Mazinger Angels (マジンガーエンジェル, Majinga Enjeru) is a Humongous Mecha manga series. It is both a Crossover of the Mazinger series and a spoof of Charlie's Angels. Written by Go Nagai and drawn by Akihiko Niina, it was originally published in Kodansha's Magazine Z, starting in 26 June 2004 (#2004-08) and ending in 25 November 2006 (#2007-01). It was compiled in four tankōbon. A sequel was released in 26 December 2007 in Magazine Z as well, called Mazinger Angels Z (マジンガーエンジェルZ), which features the original designs for Mazinger Z and Grendizer, called Energer Z and Gattaiger, as well as Kikunosuke Abashiri from Abashiri Ikka. It was compiled in two tankōbon.
20 Minutes in the Future, technology is advanced enough to fabricate humanoid robots. Most of them are relatively tiny and used for mundane tasks like security service, but some of them are used to commit crimes. Sayaka Yumi (from Mazinger Z), Jun Hono (from Great Mazinger), Hikaru Makiba and Maria Grace Fleed (from UFO Robo Grendizer) are members of a secret organization / private investigation agency investigates and solves crimes related with mechas and cyborgs. Each one of them pilots a Humongous Mecha to fight back the giant robots they run into during their cases: Aphrodite-A, Venus-A, Diana-A and Minerva-X. Their identities are kept secret and the general population only knows their team's name: the Mazinger Angels.
As they solve case after case, Sayaka and her team start suspecting most of them are linked: someone is backing several criminals, psychopaths and miscreants with mechas for furthering some sinister purpose. A person perfectly willing destroying whoever stands in his way. And they are standing in his way...
Mazinger Angels is noteworthy because the cast is exclusively formed by the female main characters of the Mazinger series. They were several of the first Action Girl in anime, but several storylines in the original series involved scenarios where The Hero had to save or rescue the Action Girl to show how badass he is. Here they never show up, so the female leads are free to show their badassery without getting dragged down with Faux Action Girl or Damsel in Distress scenarios or being Overshadowed by Awesome.
This series also highlights the sex appeal of both the characters and the mechas, sometimes similarly to the way Agent Aika's shows the female characters.
Most recently, two original soundtracks were released as part of the series. They contain several new original melodies for the series, including a TV-sized main theme of Mazinger Angels, as well as several musical arrangements of melodies from several series of Go Nagai, including all the Mazinger related series and several other anime TV series such as Devilman and Dororon Enma-kun.
Mazinger Angels provides examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: Sayaka and Hikaru find themselves wanting compared with Jun. In one scene, they are having a shower, and Jun gets nervous because they are staring at her very focusedly. Then they look over themselves and sigh in resignation.
- Not that they're exactly lacking (and Sayaka more than makes up for it in Z), as the picture above shows. It's just that Jun is, well... well-endowed.
- Accidental Pervert: SOMETIMES it is accidental. Sayaka and her team do not appreciate it one or other way.
- Action Girl: ALL of them. Sayaka, Jun, Hikaru, Maria are some of the earliest Action Girls in anime, but back in the seventies they were often placed in situations where they needed to be rescued or saved from the male hero. This does not happen here.
- Adaptational Badass: The girls get their chance to shine in this series.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Boss and his boys are a whole lot less Gonk than normal. As is detective Ankokuji, who actually gets promoted to a possible love interest for Jun.
- Also most of villain are not more humanoid monster. For example, Baron Ashura is a couple of husband and wife and they are not fused together.
- Alien Invasion: By the Vegan Empire in Mazinger Angels Z.
- Angels Pose: Sayaka, Jun and Hikaru make it on the very first page
. - Badass Biker: Sayaka, Jun and Hikaru. Hikaru also doubles as Badass horse Rider.
- Bifauxnen: Kinnosuke, as long as you don't look below her shoulders...
- Big Bad: Dr. Hell in the first series, the Vegan Empire in the sequel.
- Big Damn Heroes: Several of them. The first one was performed by Daisuke, Hikaru's pet to save Hikaru and Maria.
- Brainy Brunette: Hikaru.
- Breath Weapon: Mechanical Beast Gusios Beta III vomits a stream of highly-corrosive acid is able to melt metal. Iron-Z has the traditional Mazinger-Z Rust Hurricane.
