As a Kid, I was a huge fan of those Japanese “Giant Robot” series like YUUSHA RAIDEEN and GETTA ROBO-G, so I was particularly THRILLED when it was announced that Kaimuki Theater (which was just up the street from my house!) would be showing a serial of 13 episodes featuring a Robot called MAZINGER –Z!!
I begged my cousin to go with me, and so we, along with my little brothers, trudged up to that theater with wrinkled dollars in hand (75¢ for me and my cousin, 50¢ for my sibs) and was introduced for the first time to Mazinger Z, the incredible Go Nagai giant super alloy robot with the hover plane controlling him from his head, heat rays from his chest, and detachable rocket punches! Add to this the most exciting, catchy and action packed beginning credits featuring Mazinger Z dramatically rising up out of a Swimming Pool and proceeding to make quick work of several super-villain robots? How cool was that?! I was HOOKED!
After about three weeks in, my cousin lost interest in the series and decided it wasn’t worth the trek up that steep hill every weekend, and eventually even my brothers began to find other things to do on those Saturdays, but not me. It was, for me, one of the coolest things I’d even seen, and I loved it more and more with each episode! In fact, out of that entire 13 week run, I only missed two episodes- one because my Aunt had packed all of us up to go to Paradise Park (where I was bitten by a Parrot, but I digress) and the other because my whole family had gone to Maui! The entire trip I was wringing my hands knowing one of the precious 13 episodes was slipping away!
Though I could sometimes drag my littlest brother along with bribes of candy (our faves Junior Mints or Tart ‘n’Tinys) or talk my friend Jas into accompanying me, for the most part I was usually alone on my weekly dosages of mechanical carnage, and so I was quite happy when this quirky white kid (whose name now forever escapes me) sat behind me and struck up a conversation about how much he loved the Mazinger Z series as well!
After the movie was over, we were still sitting in the theater talking about our favorite Giant Robots, and I was to find he was in fact, quite knowledgeable on the subject! Outside of the theater, they had posted up this lobby poster for the series which hung there for the entire 13 week run, and when I pointed to it and gushed about how much I would love to have that poster of Mazinger Z, he said (in a very scholarly tone, I might add) “Well, You know, the robot on this poster actually isn’t Mazinger-Z…It’s his brother, the deluxe version of him called GREAT MAZINGER.”
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| Mazinger Z, Great Majinga |
I. Was. Floored. WTH! What did he MEAN? Who WAS this “Great Mazinger (or, rather, he pronounced it “Great MaJINga”, and so did I, after that) that he was talking about? As far as I could see, this poster looked exactly like Mazinger Z! What made him think this was that OTHER brother?
“If you take a look at his chest”, the boy began, “You’ll see that, unlike Mazinger Z, Great Majinga’s chest bar is connected, and he can take it off and throw it like a boomerang!” I looked, and yes, sure enough, the “V” bar on Mazinger’s chest WAS connected! SONOFAGUN! HOW COOL!
“Next, he continued, “If you’ll look at the plane in his head, it’s like this super jet, NOT the hovercraft one Mazinger Z uses. The Jet flies straight down into the head unlike the hover which lands flat right on top of the head.” “Oh, and one more thing,” he added with a bit of flair,” unlike Mazinger Z who comes out of a swimming Pool, Great Majinga comes out of the OCEAN!!”
HOLY CRAP!!! I was SOOOOOOO fricking blown away by this knowledge! How unbelievably amazing was that? At that point in my life I would have done ANYTHING to be able to see one of THOSE episodes, but all I could do was pray that when the 13 episodes ended, they would follow it with Great Majinga!
Well, by the time that final 13th episode came around, that was that. No more giant robot cartoons followed, and I knew I was lucky enough to have gotten those 13 in the first place! I would find out much later that the original Mazinger Z series had like 100 episodes or something, so who knows why they only showed 13, but seeing as how I was about the only kid in the neighborhood who made it there each week, perhaps it was a wise choice.
As fate would have it, just as the serial was wrapping and summer was coming to an end, I happened to stop by at Shirokiya the local Japanese goods store, and immediately made my way to the record section to see if by any chance they’d gotten the 45 single for Mazinger Z, as I loved those theme songs dearly. Well, they didn’t, but as I looked down at the 12” album rack, my heart leapt up into my mouth as I saw THIS sitting right in the bottom row:
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| Great Majinga Album |
HOLY CRAP! Now, I couldn’t read Japanese, not even katakana, but I knew DAMN WELL what I was looking at…Shirokiya had brought in the FREAKIN’ GREAT MAJINGA SOUNDTRACK ALBUM!!! Holy CRAP, Holy CRAPPPP!!! I would have sold my SOUL right then to have that album, but my mother came to my rescue by simply picking up the album and saying, “Well, this will be your Birthday present”…I just couldn’t thank her enough, I was BESIDE MYSELF with happiness!!
