Mazinger Z / Tropes P to R

Tropes A to C | Tropes D to F | Tropes G to I | Tropes J to L | Tropes M to O | Tropes P To R | Tropes S to U | Tropes V to Z | Shout-Outs

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Mazinger Z provides examples of the following tropes:

P

• Paper-Thin Disguise: Sigh. Dr. Hell. If you are making a cyborg looks right like Prof. Yumi, then why do you color his nails black when you know Yumi's nails are not black? Did you think nobody would ever notice? Bad luck, because Sayaka did. At least you didn't make that mistake again when you made cyborg looked right like Kouji Kabuto or his mother.
• Peggy Sue: Both Kouji and Minerva-X become this in Shin Mazinger Zero.
• Perpetual Frowner: Dr. Hell has mostly three default expressions: angry, worried and disappointed/frustrated. He seldom smiles (fortunately, since when he actually does so, it is a very creepy Slasher Smile).
• Pervert Revenge Mode:
  • Sayaka took no kindly when she was spied in the anime series. One example happened in the the Mazinger vs Great General of Darkness movie, when Kouji walked into her when she was having a shower, and she slapped him.
  • Subverted in the original manga. Kouji and Sayaka saw each other naked accidentally... and they just apologized each other calmly (blushing the whole time). It was especially funny because it was Sayaka the one walked into Kouji.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Several times in the manga and in the anime series Kouji held Sayaka -or vice versa- in that position, usually when one of them lay unconscious on the ground. Actually the cover of one of the volumes features a grim-looking Kouji holding a fainted Sayaka◊.
• Poor Communication Kills: In episode 26, the conflict between Kouji and secondary character Saijyo could have been averted if the latter had explained that his dog stole Kouji's little brother's chickens because she had puppies to feed.
• Power Armor: In New Mazinger (one of the alternate manga continuities) the characters (including Kouji Kabuto) wore power armor.

• Power Gives You Wings: One of the many Mid Season Upgrades that Mazinger-Z gets is the Jet Scrander: a Jet Pack with huge, red Razor Wings.
• Powers in the First Episode: In the first episode Kouji finds a Humongous Mecha in his grandfather's underground lab and is told it will be his power from that day on, and he can become a god or a devil with it.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Several things were toned down in the anime of Mazinger Z. In the original story, Dr. Kabuto was pretty much another Mad Scientist with his face scarred who had never met Dr. Hell. In the anime, he was a well-meaning, nice old man who shared a backstory with Hell and built Mazinger Z for defending the world (apparently this was later retconned into manga continuity, since in the Great Mazinger manga Kouji claimed Dr. Hell had killed his grandfather). However, Kouji was nicer and less exist -albeit a bigger pervert- in the manga, and Sayaka was a Type B Tsundere instead of a Type A, and their fights were worst in the anime. Many manga characters (such like Inspector Ankokuji, the twin sisters Loru and Lori or the Gamia assassin androids) and storylines never showed up in the anime, or their story was altered (such like Lorelei's story). Likewise, the anime came up with new characters (such like Professor Gordon and his daughter that modified Mazinger Z to be able to swim, or Viscount Pygman and Archduke Gorgon) developed some situations (such like Mazinger getting its Mid-Season Upgrade and other minor upgrades, or the birth of Boss Borot) and characters (such like the other scientists of the Institute, or Kouji and Sayaka's families) in a greater depth than the manga. On the whole it can be told it was an Adaptation Distillation.
• Pre-Explosion Glow: When Mazinger hits an enemy with its Photon Beams, the Mechanical Beast uses to glow before exploding (although sometimes it disintegrates).
• Prehistoric Monster: The Big Bad of God Mazinger used armies of dinosaurs. Also, the Dragonosaurus -an Eldritch Abomination from a Crossover movie featuring Great Mazinger Getter Robo G and UFO Robo Grendizer- was told being a previously-thought-extinct prehistoric monster.
• Primary-Color Champion: Mazinger-Z is black and silver with red and blue parts.
• The Professor:
  • Dr. Juzo Kabuto is sometimes this, overlaping with Mad Scientist in the manga, Mazinkaiser and Shin Mazinger Zero.
  • Sayaka's father, Dr. Gennosuke Yumi.
  • Also the trio composed of Sewashi, Nozori and Morimori.
  • And, last but not least, Kenzo Kabuto.
• Promotion to Parent:
  • After their parents and grandfather's deaths, Kouji became his little brother Shiro's de facto guardian.
  • In the sequel, Tetsuya and Jun take care of Shiro most of the time. Subverted because they didn't know for a long while that they were his adoptive siblings.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Mykene. Many of them were warriors highly proud of their skills and eager for testing them, and their Robeasts were made by grafting into the body of a Humongous Mecha the brain of a soldier indoctrinated to fight and exterminate all non-Mykene civilizations.
• Psycho Supporter: Both Ashura and Brocken.
• Pulling Themselves Together: Several Mechanical Monsters had this capacity (and Dr. Hell perfected the trick every time): Deimos F3 could reassemble itself every time that it was blown apart. Belgas V5 could disassemble and reassemble itself at will, and every body part was weaponized and could attack and fight separately. Briver A3 could reassemble itself every time that it was blown apart, every body part was weaponized, AND the head had greater attack capability that the rest and was better protected.
• Put on a Bus: All Mazinger Z characters were Put on a Bus in the end of the series, except for Shiro, Boss and his gang -Nuke and Mucha-, that were secondary characters in the sequel.
  • The Bus Came Back - Back for the Finale: Several of them -Kouji, Sayaka and Prof. Yumi- returned for the Grand Finale of Great Mazinger.
• Pyrrhic Victory: After a long and hard battle, Kouji defeated Dr. Hell with Mazinger Z. However, the Mycene immediately attacks without giving any time to rest and he is unable to do anything to stop them. He's saved by Tetsuya and his Great Mazinger, who claims that Mazinger Z isn't needed anymore.

