New Tetsujin, New Style. Man, is it a New Style

What happens when you take this:

And turn it into this:

If you guessed “daily life show about Shotaro Kaneda,” then you are psychic or already heard the news because I never would have guessed that. Yes, we’re getting a new Tetsujin show for the 50th anniversary of the original TV anime from 1963. Tetsujin 28-go Gao will be a little different, focused on the life of the main human character Shotaro Kaneda instead of regular super robot battles in the city, though that will still be part of the show because you can totally see Black Ox back there. The artistic change to what’s being called “pop art” is just a style update for the modern era. It’s goofy colorful, but this is a cartoon for kids to love new and parents/grandparents to feel nostalgic over.

You can look forward to broadcast starting on April 6th, so fansubs probably a day or two after that.

(Thanks to Yaraon for finding the story. Thanks to Oricon Style for the original story)

Happy Birthday Go Nagai!

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!

Super Robot Awesome – Tetsujin 28-Go: Afterburner Toss

My favorite part is how Tetsujin looks while standing there at the end. You get a real, “My work is complete,” feeling from it.

Episode 11 of Tetsujin 28-go 2004.