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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 19, 2014 9:49:19 GMT -5
congratulations on your GX-01 bro glad you are happy with it i honestly dont have it because when i started this hobby back in late 2010 the GX-01R was out also ithe GX-01R+ but i went GX-01R, to answer you question the head on my GX-01R is kinda flexible but not flexible happy i guess time play huge rule in this matters about Great Mazinger Manga also the anime end was so sudden short and unsatisfying just like Grendizer because Nagai left ton of unanswered questions im not going to spoil any thing since you didnt watch it yet Mazinger Z always was and still Go Nagai best work from a to Z even the ending was so catchy he wasnt able to do that again with most of his work now im reading Shin Mazinger Zero, this is the last chapter and its going to be the biggest battle EVER, all the 3 brothers are in it Mazinger Z(Zero) Great Mazinger(Great Mazinkaiser) and Grendizer(good old one) if you find it read it its a must Thanks mate. Another "weird" thing I forgot to mention before is the absence of a plastic bag for Mazinger. You know how, in every modern SoC, figures that are inside styro trays are also contained in plastic bags? Well, here there isn't one. Bandai probably started using them after a while, not at the very beginning of the series. I hope. Because otherwise it's missing... Shin Mazinger Zero is actually being published right now here in Italy. I didn't buy it because I didn't like the concept: the whole "Mazinger Z is a robot demon" and "Minerva X is a sexy android who travels through dimensions trying to prevent Earth's destruction"... I'll probably read it someday, but it just differs too much from the original ideas, to me.
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Post by S_Gokin on Dec 19, 2014 9:55:16 GMT -5
congratulations on your GX-01 bro glad you are happy with it i honestly dont have it because when i started this hobby back in late 2010 the GX-01R was out also ithe GX-01R+ but i went GX-01R, to answer you question the head on my GX-01R is kinda flexible but not flexible happy i guess time play huge rule in this matters about Great Mazinger Manga also the anime end was so sudden short and unsatisfying just like Grendizer because Nagai left ton of unanswered questions im not going to spoil any thing since you didnt watch it yet Mazinger Z always was and still Go Nagai best work from a to Z even the ending was so catchy he wasnt able to do that again with most of his work now im reading Shin Mazinger Zero, this is the last chapter and its going to be the biggest battle EVER, all the 3 brothers are in it Mazinger Z(Zero) Great Mazinger(Great Mazinkaiser) and Grendizer(good old one) if you find it read it its a must Thanks mate. Another "weird" thing I forgot to mention before is the absence of a plastic bag for Mazinger. You know how, in every modern SoC, figures that are inside styro trays are also contained in plastic bags? Well, here there isn't one. Bandai probably started using them after a while, not at the very beginning of the series. I hope. Because otherwise it's missing... Shin Mazinger Zero is actually being published right now here in Italy. I didn't buy it because I didn't like the concept: the whole "Mazinger Z is a robot demon" and "Minerva X is a sexy android who travels through dimensions trying to prevent Earth's destruction"... I'll probably read it someday, but it just differs too much from the original ideas, to me. i honestly dont know about the plastic bag and i understand you the world of Zero is a dark world close to Shin Getter Armageddon, the manga gives me a huge headache because of the events and the dimensions travel but Minerva was the main reason when i start reading it
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 22, 2014 18:33:39 GMT -5
Reading Gredizer's manga now, the last of the trilogy.
Again, halfway through, I'll say what I think about it now and then again when I finish it.
As with Great Mazinger, I'm reading the manga before watching the Grendizer anime, so my impressions are not influenced by other media.
We get introduced to Duke Fleed and Koji almost immediately, Fleed (Daisuke) is working in a farm while Koji is loafing around in his TFO. Then the Vegan saucers appear, easily defeat Koji, Duke recovers his memories and defeats the saucer beast (Gil Gil if I recall correctly) with his Grendizer, which was kept hidden in the Dam Base for all those years. We get some info on Duke's past, what his life as a child used to be, what happened on planet Fleed before he left with the Grendizer, why King Vega wants his robot... then, thanks to a long lost friend/love interest of Duke, we get to know what the saucer beasts really are. A nice little plotwist there.
