartoon shorts centered around moe anthropomorphized versions of characters and robots from the various properties in Toei’s vault initially seeming to be born out of the idea if it’s not up a skirt or down a blouse, no one wants to see it. There’s not really any other reason to make the Castle of Black Iron and it’s progeny into vaguely teenage girls with schoolgirl skirts, but Toei actually seems to be trying to make this series of zany cartoon shorts a series of zany cartoons. If you took out the normal style OP and replaced it with something like:

with the logo replaced with one of the girl’s faces, I could see this being the quick short that plays before the Mazinger feature film. The gags are quick, punchy slapstick like a building falling over like it’s a big block of jelly, or silly visual gags like Great Mazinger cutting up Doublas’s laser causing it to fall apart like a chopped zucchini, or both like Garada or someone getting blown backwards into the Jack and Mary King Burger Stand that subsequently explodes while Jack yells in his particular version of English.

That’s also a nice point the show has in that the side references don’t feel overwrought. We don’t linger on the King Sibling Burger Stand while the show elbows us going, “Huh? Huuuh?!” It’s there and gives you a quick chuckle, then it’s time to move on. The third episode blends these together all quite well. The girls are on a fishing boat for a throwaway reason and get to experience a few fishing gags like the shrimp mechanical beast girl being pecked at by passing gulls all at the behest of enormous fishermen who all look like someone tried to make a meat sculpture of a person but couldn’t bring themselves to break down the symmetry of the original meat cube. It makes a good contrast off the waif sized main characters and is a worthwhile visual gag, and this would be the best of the 3 shorts that have been put out.

Would be, but this potential for cartoon goofiness is in a constant tug-o-war with the other side that comes with the moe territory. Does the show stick to being a series of quick, funny shorts, or do we throw off all pretension of making something with potential entertainment value and shove some tits in the audience’s face? After the first two episodes were reasonably mild, even having a panty moment that actually felt a bit like an old style underwear gag where the character is just embarrassed because their underwear has some silly print, I was ready to let my guard down. The third episode starts with all the girls being shown off in swimsuits, but my teeth weren’t quite on edge. It wasn’t until we get underwater and Grendizer starts getting molested that I had to make sure no one was about to come in and ask if I’d like some tissues or a sock because there is no joke. We don’t even get the incredibly easy breast missile joke they could have made. It’s just a teenage anime girl getting her butt rubbed and her tits squeezed into the camera because the show is worried you might be distracted if it doesn’t keep a death grip on your libido.

So the show is half and half. There’s some legitimate laughs to be had in the gags, and the animation is actually all right in some places. If you’re a fan of the grandaddies of super robots, then there’s some good references that are decently used without feeling like your love is being exploited for easy YouTube hits. But there’s also the dark side where you just know that at least one of the candies you got from trick-or-treating at the Toei house is going to be half Tootsie Roll and half dog shit. It’s just that they’re the only ones giving out that one candy by Go NaWonka that you really like, so you can’t help but want to ask. Whether or not you can stomach the show comes down how much you’re willing to put up with for some super robot themed fun.

You can watch the show subbed here. I’d usually not do this, but Toei is putting the show on YouTube for free anyway, so I don’t see any harm. The next episodes aren’t supposed to be out until February, so until then.

Super Robot Girls Z First Episode Preview and Full OP

Posted in Go Nagai, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinger, Super Robots, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , on 2013/10/17 by OnePixelJumpMan

Information about this one has been pretty sparse. I don’t remember how long ago it was we got the first PV of it. You’d think they’d be all over giving us new info because it’s absolutely the kind of thing that makes you cock an eyebrow and go, “Huuuh?” Maybe that’s different fan demographics, though. This was definitely from a special held on it, though I don’t know anything else about the special.

Super Robot Girls Z has caused many western super robot fans to stare at it vaguely going, “Why this and not Great Hen?” Moe-ing up our favorites from the 70s in place of having Tetsuya Tsurugi in his modern adventure to fight off the Great Emperor of Darkness is not a pleasant proposition on its face. All in all, though, it looks like it could be ok. A property like this, especially considering the links to Go Nagai, is rife with the chance to make the big moe dollars by just cutefying robots and giving us lots of fanservice, but it actually looks like they’re going to a decent level of effort from these videos. The OP has some interesting callbacks to to the source OP, especially the original Isao Sasaki Mazinger Z theme, and as fanservice goes, I’ve certainly seen far worse. The girls are wearing outfits that are reminiscent of the robots’ and mechanical beasts’ designs and aren’t particularly skimpy or anything. I think the inclusion of the little Go Nagai self doodle is cute, and the way of using Pilder On was also kinda funny. I don’t know that I really wanted to see Baron Ashura’s butt, but I thought the same during Z Hen, so whatever. I’m very, very wary, but willing to give this a chance to be ok I guess. What I’m saying is that where Ashura’s skirt gets flipped? I expected that to be the whole show, and because it wasn’t that, it’s coming way under my stupid moe crap par rating, so maybe it’ll be something.

Super Robot Girls Z will run in January. We’ll see then.

Strike Mazingers Trailer Number 1

Posted in Great Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinger, Super Robots, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on 2013/07/29 by OnePixelJumpMan

This. This exists. It’s going to be a 9 episode series of 10 minute shorts featuring exactly what you see, moe anthropomorphized versions of the big time Mazinger franchise characters from the three main robots to Baron Ashura and various Mechanical Beasts, Garada and Doublas being who we see here.

This is weird. I don’t totally know how to feel about it because this is a moe anthropomorphization of Super Robots, and that’s dumb. Strike Witches was a stupid show from concept to execution that survived by managing to throw a few bones to WWII Era war machine enthusiasts . Taking that concept and putting it on classic super robots is not a positive or particularly appealing thing. I am not enthused by seeing these weird almost panties butt shots from Miss Mazinger or the flat out panties from Doublas right after seeing an x-ray of her jaw shattering.

On the other hand, it’s animated well. This is both a positive and a negative for the show because looking nice is nice, but I can’t get it out of the back of my head that this is good animation used for inane and at times creepy pandering and not, say, Shin Great Mazinger. I didn’t like Shin Mazinger quite as much as everyone else did, but it was a good show and a rallied a lot of old fans together. Someone else brought up that this wouldn’t be so aggravating if it was the side show, but this is replacing the main show.

There is a reference to Jack and Mary King, though, and I can’t hate that. This is only a small snippet for now. Maybe new trailers will bring better news.

Discotek Media Licenses the Original 1972 Mazinger Z Television Show for 2013

Posted in Mazinger, Super Robot Awesome, Super Robots, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 2012/10/06 by OnePixelJumpMan

Yeah, I’m not really sure either. According to this Cruchyroll article, Discotek Media has licensed the original Mazinger Z show to be released in 2013 according to this post on Discotek’s Facebook account. To quote:

Discotek Media: “Mazinger Z. Complete Series 1-92. We’re aiming for the end of 2013 for first box set.”

Completely out of nowhere, we’re getting the original Mazinger Z show in full on DVD in the states. It’ll be the first official true translation of this series and the first attempt at it since the localization Tranzor Z. We’ll actually be able to see reasonable subtitles and not things about crabsticks and Tall God Z.

This could go on for hours.

No, no more of that. Just honest to goodness old style Mazinger.

Everyone back there is getting that punch right in the face.

You’ll learn more as we learn more.