Wondrous Things - The Mazinga Z Model.

Why Wondrous things? It is a section of blog entries dealing with the strange "stuff" one finds oneself attached to. I may be in error but I think that the late Angela Carter once wrote about a sort of existential special room that we create for ourselves, which is filled with memories and objects as we pass through life. What would you find in mine?

Many years ago, when I was about twelve, I had a rather puritan turn of mind. All the baddies I read about in books or comics were ultimately defeated by their obsession with “stuff”. In all the great stories, the heroes were the ones able to cast aside their assumptions or desires for a “greater good” while the baddies were hamstrung by their venal obsessions and habits. Terms like “commercialism” and “consumerism” where, back in those heady days of Hippy idealism, were considered dirty words. So I imagined that my future self would mirror this ideal. That I would live an austere life and concentrate on "real" things like personal enlightenment, independence of will and self-sufficiency. I would not be as foolish as to become overly attached to material possessions and would live an uncluttered life. Perhaps not Spartan or austere, but a lifestyle definitely minimalist in application and a life suited to purpose and direction without the mess of nick knacks, gonks or pointless collections. The popularist Desmond Morris noted that our need to decorate our home environment is tantamount to urinating so as to mark our territory.

The road to hell is littered with good intentions and I ended up quite the opposite. I am a bit of a pack rat and have amassed a small collection of pointless stuff that I know is without any intrinsic worth but still appear as needful things in my daily habit.

A word in my own defense is the fact that it has been my experience that some of the most tidy rooms and desks have belonged to the most boring, unimaginative and bland people I have ever met!

-o0o-

A "MAZINGA - Z" ROBOT

When I lived in Australia, my father worked for long periods away from home. He would be away for a month or so and would return with his bags full of all sorts of goodies from his travels. One thing that I really liked and became almost a tradition was his buying me various die-cast Japanese toys. He would arrive and I would follow him around like a puppy dog, until he came to unpacking his bag upon which he would slowly reveal the presents he had bought for us all. One day he brought back a few strange packages that he had bought in Japan. I had never seen anything like them up to that point and the boxes were printed in this intense futuristic manner with Japanese splashed along the sides beside dramatic pictures of the toy in action. These strange looking figures were so alien and different that they certainly put my old Dinky toys of delivery vans and airplanes in their place!

One of my early favorites was a metal Super Mazinger robot. It had red wings, a black body and shot its fists at a press of the button. I kept the toy with me for years and my attachment grew when we moved to the Philippines and I found that the television showed a host of badly translated Japanese robot cartoons. On a Tuesday afternoon (I think) they showed the original Mazinger Z and it blew my ten year old mind.

Anyway, while I was staying in Malaysia for a short while, I walked into a model shop and found an almost one foot tall Mazinger Z which instantly compelled me to buy. I suspect that I had not got used to their currency and so any frugality was automatically shortcircuited in my mind. But the figure was so iconic that it was a "must have" moment! That also explains why the robot is still on my shelf, looking over my desk and can be seen while I type this out on my computer.

I am not sure what happened to my original die-cast "Super Mazinga" robot. All I recall was that around the late 1980's he had lost his rocket arms, his winged jet pack and his black paint has started to peel. He looked like he had been in the wars - which I guess was true as he had been involved in many childish campaigns of the imagination. He had faced off giant monsters, explored the ocean depths and been thrown through the endless bounds of Space. But all childish things are imperminent and are soon cast aside and forgotten - almost forgotten. That is why I have a "collectable" Mazinga - Z robot model. Although if it was suposed to be "collectable", I would have kept it in its original packaging, but where would the fun be in that?

I have seen a few copies of the original comic and the cartoon was very much a faithful reproduction that captured the imagination of legions of school children around the world. A quick search on the internet shows that the program was translated and broadcasted in South America, most of the Mediterranean such a Spain and Italy as well as in the Middle East and much of Asia. Curiously it made little impact in Northern Europe and Anime didnt really become popular there until the 1980's, particularly with the advent of the Transformers and Go-bot marketed toy phenomenon.

The cartoon itself was quite basic with Dr. Hell and his army of evil robots being the usual generic crackpot baddies familiar to many comic shows. The design of the robot was rather basic. The hero would fly his hover plane into the head of the robot and activate it. It could emit rays from its chest crest, fire its rocket arms and what not. It could not fly and much of the earlier background story had the hero trying to prove the scientists wrong by getting him to fly.

The standard story convention for Mazinger Z and, for that matter, most subsequent Japanese Giant robot cartoons was as follows; The baddies introduce their new robot champion, the robot goes and destroys something and usually catches the goodies by surprise. The hero robot is defeated but manages to escape. Que some rigourous soul searching, researching a new weapon or discovering the one weakness of the evil robot. There is another fight and the hero destroys the bad robot. The baddies are forced to retreat, vowing to return. The hero has learned a valuable lesson. Harah! But despite the cliché, each episode was enormous fun and I remember the series fondly. This structure evolved into the standard template that became de rigour for future giant robot cartoons and can still be seen in the scripting by numbers story lines of the endlessly repetative episodes of the much later but less original Power Rangers or Pokemon cartoons. I suspect that the popularity of those derivitive programs was because the consumer didn't know any better and the Pokemon card game was an obvious "cash for trash" ploy aimed at impressionable children and their parents disposable income! Don't get me started about that bugbear!

For those who missed this fantastic cartoon, or if you remember it and want to be reminded, here is the introduction to the first season.

Mazinger-Z intro. This is from about 1976/7.

Now the main theme music to both Mazinger Z and its upgraded brother Great Mazinger would both make great drunken karaoke songs! You want proof? Well here it is through the glory that is Youtube;

Mazinger Z Opening Theme Song - includes some original clips as well.

Great Mazinger Opening Theme Song (Live) - sung by the original performer Ichirou Mizuki who seems to own a special red frock coat for such robot themed events.

Although I only knew enough Japanese to get myself to the toilet (but not back again), I could sing the Mazinga Z song by heart! After all the years that have passed since then, I may no longer be able to sing that song but when hear it, I still get that shiver of excitement!

But I must confess, although I fondly remember the Mazinger Z cartoon and as a grown man have a model of it on my shelf , Mazinger Z was not my favorite show. That goes to DAIMOS and VOLTES V. Both were made a few years later and the quality of the animation was generally better. Yet with that in mind, there will always be a special place for Mazinger Z in the heart of this particular Fan Boy.That is why my Mazinger Z reproduction statuette retains its pride of place on my bookcase.