- Brick Joke: Honey shows up to a costume party dressed as Cutey Honey. In the finale, it turns out Cutie Honey is her mech.
- Broad Strokes: Z's connection with the original Mazinger Angels.
- Broken Bird: When Hikaru found Maria, she was unable trust anybody due to past experiences. And this was before her dog got accidentally killed and she believed her only friend was one of the culprits. And this before she got her memories back and remembered where she was from and what had happened to her home.
- But Not Too Foreign: Jun hono and Professor Nonaka are half-Asian, half-black.
- Calling Your Attacks: Being a Mazinger show, of course the main characters do this the whole time.
- Chest Blaster: Minerva-X's Breast Fire and Aphrodite A's Heart Breast Fire. Venus and Diana also have an attack similar to the Rust Hurricane, but with variable temperature rather than corrosion.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Jun does not reappear in Z and Venus is now piloted by Maria, implying Jun retired from being an Angel.
- Combining Mecha: Energer-Z combines with its Mid-Season Upgrade to form a spaceship.
- Cooldown Hug: Maria was completely berserker, refusing listening to the girls until Hikaru (whom Maria had befriended earlier) approached her, gave her a hug, and spoke to her kindly.
- Crossover: This manga crosses over three Mazinger series.
- Demoted to Extra: Hikaru in Z is pretty much a background Mythology Gag.
- Epic Flail: Aphrodite-A has Breast Maces.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Kinnosuke, oh so very much. One girl even flat-out states It'd be okay if it were her.
- The Faceless: Their boss is never seen and their name is never revealed.
- Fanservice: Brought to ridiculous extremes.
- Fem Bot: Aphrodite-A, Diana-A, Venus-A, Minerva-X.
- Giant Equals Invincible: A giant robot only can be fought with another giant robot.
- Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: Several times.
- Gender Flip: Take your ordinary Crossover mixing together most of Go Nagai Humongous Mecha series (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, UFO Robo Grendizer, Getter Robo). Now removes the male characters and swap the titular mechas with the Fem Bots that show up in those series.
- Heroines Prefer Swords: Aphrodite, Diana and Venus are equiped with one sword -the Mazinger blade-, sheathed into their shins.
- Hot-Blooded: It is a Go Nagai manga. Even if Kouji, Tetsuya, Duke... are missing, the girls more than make up for it.
- The author also counts. In the afterwords of a volume she declared she PUT HER SOUL in her work.
- Hot Blooded Sideburns: Again, this a manga of the former Trope Namer.
- Hot Springs Episode
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: In his last appearance, Count Brocken is now a hobo digging through trashcans. He's seen by Ankokuji and quickly runs away, with the detective in hot pursuit.
- Humans Are Bastards: Maria's opinion until Hikaru befriended her.
- Humongous Mecha
- Kid Hero: The four leads are teenagers and still attend high school.
- The Kid with the Remote Control: Maria can control Minerva-X telepathically, but she needs using a helmet so the strain does not harm her brain.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Mazinger Angels' mechas' main weapons are missiles.
- Latex Space Suit: Mazinger Angels' pilot suits.
- Lovely Angels: The entire team.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Hell.
- Made of Indestructium: Of course, all Fem Bots are made of Alloy-Z, but during the Hot Springs Episode, Aphrodite-A got reinforced with a special alloy to endure Gusios Beta III's acid weapon.
- Man Behind the Man: In the first chapter, the Mazinger Angels confront a couple of thieves (the two persons Baron Ashura was before dying and being spliced together). Sayaka declares there are no way two petty thieves such like them could have got the resources for that operation, and bluntly interrogates them about their backer.
- Mascot Mook: Garada K7 and Doublas M2 make still another appearance in this series. The later one gets upgraded to King Doublas.
- The first Saucer Beast fought by Duke Fleed in UFO Robo Grendizer also appears in first chapter of Mazinger Angels Z.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: In addition to the obvious stuff from the main three Mazinger series, Mazinger Angels also features characters and elements from such Go Nagai series as Cutey Honey, Devilman, Dororon Enma-kun, Kekko Kamen, Iron Muscle, Garla, God Mazinger, Kotetsu Jeeg...