One thing that is very noticeable is how short the robot fights are in this manga. They were pretty well balanced in the Mazinger Z manga, not too long, not too short. They were quite long in Great Mazinger, either because of Tetsuya's inability to fight properly or because that particular mechanical beast was very strong. But they're super short in Grendizer's manga, at least to this point: saucer beasts stand no chance against Duke and the King of Space, so much that the fights are not as exciting as they could be.
Quick comparison, Mazinger Z fights are like watching a good boxing match, with both opponents equally strong, but not equally wise or daring. Great Mazinger fights are like watching a WWE Royal Rumble: major confusion, lots of people punching and kicking lots of other people (yeah Great Mazinger usually fought 2-3 or even 4 enemies at a time) till only one is left standing, after a long time. But Grendizer fights are like watching Kenshiro fighting against a group of thugs: over in a matter of seconds, and Grendizer comes out without a scratch.
There was also a chapter in which Koji, Duke and friends go to meet the Emperor of Darkness (yep, Yami no Teio) down in the Micenean Empire, to try and join forces against the Vegan invasion. We see a spectacular battle in this chapter, with protagonist the Micenear emperor himself, and we even get to see Yami no Teio's true form (!) yeah because the one you see at the end of the 3 Mazinkaiser mini-OVAs (you know which ones) that's just a hologram, a projection. The real Emperor of Darkness is much more... peculiar, let's say. Also, the story ends in an unexpected way, just get ready to be left astonised if you haven't read it yet.
That's it for now. The story is engaging, moreso than the robot fights, and I want to see how it' going to develop.
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Post by TheMazingerZ on Dec 23, 2014 0:15:22 GMT -5
I didn't like the Grendizer Outa manga. It was drawn almost SD style, and truly made most of the characters look like perverted idiots. The Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger were a whole lot better. }D
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Post by DUKE 77 on Dec 23, 2014 7:34:24 GMT -5
Grendizer's back to the Shin Mazinger Zero manga...
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Post by S_Gokin on Dec 23, 2014 8:04:55 GMT -5
Reading Gredizer's manga now, the last of the trilogy. Again, halfway through, I'll say what I think about it now and then again when I finish it. As with Great Mazinger, I'm reading the manga before watching the Grendizer anime, so my impressions are not influenced by other media. We get introduced to Duke Fleed and Koji almost immediately, Fleed (Daisuke) is working in a farm while Koji is loafing around in his TFO. Then the Vegan saucers appear, easily defeat Koji, Duke recovers his memories and defeats the saucer beast (Gil Gil if I recall correctly) with his Grendizer, which was kept hidden in the Dam Base for all those years. We get some info on Duke's past, what his life as a child used to be, what happened on planet Fleed before he left with the Grendizer, why King Vega wants his robot... then, thanks to a long lost friend/love interest of Duke, we get to know what the saucer beasts really are. A nice little plotwist there. One thing that is very noticeable is how short the robot fights are in this manga. They were pretty well balanced in the Mazinger Z manga, not too long, not too short. They were quite long in Great Mazinger, either because of Tetsuya's inability to fight properly or because that particular mechanical beast was very strong. But they're super short in Grendizer's manga, at least to this point: saucer beasts stand no chance against Duke and the King of Space, so much that the fights are not as exciting as they could be. Quick comparison, Mazinger Z fights are like watching a good boxing match, with both opponents equally strong, but not equally wise or daring. Great Mazinger fights are like watching a WWE Royal Rumble: major confusion, lots of people punching and kicking lots of other people (yeah Great Mazinger usually fought 2-3 or even 4 enemies at a time) till only one is left standing, after a long time. But Grendizer fights are like watching Kenshiro fighting against a group of thugs: over in a matter of seconds, and Grendizer comes out without