I love remakes! Believe it or not, but out of all adaptations, (ignoring the obvious recaps as Dragonball Kai, of course), these type of anime nearly always try to find ways to improve on their original series, resulting in some of the most amazing series. The same goes for the new Mazinger: this series knows exactly what it is: epic, mecha and action. And it has been by far my favourite action-series of the past half year.
Do NOT get fooled by the fact that this is based on a cheesy mecha series. The original Mazinger was the series that popularized the mecha genre, and it consisted (for as far as I can assume) out of a bunch of episodic stories in which the titular Mazinger would end up defeating some sort of monster that was set out to destroy the world. Let me say that the plot of the new Mazinger is NOTHING like this. It’s just taken the basic concept, characters, and did something totally different with it. The series is in no single way episodic, and it pays homage to the old series while delivering enough of its own ideas as well.
The creators put a lot of effort into fleshing out the past of this series, for as much impact as possible. They created a complex back-story around ancient Greek myths, science and betrayal. This really allows for a superb cast. Especially the half-male half-female Count Ashura has to be one of the most awesome villains in Giant Robot history, but the rest of the cast also truly shines.
But what really makes this series EPIC is the direction. The action is truly over the top, but for once they get it right and successfully mix it in with the more serious parts of the story. Every episode consistently delivers on the action, while also taking care of the plot, and it finds a really good combination between the two, so that they only strengthen each other. The creators really cleverly throw in all sorts of huge plot twists in the middle of the action in order to spice it up even more, with a number of truly awesome results.
True, this series does have the tendency to pull a lot of things out of its ass, but when you look at the big picture it all still makes sense. And besides, a lot of this is about secret back-up plans that the characters had reserved, which of course gets a bit boring if you have to go through all of them beforehand.
Overall, if you like over the top action you really should give this series a chance. It’s a series that knows exactly what it is, and it delivers as much epic action as possible with an awesome plot that always manages to pull a number of great plot twists. With an ending that I consider to be the single best of 2009 (no seriously, the final episodes in this series completely blew me away), this series exceeded all my expectations. This is a series on which you can always count to be epic.
| Storytelling: | 10/10 |
| Characters: | 9/10 |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 |
| Setting: | 8/10 |
Yea…this was nothing like remake.
It was a total re-creation from top to bottom.
I think psgels will love Windmill Gundam too.
It’s a pity many people will ignore this series because it’s based on an old series…
You’re doing a lot of series reviews today! ^^
The series is so retro in storytelling but I just love it for some reason. You didnt mention one of this series best qualities, the use of incidental music for dramatic impact. The rising volume and crescendo really gets your blood pumping during the fights.
It should be mentioned that Yasuhiro Imagawa wasn’t just the director but also the writer and perhaps the most prolific storyboarder of the series, so this really was practically born because of the efforts of one fully dedicated man, without exaggerating too much.
I still need to see the last couple of episodes, but I’ve enjoyed everything else so far.
I’m still amazed by the fact that there are fools in the world who actually liked this shitty series. One episode was enough to tell its a poo-on-a-stick. Imagawa gone senile.
I gonna watch this show since you say ” With an ending that I consider to be the single best of 2009 (no seriously, the final episodes in this series completely blew me away) ”
I hope you not exaggerate thing to much
Eh karry? Must’ve watched nothing but the first episode. :V
Finally watched the ending..That was one 0.0 ending..How depressing..
But why didn’t Dr Hell just ask for the photon energy and tell them about the coming invasion?It would have made things much simpler..
For those who were blown away by the final episode, may I suggest you rewatch episode 1 because it includes the ending past the ending of the series.
Deckard: Thanks for the suggestion. Now the first episode feels much better 😀
Can’t wait for Great-hen!
I watched this series from top to bottom and I never had more love for Mazinger. I can’t wait to hear what the next series or season will be since it ended with a cliffhanger.
I love the original because I grew with it, I even prefered it over a ton of series like Transformes, TMNT or Thundercats.
If people say this is a shitty anime, they don’t have any idea about the importance of Mazinger Z, if it was so shitty there wouldn’t so many people who like it and a lot of series created over the time(Grand Mazinger, Grendizer, Mazinkaiser, etc).
I like this new re-creation very much, but I’d like the drawings were a bit more serious and that the music had some songs like Mazinkaiser, but overall I think is excellent and worthy to use the name of Mazinger Z.
It’s not about whether Mazinger’s importance to the mecha genre(which i’m not denying) but the series is great itself. Even without the name Mazinger, it’s still great. While it isn’t much on the mecha action compared to the previous entries, when it does get to it, there are some serious ass kicking going on. But overall, the plot is what made me feel fuck yeah, not because it was deep or anything, but because it remained consistent all along and the characters were all genuinely exciting (except maybe sayaka and the mazinger army, but they were made to be humiliated anyway). This series I heard was produced with around 35 million yen, while a series like TTGL exceeds 200 million, or even stuff like Ghost in the Shell cost way more too produce. So for what they got, what they have done with Mazinger is perfectly reasonable.
Hi,
I am new to the Mazinger series, I had only watched random episodes of the original Mazinger series, thanks to the people who uploaded them on Youtube. I came to know by coincidence, that a new series has been aired, and after searching for so long finally got a web site that had all the 26 episodes uploaded. I watched the first couple of episodes and then jumped to the final episode(26), and I was shocked, because I think I lost the plot. Does the final episode reveals that All the characters die at the end because Dr. Hell who was suppose to keep the Mycanean at bay was defeated and the Mycanean army showed up immediatley. Will there be a continuation or that is it??? What happened at the end, what is the conclusion, could you please elaborate that for me, I am extremly eager to know…
thanks.
You made a big mistake in skipping out the previous episodes. Shin Mazinger is a story-driven show and it isn’t anything like the original in terms of direction. Skipping even one episode will leave you confused as fuck.
Also, Shin Mazinger isn’t a remake. It takes absolutely nothing from the original anime. The Mazinger Z anime was developed alongside the manga, and Shin Mazinger adapts that original manga and two other Mazinger mangas, one from the 90s, and the other from the 2000s and Imagawa combined them together to create one single storyline.