- Mecha Show
- Ms. Fanservice: All the girls had shades of this but Jun was the main provider of fanservice in the first part, as the enemies had a tendence to shred her clothes.
- In Mazinger Angels Z, that role falls in Kikunosuke.
- Nipple and Dimed
- Not as You Know Them: The villains of the original series show up, but this time they are more normal-looking instead of downright bizarre or creepy: Baron Ashura are two people (right like he/she was originally before Dr. Hell pulled a Reforged into a Minion stunt), Count Brocken's head and body are not split, Archduke Gorgon is a man with a tiger pet, Marquiss Janus has not two faces and she is the aging owner of a host club instead of a witch...
- Ojou Ringlets: Maria sports them, overlapping with Hot Blooded Sideburns.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Averted, for once. Without their male counterparts overshadowing them, the heroines of Mazingerverse can at last prove how badass and awesome they are.
- Panty Thief: For some reason, one mechanical beast recipient finds no better use for it than dressing it up as Santa and stealing panties, with the ultimate goal of filling a 50m pool with them.
- Pervert Revenge Mode: Aim your eyes or hands where they do NOT belong, and you will be kicked. Hard.
- The Professor: Professor Nonaka is the designer and builder of the Humongous Mecha. In one scene you can see Kenzo Kabuto from Great Mazinger and Professor Nossori from Mazinger Z, too.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: The Gamia triplets.
- Robeast: Dr. Hell's Mechanical Beasts (Kikaijuu) and Empire Vega's Saucer Beasts.
- Robot Dog: Hikaru's dog -Daisuke- is a robotical dog that externally seems a normal one.
- Rocket Punch: Have we mentioned this is a Mazinger series?
- Robosexual: Professor Nonaka seems a little more than just interested in Aphrodite-A and co...
- Robosexuals Are Creeps: ...Which earns him the side eye from both the pilots and his coworkers.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Brocken's plot to keep nosy interlopers away as he mined the mountain in the Hot Springs Episode.
- She Is All Grown Up: Sayaka in Z has becomed a sexy and busty School Nurse of Paradise Academy. She is also much more calm, collected, and mature.
- Shout-Out: There are so many shout-outs to other Go Nagai works that it has its own page. See -and add- examples there.
- Shower Scene: Jun, Hikaru and Sayaka have one.
- Stalker with a Crush: Sayaka has one: Naojiro. Boss, Nuke and Mucha does not like that he bothers their friend, but they are unable to stop him. Fortunately, she does need NO bodyguard (and so he was informed by Sayaka as she beat him).
- Super Mode: Minerva-X's Flyin Mode.
- Super Robot
- Super Robot Genre
- Thematic Rogues Gallery: The Mazinger Angels use Humongous Mecha to fight Robeast.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Count Brocken was a former Nazi officer in the original series. Here he owns a resorts chain named "The Third Reich". how subtle.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Maria learns her Fleedian heritage in the sequel.
- Torpedo Tits: All Fem Bots -minus Minerva- have regular Torpedo Tits or combine their original Oppai Missiles with the Rocket Punch variant used by the Humongous Mecha from their respective series: Sayaka's Aphrodite A combines it with Mazinger's "Iron Cutter", Jun's Venus A combines it with Great Mazinger's "Drill Pressure Punch" and Hikaru's Diana A combines it with Grendizer's "Screw Crusher Punch".
- The series goes even further than that, especially with Aphrodite. The mechs have an "OPM System" that generates the missiles(thus the Bottomless Magazines) and can even shape them for specialized attacks or other uses. Sayaka's used Aphrodite to deploy Lifeboats for a sea rescue mission, extended an extra pair of hands for a Barehanded Blade Block, and even once launched Breast Rocket Punches.
- Training from Hell: A storyline involved the girls undergoing special -and specially hard- training.
- Tsundere: THREE of them: Sayaka, Jun and Maria. They were quite famous by that trait back in the seventies. Fortunately, their usual fuses (Kouji and Tetsuya) are not present to set them off. Unfortunately, there are more than enough perverts for making up for their absence.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Jun is the only one from the original team unaccounted for in Z.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Hikaru looks and acts the part very well, with the Hime Cut and being the nicest one of them, such as befriending Maria and recruiting her with a hug and kind words. The inner iron comes out later when she becomes a full-blooded Action Girl.
