Set in the near future (or rather, the near future as imagined in The '70s), humanity enters another energy revolution following the discovery of Photon Power. Derived from the Japanium ore discovered under the foothills of Mt. Fuji, its intended use was to solve the world's energy problems with its unimaginable power. Seeking this energy is Dr. Hell, a madman who wishes to twist the energy to his own means, who with his subordinates Baron Ashura, Count Brocken and Viscount Pygman, commands an army of Humongous Mecha excavated from the depths of Ancient Greece to seize the Photon Power Lab for himself.
Meeting the attack head on is the Hot-Blooded teenager Kabuto Kouji, who pilots the Photon Powered Super Robot Mazinger Z, built by his aging grandfather. Joining him is a rather large cast of eccentric characters with their own reasons for being invested in the fight against Dr. Hell. As the fight rages on, the many mysteries and legends surrounding the cast are gradually revealed.
The Shin Mazinger Zero manga was released near the same time, but is not actually related to the plot of the anime.
The anime has been licensed for a U.S. release under the title Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact! by Discotek Media, who previously licensed and released the original Mazinger Z anime among other Go Nagai properties.
A character sheet is under construction.
This series features examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: Tsubasa Nishikiori, along with Cross, Master, Yasu, and Django were all villains when they first appeared in Violence Jack. Here, on the other hand, they're now heroes.
- The Ace: Tetsuya, so much so in fact that ASHURA calls him the best pilot to ever exist. What did he do to claim such a statement? Why nothing short of winning against a Kedora in a half-assembled Mazinger prototype. Thats right — an unfinished prototype!
- Back from the Dead: Being steeped in Gothic horror tropes, many of the cast were supposedly dead people revived by science.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Tsubasa and Stroheim pull this off in episode 15.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Not Dr. Hell, who is defeated by Koji, but Baron Ashura, who manipulated Koji into doing so, in order to resurrect the Mycenae empire. The worst part is Dr. Hell's ambition wasn't to take over the world, but to protect earth from the Mycenae and stop them from taking over earth.
- Berserk Button: For Kouji, it's insulting his grandfather Juzo. For Baron Ashura, it's their appearance... especially when it thinks you're the one responsible for it.
- Big Damn Heroes: The ENTIRE first episode is essentially a series of Big Damn Heroes entrances, by the entire cast. Likewise, the series seems to specialise in awesome sudden entrances from heroes and villains, usually as part of a Cliffhanger.
- The Big Guy: Cross, who is actually a cyborg made from Super Alloy Z
- Brain in a Jar: The Kedora.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Several times throughout the series, including characters talking to/hearing the narrator or being aware of their own role in the story.
- When Boss steals Count Brocken's head to create a distraction and gain some time, this little exchange takes place:Count Brocken: W-who are you?Boss: They call me Boss. Not even the Author knows my real name.
- Later, when the confusion hits its peak and Boss and Brocken's own soldiers are playing soccer with Brocken's head...Count Brocken: I AM A TRAGIC CHARACTER!
- When Boss steals Count Brocken's head to create a distraction and gain some time, this little exchange takes place:
- Breath Weapon: Z's Rust Hurricane.
- Calling Your Attacks: With Kabuto Kouji piloting, what else do you expect?
- Canon Immigrant: As mentioned above, Tusbasa Nishikiori, Cross, Django, Master and Yasu first debuted in Violence Jack.
- Captain Ethnic: Viscount Pygman, a pygmy shaman "hailing from a scorched land," who can use curses and control wild animals.
- Chest Blaster: "Breast Fire!"
- Classical Mythology
- Cliffhanger: Almost every episode.
- The final episode ends on an enormous one. Rumours abound about a concluding special or sequel series.
- Cool Old Guy: Juzo Kabuto; the Shin Mazinger portrayal of him is widely agreed to be the single most enjoyable and likable in the history of the entire franchise. He may even be cheating death!
- As of episode 22 he kinda is, if you count having an AI with all his knowledge and personality installed into the Pilder.
- There's also Kikunosuke, a Badass Granny who wields a garotte wire made of Super Alloy Z, has Super-Speed, and is described by the other Kurogane Five members as being the strongest of them all!
- Crazy-Prepared: Juzo Kabuto, Nishikiori Tsubasa, Dr. Hell, the entire Mycenae civilization
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Boss's two flunkies are capable enough in a fight to beat some of Baron Ashura's men on their own.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In Episode 1. Archduke Gorgon attempts to attack Kouji, only to get near-instantly obliterated by Zeus's gigantic spear.