a scratch. There was also a chapter in which Koji, Duke and friends go to meet the Emperor of Darkness (yep, Yami no Teio) down in the Micenean Empire, to try and join forces against the Vegan invasion. We see a spectacular battle in this chapter, with protagonist the Micenear emperor himself, and we even get to see Yami no Teio's true form (!) yeah because the one you see at the end of the 3 Mazinkaiser mini-OVAs (you know which ones) that's just a hologram, a projection. The real Emperor of Darkness is much more... peculiar, let's say. Also, the story ends in an unexpected way, just get ready to be left astonised if you haven't read it yet. That's it for now. The story is engaging, moreso than the robot fights, and I want to see how it' going to develop. thanks for sharing man and yea even in the anime Grendizer was undestroyable until King Gory thats really kill the intense moment for the events Yami No Teio was there i need to check that out, and after mazinger z Nagai endings was always fast and unexpected
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 23, 2014 10:30:45 GMT -5
I didn't like the Grendizer Outa manga. It was drawn almost SD style, and truly made most of the characters look like perverted idiots. The Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger were a whole lot better. }D Yeah, something I didn't reall like about the story in this manga is Koji: they turned him into a... moron? More or less, he is way more stupid than he wasin Mazinger Z and way less serious than in Great Mazinger. He practically has the role Boss had in the previous mangas... poor Koji... The drawings, I can tolerate since they become SD only when, say, Koji is running away from Hikaru's father. Or some other silly scene.
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Post by TheMazingerZ on Dec 23, 2014 13:10:24 GMT -5
I think the Semi-SD style is used all the time. Look at Duke Fleed in this page, it is not a funny moment, but all of the characters are still drawn like chubby 10 year old children: }|
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Post by TheMazingerZ on Dec 23, 2014 13:37:35 GMT -5
Almost all of Outa's mangas have that style, but IMO he went overboard in the Grendizer one. }|
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Post by S_Gokin on Dec 23, 2014 13:41:01 GMT -5
Duke Fleed looks more like koji kabuto
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 23, 2014 15:10:05 GMT -5
That is a really ugly art style. That's like something that would be drawn for a parody sketch or some one-off goofy thing. That's Ota's art style. But since it was the 70's I can forgive him. It only looks like a worse version than Nagai's drawings of the era.
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 24, 2014 19:15:57 GMT -5
Finally, I finished reading Grendizer. This one was... very interesting. Let's start by saying that the second half of the story has the weakest stories and events. OVERALL. (That overall is important). Yeah, when I started reading the third volume (out of 4 total) I was afraid that Ota had lost his "spark", and just started giving stories featuring "Koji the Pervert" and "Grendizer the overpowered Robot-God", one after the other. It just seemed like Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger were better written. An example? Maria, Duke's sister, gets introduced super-quickly and with too short of an explanation about her origins and her escape from planet Fleed. Oh and that chapter was silly, worthy of a Mazinger Z's ordinary TV episode... yeah. Not great in terms of quality, as far as writing goes. There's even a scene in that chapter where Sayaka says "Oh Koji! I didn't see you this badass since the last volume of Mazinger Z!" yeah, Ota likes to break the 4th wall sometimes. He does so in all 3 mangas, a nice touch, add a bit of irony and sometimes self-irony. But the point is, Sayaka was right, Koji looked like a retard for the whole chapter. Only in that scene it looked like something cool was gonna happen. But no, you turn the page and you're back to "dumb Koji". Sigh. But when I started reading the final volume, I was greeted with a King Vega moving all of his military forces on out moon. Why? Because a giant asteroid, from which the Vegans were mining Vegatron (cool name, must be some kind of radioactive mineral, it's not explained) explodes near planet Vega. The