One of my all time favourites! It was between the late 70's or the early 80's. A special cartoon show from Japan came out of nowhere and quickly won the hearts of Arab children everywhere, that show was UFO Robot Grendizer.
From the mind of Mazinger Z, Cutey Honey, Getter Robo and Devilman creator Go Nagai, comes a story that chronicles the tale of Duke Fleed, a young alien prince from a now destroyed alien planet who lands on planet Earth and landed in Mount Fuji, Japan. Wounded, he was rescued by Dr. Umon of The Space Science Lab.
Taking up the name Daisuke Umon, he began working in a ranch near the Lab helping out Hikaru Makiba an ordinary girl who helps out in Shirakaba farm with her UFO obsessed father Danbi Makiba and her little brother Goro. Duke Freed wanted to live a peaceful life, but when he realised that the Vegans, the same alien force that conquered his home planet have selected Earth as their next target, he is forced to use Grendizer, a robot built on planet Freed and which helped escape from his home planet to fight against the Vegan invasion. He isn't alone in his battle, joining him is Mazinger Z's Kouji Kabuto who unfortunately doesn't use Mazinger in this show, Hikaru joins in the fight and near the end he is joined by his long lost sister Maria Freed.
If you're expecting this to be another campy Go Nagai super robot show, well prepare to be surprised, this 72 episode anime made in 1975 has a lot of great drama, wonderful character development and beautiful music score especially the ones used to give the perfect atmosphere for a tragic scene which occurs a lot in the show. One of the many reasons why Grendizer became such an enormous hit in Arabic speaking countries was because it was the first "Serious" cartoon Arabs have ever seen and something different to other cartoons that were shown at that time like Disney, Looney Toons, Popeye and Tom & Jerry.
UFO Robot Grendizer could be seen as an Anti-War cartoon as it shows the horrors of wars (Not as shocking as Gundam shows or Ideon)as Duke Fleed hates war, fighting, and destruction.
Mazinger Z and Mazinkaiser fans would be disappointed that Kouji isn't using Mazinger Z in his battle but he is still an important character, him and Daisuke started on the wrong foot but then became a reliable friend and has helped out Daisuke/Duke when he needed help. Hikaru started out as a usual damsel in distress type of role but with more character but then she becomes a member of the team and gets her own ship and is quite the fighter. Maria, Duke's lost sister appears in the later half of the show then developed feelings for Kouji and was also hinted that he became attracted to her as well. This become a running gag in many Super Robot Wars games as well in the Dynamic Heroes e-click manga that Maria and main female Mazinger Z character and Diana A pilot Sayaka Yumi are rivals for Kouji's attention.
The other characters are great Umon and his crew at the centre serve as the men behind the gadgets as well as Umon plays something as a father figure to Daisuke. Hikaru's father Danbi serves as a great comic relief of the show, who started from UFO freak to a caring father who would do anything to save his family while still being the comic relief.
The Vegan empire had a lot of great villains like Lord Vega who is your usual Galactic dictator, but not all of them are pure evil, some do it because of their loyalty to their empire like General Zuril, while were forced to fight believing that Grendizer was an evil threat to their planet like in the episode when Vegan assigned a group of young Vegans mostly children who were trained to be fight and who were learnt to believe from Vega that Grendizer was an evil force bent on destroying the Galaxy. While did because they were either brainwashed or doing it to save their planets from an Vegan attack.
Although not as popular in Japan as Go Nagai's other Super Robot classics Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Getter Robo, Grendizer is often credited as one of the major contributors to popularising Anime in Central Europe (particularly in France and Italy) where it was called Goldrake. I hear it also holds a strong following in the Quebec part of Canada, Russia and Malta. 26 episodes of the anime were shown on American TV as part of the multi-mecha show Force Five. However, it wasn't a big success in the US.
With all the remakes of Go Nagai works that came out recently, I've been waiting forever for a Grendizer remake. Well, I guess the original anime is satisfying enough.
