One of the things I got with the money I received as a present last Christmas was Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact. I had heard some very good things about it, and it did sound engaging. I never saw the original Mazinger Z, but I did see episodes of the English dub for Getter Robo G (a series by the same creator and a similar art style) as well. I liked them enough that I watched episodes of it and the original Getter Robo series on KZfaq, and liked them enough that I would buy them on DVD. I also saw another similar 70s giant robot series called Gaiking on VHS as a kid, and actually bought the DVD for that series when it was released here in the hopes that they’ll release the original Getter Robo series if it sells well. I haven’t seen all of it yet but it’s not bad, though it does fall into a trap that some Japanese series do. It starts off strong, then it’s mainly one-off monster of the week episodes. Like I said, it’s not a bad thing (I think Getter Robo is great despite having that format) but you could do better than Gaiking. That is why I chose to watch Shin Mazinger/Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact first instead of the original. I am still a little interested in the original as it was the first giant robot series to have a human piloting a robot from the inside but it’s over 100 episodes, most of which I’m sure are monster of the week episodes. It’s still on my to-try list, but it’s around the bottom now. I’d rather watch a condensed version if I could.
So, how did I find this series? I loved it. After all I must have enjoyed it if I’m doing a video for it. In fact, to be honest I would rank it as one of my favorite animes ever if it weren’t for one thing; moments of excessive fanservice and fandisservice. I’m willing to let 1 or 2 instances slide but there are over half a dozen episodes that I’ll have to edit before watching again. So while I can’t give this series 5 out of 5 in good conscience, I do give it a strong 4. Everything that’s good about this show is really good. While I would have skipped it if I had known what was in it, I must confess that I’m glad I saw it and will be watching it again.
I am very glad this series has 2 openings, because there’s no way I could have crammed everything into 1 video. The series changes theme songs halfway through, and while the second theme is still great I prefer the first theme which ranks as one of my all-time favorite anime openings. I would have limited the footage to the first half (episodes 1-13) but 13 begins a 3 part story arc that ends with episode 15, one of my all-time favorite episodes out of the whole series so I decided to end this video on a strong note. Even with this limited to the first 15 episodes, it wasn’t easy making this. There were so many awesome fight scenes to choose from and I also had to show appropriate scenes for the slower parts of the song. I tried to replicate the feeling I got while watching the intro for those parts, and I think I succeeded. Overall, I definitely rank this as one of my better videos and hope that you will enjoy it too.
This video was made using Windows Live Moviemaker. The footage came from my official DVD set. I forgot who I got the song from. I do not own Mazinger Z or the song. They belong to their respective owners.