king readies his personal UFOs for himself and his army, and decides to travel to the Earth to turn it into his new home. Also, he left all of the Vegan citizens to die a horrible, horrible death from intense heat and cosmic radioations raining down from the sky. Well, nothing really original here. But it was a way better starting point than anything else seen in the previous chapters of this manga. Little did I know, it was the beginning of an epic comeback for Ota I should also point out the presence of 2 of King Vega's underlings: Gandal, head of the batallion stationed near the Earth, and Zurill, head of the scientific division and saucer beast architect. While the character of Gandal doesn't escape the clichés imposed by the genre (you've seen a villain like this in practically every single SR show ever), Zurill is not only nicely developed, but also developed in an interesting way. He's not like baron Ashura, who ends up dreaming of world domination just like dr. Hell, and he's not even like count Blocken, bound to Hell by a pact of loyalty and gratitude. Zurill, in fact, is more of an anti-hero, rather than a villain. He does fight Grendizer, true, but he cares about planet Earth. He's an environmentalist guys a very dedicated one too. I'll leave out the details but trust me, he's an interesting character. Probably more interesting than Koji, in this manga... The last part of the story can only be described by one word: Magnificent. It's so good that I'll just write something here just to lure you into reading it, hehe. Seriously guys, this last chapters were so good that the manga deserves to be read just because of them. The only bad thing would be the introduction of a new spazer, which I had never heard of (probably isn't in the anime either), which gets destroyed almost immediately, and never rebuilt. Oh well. Sayaka is the protagonist of this final arc. Yep, you read that right. The initial part of the story is quite mysterious actually, involving a relation between Sayaka and a giant statue located underwater, in the Pacific Ocean. Sayaka is constantly contacted by the statue and ultimately gets "eaten" by it, to everyone's shock and dismay. She's then transported and awoken in some ancient underwater ruins, and explained everything by an arcane being, which tells her about the existance of the Sigma civilization (which was comrpised of both humans and Fleed's inhabitants). After that, Sayaka enters into possession of a giant robot, Raaga (cool name huh). Which by the way is tied to the chapters were Koji and friends are visiting the Micenean Empire. I was pissed back when all of those things were left unexplained, but no, fortunatelly Ota explains most of the stuff at the end. Not like Evangelion, hehe. After those events (and here's the part where I leave most of the details out): some sh*t happens. There's a little argument between King Vega and Zurill. The Earth suffers a terrible tragedy, reminiscent of both Devilman (the manga) and Terminator 3. And then, only then... hell breaks loose... Ever watched the movie "2012"? Well then, the ending is going to remind you of that movie. Even if the manga has a way better ending, because of ROBOTS hehe. It feels a bit sudden, even after Sayaka explains everything you might want to know about what's going on in those moments. But it's very cool nonetheless, and makes you reflect a bit too, just like Devilman. Only, not as much as Devilman. Seriously though, it's good. If I don't sound convincing enough, it's because it's 1:00 AM here. Good thing tomorrow's Christmas, so I can rest a bit That's as far as story goes. Not great until the very end. Not really consistent, like Mazinger Z or Great Mazinger, but the end is veeery good, so it makes up for the rest. Drawings-wise, I think the quality went down a bit from what we usually saw in the previous mangas, generally. But nothing major. Also, did I mention that some saucer beasts become good and ally with Duke and the others? No? Oh well, I won't say more, there's a nice story behind that which probably isn't told in the anime, so there ya go Not much else to say. I'm also quite tired. If you need to know something else, just ask me, I'll reply later... I'm getting sleepy now... Tomorrow I'll write down my final thoughts on the Mazinger trilogy, from Ota's mangas. Thanks for having read this looooong post guys bye, and merry Christmas!
