The choice to become a god or a devil. No, there is no choice. A machine would never choose to become a devil that would bring the world to ruin. But you can take control of it, and then what will you become. Can you make that choice? Are you even capable of becoming something other than destruction itself?
Shin Mazinger Zero is a manga that started a few days after Shin Mazinger Shogeki! Z Hen started airing and is a totally unrelated story other than the name and the basic premise of being a retelling of the original Mazinger Z story by a new author with updated art. It’s written by Yoshiaki Tabata and drawn very well by Yuuki Yugo, the duo that brought us Akumetsu. Seriously, the art is one of the big draws for this because, well, look at it.
In the future, a fully autonomous Mazinger Z, “a devil god with an artificial brain,” has destroyed the world. All that remains are barely recognizable ruins laying upon seas of ash and one man: Kouji Kabuto. He wallows in regret that he didn’t try to pilot Z but is given another chance to tame him by Minerva X, a humanoid android in this continuity. She sends him back, only in spirit, to a time before all this destruction so he can tame Z and save the world and the robot she loves, and she’ll do this as many times as it takes to get it right.
The story is huge love letter from a Dynamic Pro fan. Wrapped up in the story of Mazinger, you’ll find themes from Getter to Devilman to the uncountable amount of the sexy stuff in later volumes. Being a Dynamic Pro fan, the little touches to get all those in there puts a smile on my face. Mazinger fusing with Kouji in the cockpit blurring the line distinguishing them as separate beings is very Getter, and Kouji being consumed by his hatred and sorrow so that the power he would command to be humanity’s savor turns him into the greatest force of destruction for all things is pretty much what happens to Akira in Amon. It’s cool to see these applied to Mazinger because they’re cool themes already and now they get to be alongside and sometime fused to create totally sweet Mazinger moments. Kouji can’t do Rocket Punch outside Mazinger, can he? Fuck you guys, I’ll just throw my arm you severed at you. How’s that for Rocket Punch?
But some of these themes don’t mix, and it causes some problems with the tone. The first story we have is a very Devilman kind of dark with people being cut in half and heads of loved ones being ripped off to really fuel your disgust at the violence, but some of these scenes come right off goofy moments. The art goes all anime cutesy while Sayaka fawns over Kouji saving her by punching a machine gun robot in the face, and then suddenly they’re confronted by someone mocking them with Kenzo’s head. And later we get this page:
Juuzo apparently came up with or later appended to the name Mazinger a ridiculous and largely meaningless acronym like this was Gundam SEED or something. It would be funny in a 70s anime kind of way where you could get away with things like this by yelling “SCIENCE” at the top of your lungs, but this is coming off Sayaka being stripped, demeaned, and mocked as a way of putting Kouji in a desperate mindset. That itself is also really uncomfortable, but it fits into this idea of making you disgusted with the violence before you, so I want to think it’s supposed to be. But that comes off that other goofy moment and leads into this one, so the tone flickers back and forth leaving you unable to get your mood grounded.
This is only at first, though. Once we’re past this, is all Devilman style until the end of the volume. It’s largely consistent outside of that hiccup. That hiccup is just at such a key point in the story that it really stands out. The rest is still fun while being at times terrifying like the fight against Garada and Doublas. Also, it contains the most jacked Dr. Hell since the Mazinkaiser OVA.
It’s worth checking out at least one volume. You can get the translated Volume 1 here.
One Pixel Jump 