For someone who’d never had or seen ANYTHING of Great Majinga (outside of that lone poster hanging in the Kaimuki Theater Lobby), this was a veritable TREASURE TROVE of information! The cover featuring Great Majinga, his controller, and a very sinister looking robot that I figured (correctly, it turns out) must be the Head Bad Guy, and the back featured Majinga fighting (and expertly destroying) another cool villain robot with his ball-and-chain weapon, but it was the inside GATEFOLD that blew me away: a Rogues’ Gallery of Great Majinga’s villains lined up along a beach ready to fight, and two robots I assumed were his partners: A pretty “girl” Robot (complete with missile-boobs, which is SO Go Nagai) and a funny-looking fat robot with Googly eyes that I said “Must be the silly Comedy relief Guy) Why, this album EVEN had a sheaf of glossy T-shirt Iron-Ons (How 70’s can you get…!) of the heroes and villains which I promptly lost in the first month I had them, dammit!
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| Venus A |
Having had a couple of Tokusatsu albums before (Kikaida and Kamen Rider V3), I knew how the musical formula worked, so I was easily able to “identify” the key tracks of this new acquisition: Side One of these Japanese Super-Hero albums always began with the Opening Theme, and Side Two always opened with the Ending Song. Oh, and the song sung with low, sinister voices was always the Bad Guys song. So those were identified right away, and what awesome songs they were! The Opening Track “Ore Wa Great Majinga” was SUCH a kick-butt song, it’s STILL one of my very favorites!_
Beyond that, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the songs sung by a girl were the themes for the girl robot Venus A and the woman controlling her, and that the song sung by the kids choir was for the little boy. Rock songs were for Great Majinga fighting and about the guy controlling him, but my favorite of them just HAD to be the song I immediately recognized as the song that MUST be for the silly, fat Robot! Done in a jaunty “Bon Dance” style, this song was full of FUN, which always ended the album on a HAPPY note! Aw, How I LOVED this album!
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| The Fatness of Borotto |
A few months after that . I acquired one of those cardboard Tokusatsu hero books (the kind that everyone had of Kikaida and V3) of Great Majinga,and I got it, of all palces, at our school fun fair, in the “Go Fish” booth (the one where you drop your fishing line with a clothespin tied to the end behind the curtain and someone fastens your “catch” to the clip. Imagine my happiness when I pulled THAT baby out of the curtains! I tell you, I was so excited, I wanted to take the book home IMMEDIATELY lest someone see it and take it away!
And then for Christmas, the only thing I wanted was one of those huge SHOGUN WARRIORS Dolls (the 24” ones) of Great Majinga, and when I got it, I figured I was SET FOR LIFE and would NEVER want anything else again!
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| Great Majinga Book |
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| Shogun Warriors Doll |
Or at least you would hope! Much later, My friend Jas , who hadn’t seen since dragging him to those Mazinger Z episodes that past summer, had became a huge fan of the Giant Robot as well, and he told me that a few months ago, he’d seen a most awesome Movie at the Toho Theater that featured not only Mazinger Z, But GREAT MAJINGA as well! I can’t tell you how jealous I was, but I guess you can guess. He tried to descibe the movie to me, saying “Yeah, Mazinger Z was gettin’ all busted up by the bad guys, like his arm was destroyed and one of his eyes had burnt out, and then Great Majinga came and saved the day!” I WAS GREEN WITH ENVY!
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| Great Majinga / Getta Robo Team Up Movies |
Ah, those were the days, I tell you. Jas and I would go on to be the only guys who had a clubhouse that was deemed “a Jet Spaceship” and while that in itself may not be so out of the ordinary, we had the only “Ship” that instead of going into outer space, we’d pretend we were frickin’ driving GREAT MAJINGA! AHAHAHAHA! Glory Days!
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| Mazinger Z/Great Majinga CD |
As I entered high school, I still had the love of those Tokusatsu series, and eventually acquired not only the Soundtracks to both Great Majinga AND Mazinger Z, but copies of both the Getta Robo G / Great Majinga Team Up movie AND that movie where “Mazinger Z was all Busted Up” as well as several episodes of the original TV series! Jas has even gotten the entire Mazinger Z Trading Card set, his own 24” Shogun Warriors Majinga, and the Die-Cast metal figures off of ebay! Our love of this series has never diminished!
OH, and that White Kid I met in the theater all those years ago? Funny, despite his obvious love and affection for the series, I never did see that Mazinger Z expert kid again at that theater or anywhere else, and now that I think about it, he may have mentioned that he was only visiting Hawaii for the summer. Funny how someone you only talked to once and for such a brief time can have such an impact on your life! Kid, whoever you are, you have my eternal gratitude for opening my eyes to the wider world of MAZINGER Z AND GREAT MAJINGA!