- Decomposite Character: Of sorts in the form of a Mythology Gag. In Mazinkaizer, The Monster Garadoublas Mk 01 was a fusion of the classic monsters Garada K7 and Doublas M2. In Shin Mazinger, Garadoublas was a Mycenean God-General, from which Dr. Hell developed the indivudual monsters Garada K7 and Doublas M2.
- Delinquents: Boss and his gangs. He's apparently gotten the support of every delinquent group in Japan behind him.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Django's instant-freeze rounds and Ankokuji uses something that can hurt Pygman despite his magic defenses.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In episode 18, in order to help Zeus, Kouji dual Rocket Punches Hades, the literal God of Hell, IN THE MOTHERFUCKING FACE!
- And right after that, Zeus does the same thing with his severed arm IN THE OTHER MOTHERFUCKING FACE!
- On another note, in Boss Borot's glorious debut, it manages to deal significant amounts of damage to Mechanical Beast Baron Ashura. While Ashura's Humongous Mecha isn't quite Cthulhu, Boss Borot is, well... Of course, this was all part of the plan...
- Downer Ending: Okay so Dr Hell is defeated, the world is safe right? WRONG! Turns out doing that just let loose the Mycenae Empire on Earth.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: A very rare villain example with Ashura. They got their revenge and brought back their lost civilization.
- Einstein Hair: Juzo, since he's a Mad Scientist.
- Everybody Hates Hades: It involves Greek Mythology, and Hades is the villain. Mazinger Z Rocket Punches him in the face. Zeus does like-wise with his severed arm.
- Everybody Loves Zeus: Zeus, who takes this further by dressing in golden armor. In this continuity his fossilized arm is an extremely valuable source of Unobtainium - Mazinger Z both uses this material in its construction, and (after its Mid-Season Upgrade) can transform into a replica of the actual arm for its Finishing Move.
- Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: Every episode except the first ("Finale") follows this format.
- Eye Beams: The Photon Beam. Reaches the caliber of a Wave-Motion Gun at full output.
- Dr. Stroheim also has a laser eye.
- Face–Heel Turn: Although it's not a true Face–Heel Turn in the actual series, one of Go Nagai's other Super Robot creations - Groizer X - makes a cameo appearance as an enemy robot in several episodes.
- Fan Disservice: In episode 2 - Juzo, and in episode 12 - Baron Ashura.
- Faux Action Girl: Sayaka
- Fem Bot: Aphrodai A, Venus A and Million Alpha.
- Foreshadowing: The appearance of Blade, who is almost certainly Tetsuya Tsurugi, the pilot of Mazinger-Z's successor, Great Mazinger
- Not to mention that whenever Kenzo, his adopted father is mentioned, it's either following or preceeding a lightning strike. In fact, his appearance in episode 14 was marked by some serious "heavenly thunder"
- Episode 2 foreshadows that the murder victims are Baron Ashura's spies, since they're all killed with a vertical cut to the face. This matches Ashura themselves, who is visibly split down the middle
- Tsubasa being Kouji and Shiro's mother has been hinted at repeatedly since the first episode.
- Anybody who watched the first episode knows the similarities between Mazinger Z and the God Zeus. Then, episode 18 comes in and reveals that Zeus is one of the Three Great Gods, and we get to see Hades, the second one... whose look (the face, especially) bears a certain resemblance to Grendizer... Sequel Hook?
- Hell, the show has plenty of it, if you go back and rewatch previous episodes.
- Full-Body Disguise: Baron Ashura and their men often don these. Played for laughs, since they shouldn't be able to disguise themselves as convincingly as they do - the Iron Masks for example manage to wear helmets under their rubber masks.
- This is a Running Gag throughout the entire Mazinger franchise, and can be seen in at least one episode of Mazinkaiser.
- And there was that time Count Blocken disguised himself as Kenzo while piloting Energer Z
- Gainax Beginning: Don't start with the first broadcast episode. You'll be EXTREMELY confused.
- Gambit Pile Up: A huge amount of them from both sides, to the point that in the penultimate episode Dr. Hell essentially says that the entire show until that point was just a series of backstabbing, plots and deception.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The Kedoras. A relic of the Myceneans, they at first appear loyal to Dr. Hell; one serves as a bridge for Archduke Gorgon before Zeus smites them both, and another attacks Kouji, stating its intent to "destroy all foreign civilizations". It then shows Dr. Hell in his lab destroying all his Kedoras, as "foreign civilizations" apparently includes Dr. Hell and his henchmen.