This anime is a MUST SEE for Mecha, anime and cartoon fans.
From the mind of Mazinger Z, Cutey Honey, Getter Robo and Devilman creator Go Nagai, comes a story that chronicles the tale of Duke Fleed, a young alien prince from a now destroyed alien planet who lands on planet Earth and landed in Mount Fuji, Japan. Wounded, he was rescued by Dr. Umon of The Space Science Lab.
Taking up the name Daisuke Umon, he began working in a ranch near the Lab helping out Hikaru Makiba an ordinary girl who helps out in Shirakaba farm with her UFO obsessed father Danbi Makiba and her little brother Goro. Duke Freed wanted to live a peaceful life, but when he realised that the Vegans, the same alien force that conquered his home planet have selected Earth as their next target, he is forced to use Grendizer, a robot built on planet Freed and which helped escape from his home planet to fight against the Vegan invasion. He isn't alone in his battle, joining him is Mazinger Z's Kouji Kabuto who unfortunately doesn't use Mazinger in this show, Hikaru joins in the fight and near the end he is joined by his long lost sister Maria Freed.
If you're expecting this to be another campy Go Nagai super robot show, well prepare to be surprised, this 72 episode anime made in 1975 has a lot of great drama, wonderful character development and beautiful music score especially the ones used to give the perfect atmosphere for a tragic scene which occurs a lot in the show. One of the many reasons why Grendizer became such an enormous hit in Arabic speaking countries was because it was the first "Serious" cartoon Arabs have ever seen and something different to other cartoons that were shown at that time like Disney, Looney Toons, Popeye and Tom & Jerry.
UFO Robot Grendizer could be seen as an Anti-War cartoon as it shows the horrors of wars (Not as shocking as Gundam shows or Ideon)as Duke Fleed hates war, fighting, and destruction.
Mazinger Z and Mazinkaiser fans would be disappointed that Kouji isn't using Mazinger Z in his battle but he is still an important character, him and Daisuke started on the wrong foot but then became a reliable friend and has helped out Daisuke/Duke when he needed help. Hikaru started out as a usual damsel in distress type of role but with more character but then she becomes a member of the team and gets her own ship and is quite the fighter. Maria, Duke's lost sister appears in the later half of the show then developed feelings for Kouji and was also hinted that he became attracted to her as well. This become a running gag in many Super Robot Wars games as well in the Dynamic Heroes e-click manga that Maria and main female Mazinger Z character and Diana A pilot Sayaka Yumi are rivals for Kouji's attention.
The other characters are great Umon and his crew at the centre serve as the men behind the gadgets as well as Umon plays something as a father figure to Daisuke. Hikaru's father Danbi serves as a great comic relief of the show, who started from UFO freak to a caring father who would do anything to save his family while still being the comic relief.
The Vegan empire had a lot of great villains like Lord Vega who is your usual Galactic dictator, but not all of them are pure evil, some do it because of their loyalty to their empire like General Zuril, while were forced to fight believing that Grendizer was an evil threat to their planet like in the episode when Vegan assigned a group of young Vegans mostly children who were trained to be fight and who were learnt to believe from Vega that Grendizer was an evil force bent on destroying the Galaxy. While did because they were either brainwashed or doing it to save their planets from an Vegan attack.
Although not as popular in Japan as Go Nagai's other Super Robot classics Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Getter Robo, Grendizer is often credited as one of the major contributors to popularising Anime in Central Europe (particularly in France and Italy) where it was called Goldrake. I hear it also holds a strong following in the Quebec part of Canada, Russia and Malta. 26 episodes of the anime were shown on American TV as part of the multi-mecha show Force Five. However, it wasn't a big success in the US.
With all the remakes of Go Nagai works that came out recently, I've been waiting forever for a Grendizer remake. Well, I guess the original anime is satisfying enough.
This anime is a MUST SEE for Mecha, anime and cartoon fans.