R

• Radial Ass Kicking:
  • Although the anime used a Monster of the Week approach most of time, in the original manga Dr. Hell was smart enough to send a lot Mechanical Beasts at once, and Kouji constantly found himself in the center of a ring of enemies. It also happened a lot in the movies (Mazinger-Z vs Devilman and Mazinger-Z vs Great General of Darkness).
  • In the first Mazinkaiser Ova Mazinger-Z and Great Mazinger were surrounded by an army of Mechanical Beasts, and Kouji and Tetsuya fought them Back-to-Back Badasses style.
• Ramming Always Works: A Kouji's favored tactic when he is battling flying fortress is ramming through them, destroying and blowing up so much as he is able before using one of Mazinger's stronger attacks to shoot the airship off the sky.
• Razor Wings: Mazinger Z has the Scramble Cutter, an attack in which Kouji uses his Jet Scrambler's wings to slice into the enemy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the Ota's manga, Count Brocken delivers an EPIC one to Dr. Hell. During the final battle Hell ordered Count Brocken go and battle Mazinger... even though Brocken was an human-sized cyborg with no special weapons! Brocken reluctantly agreed... but before leaving he told EXACTLY what he thought of Hell, calling him out on all his failures and flaws, blaming him for their defeats, declaring bitterly that he does not care that his troops risk their lives everyday, and stating that he served Hell out of gratitude -for saving his life- but he never wanted working for such an inept. Then he announced that he would return to Germany if he survived before leaving as Hell threw a fit.
• Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Kouji and Sayaka (and Boss) are sixteen, and they pilot giant robots to save mankind.
• Red Is Heroic: Kouji wears a dark-red Latex Space Suit.
• Red Shirt:
  • In the last Go Nagai manga arc, the Japanese army created the Mazinger army -a squad of mass-production Mazingers- to try and defeat Big Bad Dr. Hell once and for all. Since the robots needed trained pilots, several new characters were introduced -like the blonde twins Lori and Loru. However, as Kouji was performing test flights with the Jet Scrander, Dr. Hell threw a massive attack involving several mobile fortresses and several dozens of Mechanical Beasts. Main character, Love Interest and Battle Couple Sayaka Yumi and the Mazinger army flew to meet the Hell's army. Only one of them survived, and you will never guess who. Sayaka.
  • Loru and Lori also showed up in Mazinkaiser, repeating their Red Shirt roles. They died in the first battle that they took active part in.

