Related Research Articles
Force Five was an American adaptation of five different anime television series. In the United States, this series was primarily shown only in New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, though it did make brief appearances in other markets, such as Texas and Northern California on KICU-TV 36. It was also shown in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on CFMT channel 47 and in Asia on Star Plus during the 1990s. It was produced by Jim Terry and his company American Way, and it consisted of five imported Japanese giant robot serials in response to the popularity of the Shogun Warriors toy collection. Mattel was one of the sponsors of the series.
The Shogun Warriors were the main characters of a line of toys licensed by Mattel Inc. released in 1976. They were a series of imported Japanese toys based on several anime and tokusatsu shows featuring giant robots. They were originally manufactured in three sizes: 24-inch (610 mm) plastic versions, 3.5-inch (89 mm) die-cast metal versions, and slightly taller but much more detailed 5-inch (127 mm) die-cast versions. Several vehicles were also offered, as well as a set that could be put together to form the super robot Combattra. Toward the end of production, Mattel proposed the inclusion of plastic toy vehicles for the 3.5" figures to ride in exclusively in the United States, but these toys were never released for purchase.
UFO Robot Grendizer, also known as Force Five: Grandizer in the United States, is a Japanese Super Robot anime television series and manga created by manga artist Go Nagai. It is the third entry in the Mazinger trilogy. The anime television series was produced by Toei Doga and Dynamic Planning and broadcast on Fuji TV from October 5, 1975, to February 27, 1977, and lasted 74 episodes. The robot's first appearance in the United States was as a part of the Shogun Warriors line of super robot toys imported in the late 1970s by Mattel, then in Jim Terry's Force Five series, both under the title Grandizer. It was widely popular in the Middle East, France, French-speaking Canada and Italy.
Great Mazinger is a Japanese manga comic book and anime television series by manga artist Go Nagai. The story is a sequel and direct continuation of Mazinger Z series after its initial success. The series was aired on Japanese television in 1974, immediately following the end of the first Mazinger series. It ran for 56 episodes.
Getter Robo is a Super Robot manga series created by Ken Ishikawa and Go Nagai, as well as an anime series produced by Toei Animation. The series was broadcast on Fuji TV from April 4, 1974, to May 8, 1975, with a total of 51 episodes. The manga was serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday from April 7, 1974, to August 24, 1975.
Chogokin Sometimes spelled either Chougokin or Cho-gokin is a fictitious material which first appeared in Go Nagai's Mazinger Z manga and anime and is later adopted by Popy in 1972 as the name of a new line of die-cast metal robot and character toys sold in Japan - the first of these is "GA-01" Mazinger Z, which, in spite of questionable engineering that led Popy to offer a free replacement campaign, ignited a craze that changed the face of the Japanese toy industry in the 1970s. Bandai, the parent of Popy, continues the Chogokin line to this day, branded under their own name.
Super Robot Wars MX is a video game for the PlayStation 2. It is part of the Super Robot Wars series by Banpresto, and it was released on May 27, 2004. It was later ported to the PlayStation Portable on December 19, 2005, with minor gameplay tweaks, titled Super Robot Wars MX Portable.
Shunsuke Kikuchi was a Japanese composer who was active from the early 1960s until 2017. He specialized in incidental music for media such as television and film. Kikuchi was regarded as one of Japan's most highly demanded film and TV composers, working principally on tokusatsu and anime productions, as well as violent action films, jidaigeki, and television dramas.
Blocker Gundan 4 Machine Blaster (ブロッカー軍団IVマシーンブラスター) is an anime series aired from 1976 to 1977 in Japan. There are 38 episodes aired at 25 minutes each. It is also known as "Blocker Army IV Machine Blaster", "Blocker Corps IV", "Blocker Army IV", "Blocker Corps", "Machine Blaster" and in Italian as "Astrorobot Contatto Ypsilon".
Go Nagai's Mazinger related mechas and characters have many different toy lines, developed since Mazinger first appeared in the 1970s. Some of the most well known ones are described here.
Tomoharu Katsumata is a Japanese film director best known for his work on various anime works. A leading director at the Toei Animation studio during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Katsumata worked as a director on several of Toei's anime television adaptations of manga by Go Nagai, including Devilman (1972), Mazinger Z (1972), Cutey Honey (1973), Great Mazinger (1974), UFO Robo Grendizer (1975) and Gaiking (1976). Katsumata also directed a TV adaptation of Silver Fang -The Shooting Star Gin- in 1986.
Isao Sasaki is a Japanese actor, voice actor, and singer.
Kazuo Komatsubara was a Japanese animator, animation director and character designer born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He worked as an independently contracted character designer for Toei Animation in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a member of the board of directors of animation studio Oh! Production. He died on March 24, 2000 due to a cancerous tumor on his neck.
Space Ironman Kyodain was a Japanese tokusatsu science fiction superhero television series. The show, like numerous others of its type and era, were produced as a joint effort between manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori and Toei Company producer Toru Hirayama. It premiered in 1976 and ran for 48 episodes. The show is well known for its strange plot and costume design, rapid-fire and purposefully disorienting editing, and unique, sometimes surreal, atmosphere. The late Yūsuke Natsu and Takeshi Sasaki starred as Skyzel and Grounzel respectively.
The Shogun Warriors are fictional gigantic humanoid robotic constructs (mechas) appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics based on a line of toys of the same name.
Popy (ポピー) was a Japanese toy manufacturer of the 1970s and early 1980s. The company was owned by Bandai. It was founded in 1971 and merged back into the parent company in 1983. The company is best known for its groundbreaking Chogokin robot figures.
Grendizer, Getter Robo G, Great Mazinger: Kessen! Daikaijuu is an animated short film produced by Toei which premiered originally in July 18, 1976 in Japan. It is a crossover of three super robot anime: Grendizer, Getter Robo G and Great Mazinger. Like the rest of the Vs. animated films of Toei, the movie features alternate versions of events from the three series and is not canonical to any of them. The film was released in almost all countries where the original Grendizer series was broadcast. It is known as Il Grande Mazinga, Getta Robot e Goldrake contro il Dragosauro in Italy and Goldorak: L'attaque du Dragosaure in France and some parts of Canada.
3rd Super Robot Wars (第3次スーパーロボット大戦) was the third game in a series, the second in the "classic" canon, and the first on the Super Famicom, published on July 23, 1993. Along with 2nd and EX, 3rd Super Robot Wars was released on the Sony PlayStation on June 10, 1999, as part of Super Robot Wars Complete Box and June 22, 1999, as a stand-alone port.
4th Super Robot Wars is a tactical RPG for the Super Famicom developed by both Banpresto and Winky Soft and published by Banpresto. It's the 5th entry in the classic Super Robot Wars series and the last entry in the Divine Crusaders Arc. It was first released on March 17, 1995, and received mostly positive reception, with reviewers highly praising the improvements from the last game while criticizing the game's increased difficulty. The game was ported to the Sony PlayStation and released on January 26, 1996, under the name 4th Super Robot Wars Scramble.
References
- ↑ CollectionDX - NYTF 2010: Toynami They are made out of a soft vinyl, not the hard polyethylene of the vintage toys. Several other figures that were considered for production included new figures of Combattler V, Voltes V and Danguard Ace though as of 2019 these are presumably cancelled.