Hell unleashes his robotic Mechanical Beasts on Japan, Professor Juzo Kabuto develops his own giant robot, Mazinger Z, made from a mysterious alloy called Chogokin, to take them on. Giant Robo remains popular in Japan and has been featured in numerous manga and anime sequels, most notably the critically acclaimed anime, Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still. You can find out for yourself over at Hulu, where the show is streaming. This is a bit surprising, because Giant Robo was pretty violent by American TV standards, with characters dying left and right, and even the child agents of Unicorn taking the occasional bullet. Other than a few name changes, like Daisaku becoming Johnny Sokko and Big Fire becoming The Gargoyle Gang, the show was a pretty faithful translation. Giant Robo was adapted for American audiences under the name Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot. To control Robo, Daisaku speaks into his wristwatch, announcing the name of the special attack he wants Robo to execute, a practice that has since become common in the Super Robot genre. Unicorn, made up of both kids and adults, battles the giant robots and monsters of the evil alien Emperor Guillotine and his human henchmen, known collectively as "Big Fire." Like #28, Giant Robo can fly and possesses incredible strength, but he also has an arsenal of weapons at his command, including laser beam eyes, fingertip missiles, a super strong "Megaton Punch," and other surprises. Robo's master, a 12-year-old boy named Daisaku Kusama, is part of a secret police force known as Unicorn. Tetsujin 28-go creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama developed Giant Robo for TV and as a manga, both debuting in 1967. The style has also been used for television shows, including the first live-action Super Robot on TV, Giant Robo. Thanks to 1954's Gojira ( Godzilla), Japanese audiences became obsessed with tokusatsu, a style of film making in which special effects take center stage and that often incorporates actors who dress in rubber suits to portray monsters, aliens, and superheroes. If you'd like to check out the adventures of Gigantor, you can watch the whole series for free on Hulu. The official unveiling of the Tetsujin 28 statue in Kobe And in 2009, the big robot himself was immortalized as a life-sized, 60-foot-tall, 50-ton statue in Yokoyama's hometown of Kobe: The long-running manga and anime are still best-sellers and have been followed by numerous sequels and remakes over the years. Tetsujin 28 remains an iconic character in Japanese popular culture. For example, in America, Shotaro Kaneda became Little Jimmy Sparks, and his giant robot became known as Gigantor, a name that still resonates with kids from the era. As is common with foreign translations, many of the Japanese names were changed for a regional audience. It first debuted as a manga in 1956, before it was adapted for television in 1963 as an anime, which helped it find international acclaim. Not only did writer/illustrator Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28-go create the concept of a Super Robot, but it helped establish many of the common tropes of the genre, like the "orphaned boy wonder" that controls the titular giant robot. That is unless someone else gets their hands on the remote control, for whoever has the remote can command Tetsujin 28 to do their bidding. Now, Shotaro uses #28 to solve crimes and defend the world from other giant robots, like his nemesis, Black Ox. The robot was built by Shotaro's father as a secret weapon during World War II, but the war ended and Dr. Tetsujin 28-go follows the adventures of a 10-year-old boy, Shotaro Kaneda, and his remote-controlled, rocket-powered giant robot, Tetsujin 28 (Iron Man #28). Although a complete history would be a monumental undertaking, here are a few of the influential giant robots you should know. But those are just a small taste of the dozens of mechanical men that make up the "Super Robot" genre that has been popular in Japanese manga (comic books) and anime (cartoons) for more than 50 years. Any kid that grew up in the 1980s is familiar with giant Japanese robots like Voltron and Transformers.
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