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 25, 2014 16:41:11 GMT -5
And here I am, with my final thoughts on this manga trilogy. If you are a fan of Mazinger Z, of Great Mazinger and of Grendizer. Then you have to read these comics. You have to. They really add to the experience, they give you additional info and lore about the characters of the stories and the world they live in. The drawings might put you off at first, they're not at Nagai's level of detail and eye-candy, and even if in the 70's it was probably average quality, by today's standards the mangas have aged not that well, in general. But so did the TV shows. And if you managed to sit thorugh the animes, and still enjoy them, then I'm sure you will like the mangas! They don't really reflect the events of the TV shows though. And I can say so, despite not having watched any of those shows, except for the Mazinger Z one. In fact, Mazinger Z's manga contains, in the first part, many robot fights and kikaiju appearences taken straight from the show, you'll see many familiar faces. All the most important fights are there, like the one with Minerva X or the one when Maz gets his Scrander and tries it out for the first time. Then, the story continues on a more original path, with bigger and more epic fights, and explaining some background history of the villains. Great Mazinger's manga already starts out with a dense and rich story, balancing almost perfectly between characters' actions and robot fights. Only the ending is a bit lackluster in this one. While Grendizer's manga is a bit weak till you pass the halfpoint, and then turns ingenious and engaging. Overall, these comics had more highs than lows, they were good readings and I recommend them wholeheartedly if you can get past the "ugh these drawings are fugly" first impression (even though, if you liked the shows, the quality of the drawings won't affect you), then you're in for a ride. Give 'em a look!
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Post by treatment on Dec 25, 2014 19:33:14 GMT -5
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Post by TheMazingerZ on Dec 25, 2014 20:37:37 GMT -5
And here I am, with my final thoughts on this manga trilogy. If you are a fan of Mazinger Z, of Great Mazinger and of Grendizer. Then you have to read these comics. You have to. They really add to the experience, they give you additional info and lore about the characters of the stories and the world they live in. The drawings might put you off at first, they're not at Nagai's level of detail and eye-candy, and even if in the 70's it was probably average quality, by today's standards the mangas have aged not that well, in general. But so did the TV shows. And if you managed to sit thorugh the animes, and still enjoy them, then I'm sure you will like the mangas! They don't really reflect the events of the TV shows though. And I can say so, despite not having watched any of those shows, except for the Mazinger Z one. In fact, Mazinger Z's manga contains, in the first part, many robot fights and kikaiju appearences taken straight from the show, you'll see many familiar faces. All the most important fights are there, like the one with Minerva X or the one when Maz gets his Scrander and tries it out for the first time. Then, the story continues on a more original path, with bigger and more epic fights, and explaining some background history of the villains. Great Mazinger's manga already starts out with a dense and rich story, balancing almost perfectly between characters' actions and robot fights. Only the ending is a bit lackluster in this one. While Grendizer's manga is a bit weak till you pass the halfpoint, and then turns ingenious and engaging. Overall, these comics had more highs than lows, they were good readings and I recommend them wholeheartedly if you can get past the "ugh these drawings are fugly" first impression (even though, if you liked the shows, the quality of the drawings won't affect you), then you're in for a ride. Give 'em a look! Well, the manga storylines are good, but stating that the quality of the manga drawings won't affect the readers if they've watched the anime is downright CRAZY!!! }|
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 26, 2014 16:09:12 GMT -5
Well, honestly this is as far as I'd like to go. Manga-wise. The "official trilogy" hehe. TV shows... I should check out Great Mazinger and Grendizer, to see how they compare to their respective mangas. And then, we'll see. I've heard about robot girls z. How is it?
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 26, 2014 16:16:10 GMT -5
Well, the manga storylines are good, but stating that the quality of the manga drawings won't affect the readers if they've watched the anime is downright CRAZY!!! }| Just think that they were drawn in the 70's that was the average quality back then. Maybe sub-average, but still...
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Post by treatment on Dec 26, 2014 16:24:12 GMT -5
Well, honestly this is as far as I'd like to go. Manga-wise. The "official trilogy" hehe. TV shows... I should check out Great Mazinger and Grendizer, to see how they compare to their respective mangas. And then, we'll see. I've heard about robot girls z. How is it? They're awesome. Here. Check out their Getter girl... It's only 2mins, but stay at the end for the Getter Change...
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Post by Mechanical Flesh on Dec 27, 2014 4:09:48 GMT -5
They're awesome. Here. Check out their Getter girl... It's only 2mins, but stay at the end for the Getter Change... LOL Yeah looks like a homage to sr shows. Even if it looks mixed with a bit of "magic girl" elements... oh well. I'll check it out.
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Post by DUKE 77 on Feb 7, 2015 20:09:42 GMT -5
LOL, take it easy, Duke!
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