- Gonk: Many, many characters, as per Go Nagai's cartoony art style.
- Guns Akimbo: Django, with both revolvers and gatling guns.
- Hadaka Apron - Gamia Q3 in one episode, humorously revealing her doll joints (which Ankokuji still finds attractive).
- Heel–Face Turn: Between series. In the Mazinkaiser OVA, there were three Gamia Q machines, they were evil, rarely spoke, and apparently were Baron Ashura's "daughters". The one featured in this show works on the heroes' side.
- In the final episode, Baron Ashura makes a Heel–Face Turn for real. Except they were just pretending so that Kouji would kill Dr Hell, thus allowing it to summon the Mycene army to earth. Nice job breaking it, Kouji.
- Heroic BSoD: Kouji, when he realizes that by piloting Mazinger in the village, he's accidentally crushed many civilians
- Being haunted by Tetsuya Tsurugi has caused Tsubasa to fall into one as well.
- Heroic Sacrifice: As of episode 18 Cross, Django, Yasu, and Master have all seemingly bit the dust due to being crushed by one of the myceanean gods, having his torso bitten through by a tiger-centaur thing, blowing himself up to give the others the chance to get away, and being impaled by the humanoid part of the tiger-centaur, respectively. However considering what we saw in the first episode it's doubtful any of these will be permanent.
- Episode 22. They're back. Hell yeah.
- Hot-Blooded: Kouji, given his history of being controversial amongst conservative Japanese parents in his original incarnation, does not disappoint here. He is very shouty and brash, full of self-confidence.
- Even the Narrator is extremely Hot-Blooded.
- Hot-Blooded Sideburns: Of course!
- How We Got Here: Episode one is titled "Finale" and it seems to tell the story of the character's climactic final confrontation. Episode two is entitled "Activate! Mazinger!", making it the real 'first episode' in terms of chronology.
- HUGE Ham: The narrator. Good Lord, the narrator cannot help himself but to make everything seem so, so dramatic:Yes! It, the world's strongest alloy, is what makes the Mazinger Z an unsinkable castle of steel! Fearing none, thwarted by none; even if it is encircled by a thousand foes, its invincible castle of a body protects him from any number of attacks! Once more, let's call it out! That alloy's name is Super Alloy ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTOOOOOOOOOOOO!
- To the point that Kouji scolds him for being a bit too hammy.
- Humongous Mecha
- I Have Many Names: Zeus, of course. The series gives "Zeus" and "Z Mazinger".
- Implausible Fencing Powers: Master covers this trope.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Detective Ankokuji and Shiro get along pretty well. This is gets lampshaded when the latter gets rather sad after his friend goes missing in action.
- Latex Space Suit: The pilot suits for both the male and female characters.
- Licking the Blade: Django's done this with his GUN. And his tongue is long enough that the KISS guys would be green with envy.
- Lightning Bruiser: Danube Alpha One, which was designed to circumvent its inferior armor compared to Mazinger with drastically improved agility thanks to being a self-aware machine.
- Like Mother Like Son Episode 16 has Kouji and Tsubasa in one sequence sporting identical Slasher Smiles next to each other
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Tsubasa was once Dr. Hell's assistant and was just as gifted in the field of biomedical research as he was. Together they made Viscount Pygman and Baron Ashura.
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Macross MissileMazinger Rocket Punch Massacre - Mad Scientist: Arguably half the focus of the story. Dr. Hell, Kouji's grandfather Juzo and Dr. Schtroheim are classic examples, Tsubasa and Kenzo probably count too.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: For Go Nagai. In addition to Mazinger, the series includes several characters from other Go Nagai manga, though with different roles and personalities. These include:
- Tsubasa and her followers (Cross, Master, Yasu and Django): Violence Jack
- Sis Kiku is from Abashiri Family, though under a different name. In Abashiri Family, "Kikunosuke" is the main character, a schoolgirl.
- Tsubasa actually originally appeared in a manga called Gakuen Taikutsu Otoko, as the leader of a school guerrilla. In Violence Jack, a manga known for taking old Go Nagai series and Deconstruction them, she was aged up and made the leader of a group of criminals. Imagawa must have liked this portrayal better, so he chose to use it in the show.
- Likewise, Pygman's character design is taken from Violence Jack. The actual character himself is from Mazinger Z, but his new appearance is not.
- For irony points the character design is the Mazinger analogue for Violence Jack: Jim Mazinger.
