Pilder on!

one of the best super robot series ever, Mazinga Z.  I know, the "official" title is Mazinger Z, but since I first saw the Shogun Warrior toy- well, Great Mazinga- spelled that way, that's just how it's gonna be for me.  the show ran for 92 episodes, which is a pretty good run for a Japanese series, cartoon or not!

piloted by the brash and sometimes arrogant but always gallant and well meaning Koji Kabuto, Mazinga Z fought against the minions of Dr. Hell and his many kikaiju (robot monsters).  and there were a ton of them (some of which sounded a lot like Godzilla and Rodan, which surprised me the first time I heard that!).

I got my complete set of Mazinga Z from Hong Kong, which released them in about 2002.  the subs are a bit, well, I can't even say they are a bit "off" since some of them are just plain wrong.  sometimes hysterically wrong.

such as identifying Sayaka, the pilot of Aphrodite A as "Howard" in more than one episode.  what happened here, and in many other gray market HK DVDs, was that the Japanese was translated into Chinese for the subtitles, and then into English subs from the Chinese subs.  usually the plot is understandable, but a basic knowledge of the show is needed.  Mazinga him self is called "Devil Z" a lot, which is a near translation of his name ("majin" is "demon" in Japanese- マジンガーＺ, Majingā Zetto). 


anyway, it's fun to watch again for the first time in 7 years.