- The enormous black demon seen in several episodes: Demon Lord Dante
- The minor Go Nagai machine Groizer X is revised and made one of Mazinger Z's enemies in several episodes.
- Energer Z, the original design for Mazinger Z that Go Nagai drafted up prior to revising it into the machine we all know and love, is introduced into the series proper near the end.
- Master of Disguise: Baron Ashura and their men.
- Scratch that. Make it EVERYONE that serves Dr. Hell.
- Meaningful Name: The "Mazin" in "Mazinger" is composed of two words. "Ma" meaning Devil, and "Shin" meaning God. This refers to Juzo's statement about how Mazinger Z is powerful enough to make its pilot a God or the Devil.
- Kouji Kabuto: Kabuto means "Helmet", and Kouji pilots his machine by attaching the Jet Pilder to its head.
- According to the first episode, the "Z" in Mazinger Z might represent "Zeus", too.
- Mechanical Horse: The Iron Masks often ride these (as in the original series).
- Mid-Season Upgrade: The Jet Scrander and later on, the God Scrander, which allows use of Mazinger's most powerful attack, the Big Bang Punch.
- Mixed Metaphor: Mazinger Z is apparently an "Unsinkable castle of steel".
- Monster of the Week: Averted, despite Mazinger and Super Robot tradition. Many episodes have no robot fighting at all, and when the villains do attack it usually involves multiple robots at once or in the same day.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Subverted with Dr. Hell. Turns out long before he dabbled in mad science, he was a perfectly sane and respected biomedical researcher.
- Mundane Made Awesome:
- Its name is... Its name is... ITS NAME IS... ITS NAME IS... ITS NAME IS—!
- The amount of objects in the series made from Super Alloy Z gets increasingly more ridiculous as the series progresses. At first we have standard weapons in Super Alloy... then the Super Alloy mining pick appears, and it takes off from there. By the end of the series we've got Super Alloy shovels, Super Alloy frying pans, Super Alloy toothpicks, Super Alloy bamboo... the list goes on.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Dr. Hell, The Great General of Darkness and The Emperor of Darkness.
- Never Bring A Knife To A Fistfight: Averted in Episode 16 when the Kurogane Five faced down A Kedoras-controlled Mazinger Z. Kikunosuke asks Master if it would really be smart to take on Mazinger Z with nothing but a katana blade and offers him a boatload of guns. He accepts, and it probably helps make things easier for him.
- Never Mess with Granny: Kikunosuke.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- ESPECIALLY in the last episode where the only thing that was holding the Mycenae empire was Dr. Hell. Since Kouji defeats him, they pretty much show up.
- For those of you not understanding how that works, turns out that the summoning ritual to bring back the mycene is Baron Ashura's blood from their suicide. To prevent this, Doctor Hell programmed Ashura to be unable to take their own life as long as he lived. Guess who Kouji knocked off moments before the end of the last episode?
- No Endor Holocaust: Averted in Kouji's first battle, when he accidentally crushes a bunch of civilians during a robot fight.
- Oh, Crap!: Dr. Hell spends most of the final battle in this state, shocked and terrified by the ridiculous number of rocket punches coming his way.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted - all of the scientists are specialised in different fields such as robotics, biomedicine, energy research and so on, and they frequently turn to each other for their knowledge.
- Power of Love: This seems to be the explanation for why half of Baron Ashura's body was rotted excluding the halves that were touching each other, until the final episode shows that the couple's whole bodies were preserved, but Dr. Hell dissolved half of each in acid.
- Prehensile Hair: The Gamia sisters.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Zeus vs. the rest of the Gods.
- Recap Episode: Inverted. By the looks of it, the first episode is made entirely up of clips from the second half of the series.
- The first half of episode 6 has a recap though, and 22 is this peppered with new footage as well.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. Kouji and Shiro note that their grandfather makes a killing on the patents for all his inventions. However, he spends most of his money on his research.
- To no one's great surprise, it turns out he actually spent his money building Mazinger Z.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Django's Magnum Z revolvers, which fire Super Alloy Z bullets that can penetrate anything and are so durable that he can pluck them out of his victims for re-use later.
- Robot Girl: The Gamia sisters, and Lorelei.
- Robotic Reveal: While several characters are later revealed as robots/cyborgs, Cross fits the classic version of this trope.
- Rocket Punch: It's a Mazinger show so there's lots of them. The titular robot can even transform into a giant Rocket Punch itself, which Kouji calls the "Big Bang Punch
".- Taken to ridiculous extremes in the last episode.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The mechanical beasts, sealed behind the statue of Zeus in Bardos Island.
- Sequel Hook: And how! With so many mysteries left unsolved, such as Blade, we can look forward to Great-hen. That is, unless history repeats itself...
- Serial Escalation: The series is constantly outdoing itself and hits the peak in the final episode, which claims to feature 100 Rocket Punches.
- Severed Head Sports: Boss, Macha and Nuke play a round of soccer with Count Brocken's head. It was played for laughs since Brocken is still alive despite this, and was not happy about it.
- Shout-Out: There are tons of these sprinkled all over the show, mostly to other Go Nagai manga.
- The above mentioned fight with Hades is particularly notable because it's aimed at a similar act done by Dai-Guard, which in turn was a tribute to the ORIGINAL Mazinger Z!
- Spam Attack / Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: 100-Shot Rapid Fire Rocket Punch. WAAAAAAAAY more punches than the name claims. And it is AWESOME!
- Doubles as a fleet of Attack Drones
- Stripperific: The Gamia sisters, who end up wearing just cloaks with nothing on underneath.
- Suddenly Obvious Fakery: The Gamia sisters get hit with this once revealed as deadly gynoid assassins. They never show any robotic attributes during their Furo Scene, best seen when one of them is briefly shown fully nude in a few frames shortly after they jump into action and start whipping their razor-sharp pigtails around (though she was about as detailed as a Barbie doll at that moment). After some exposition fully explains them to be gynoids all along, they suddenly appear more robotic than before, their bodies gaining doll-like joints.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Mazinger Z has some kind of "devil" form, which resembles the titular demon from Go Nagai's Demon Lord Dante, activated when the Kedora docks with it.
- Super Robot: Again, it's a Mazinger show, so this is kind of a given.
- Technical Pacifist: Well, Yumi wants to use photon energy for peaceful purposes... but will not think twice about shooting you into oblivion if you endanger his daughter.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Kanjite Knight in episode 8, which gave Mazinger enough power to halt a SUBMARINE ISLAND.
- The last episode does this THREE times, with the second opening, second ending and finally the first opening. Then they turn this on its head in the closing minutes: Kanjite Knight suddenly stops playing, and there is utter silence... then the Downer Ending begins.
- The Professor: Prof. Yumi as well as the Three Doctors.
- This Is My Name on Foreign: Gee, I sure wonder who that "Blade" guy could be...
- Those Wacky Nazis: Count Brocken, a headless undead cyborg Nazi who carries his head around with him at all times, and his Iron Legion air forces.
- Together in Death: Baron Ashura... who became together in life again, when they were resurrected as two halves of the same person.
- Took A Level In Bad Ass: Everyone with a name gets to do something badass. Everyone.
- In a meta-sense Mazinger's eye beam took several levels. Originally it was just an eye beam good against mooks. In Shin Mazinger it suddenly outclasses the breast fire, normally the most powerful weapon in its arsenal. That is...until it gets Big Bang Punch.
- Transforming Mecha: With the God Scrander, Mazinger can transform ITS ENTIRE BODY INTO A GIGANTIC ROCKET PUNCH.
- Truer to the Text: In some ways, this is closer to the original Mazinger Z manga than the first TV series - like having a much closer art style to Go Nagai's, Gamia Q and Brockenball.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Played with. The show takes place "in the near future," but as a homage to the original series made in 1972, the world resembles The '70s.
- Unwitting Pawn: All the good guys fall hook, line and sinker for Baron Ashura's plan.
- Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Count Brocken hauls out Energer Z, the prototype of Mazinger Z, to fight Kouji and his robot. Energer Z proves to be the superior until Tsubaki reveals Zeus' hand and activates God Scrander.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Aside from all of Dr. Hell's subordinates, the gangsters that work for Tsubasa were saved from the edge of death by her and have become ridiculously strong as a result.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Averted - Yasu knows he has a bomb inside him (a Photon Power bomb, no less), and is willing to give his life to protect his mistress Tsubasa.
- What's more... he survives his explosion. And is bummed when he later finds out that he doesn't have the bomb in his body .
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Double Subverted. During the journey into the Kedoras's illusions, we were told this would happen and not long afterwards Master, Django, Yasu, and Cross died in various ways. They seemed gone for good. Come episode 19 they've returned, but all sporting some injuries... possibly implying that yes, their minds did make it real, just to a muted extent.