• Reforged into a Minion: This is Dr. Hell's favorite trick. This is how he got himself his Co-Dragons. He found Brocken bleeding to death on the ground and turn him into a headless Cyborg. While exploring the underground mazes of Bardos he found two mummified bodies. One half of each body was crushed under rocks. So he sewed the intact halves together, relived it as a Cyborg with a mechanized brain and named it Ashura. And his Mooks? He -or his henchmen- killed people and he turned the corpses into cybernetic slaves programmed to serve him. Now you know what happened to all people died in the battles between Mazinger-Z and Hell's Mechanical Beasts.
• Refusal of the Call: Kouji Jumped at the Call in the original series. In the first timeline seen in Shin Mazinger Zero, he refused the call and we got to see the outcome. It was not pretty (unless your definition of pretty includes the planet scorched away and the humanity wiped out by Mazinger-Z).
• Relationship Upgrade: The moment Kouji and Sayaka become an item varies between adaptations, but in the Gosaku Ota alternate manga, it happened when they kissedight before Kouji sortied to fight a hopeless battle against the Mykene Empire army.
• Religious Robot: Erika was an android that had forgot her origins due to amnesia. She felt a huge emptiness inside her so her turned to Christianity to fill it. She always wore a cross and prayed fervently.
• Resentful Guardian: Dr. Hell's mother hated her son and regarded him as a burden and a nuisance, and she made her contempt very clear to everyone, including Hell.
• Restraining Bolt:
  • It was implied in the original series and outright shown in Shin Mazinger Zero that Mazinger Z has a Restraining Bolt: its pilot. If Mazinger has a pilot at its controls and restrains its power, it simply becomes a demon that destroys the world. Mazinkaiser showed if the Humongous Mecha is not controlled, it simply goes berserker and destroys all it meets. Shin Mazinger Zero elaborated further on this, showing that if it is not piloted or it is piloted by someone who is dominated by negative emotions (sadness, hurt, fury, hatred, helplessness...), Mazinger-Z evolves into an Eldritch Abomination and destroys the world.
  • Minerva-X restraining bolt is her circuit partner located on her midsection. Without it, she would be unable to tell friend from enemy and would go berserk.
• Revenge Before Reason: Hell's motivation to Take Over the World is having revenge on everybody who abused him or mocked him when he was young (or people he believes abused him and mocked him). Nevertheless, he was seventy-years old when the series begins, so everyone or most of them will have been deceased. Yet will he let that insignificant detail stop him? Hell, no!
• Rhino Rampage: Mechanical Beast Toros D7 resembled a mix between rhino and bull: it was four-legged, its body was armor-plated, and above its head it had a huge horn. It attacked charging at its adversary and impaling it or goring it with its large horn.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Minerva-X was conceived by Dr. Kabuto to fight alongside Mazinger-Z since he whole-heartedly believed a man always must fight with a strong woman by his side (he was a big defender of the Battle Couple trope). Her role was devising a battle strategy to help and support Mazinger according information Mazinger's main computer sent. Okay. However, apparently Dr. Kabuto also thought she needed being capable to think independantly, act on her own and feel emotions to carry out her mission. Not only that, but also he programmed her to love Mazinger-Z (he REALLY was a big defender of the Battle Couple trope). This is reinforced in Shin Mazinger Zero where she feels happiness, uncertainness, worry, jealousy, doubt, despair (to the point of telling her "heart" was breaking in one ocassion), joy, and sometimes she even blushes.
  • Dr. Hell sometimes crafted human-resembling robots to infiltrate in the Institute. Obviously he would want they behaved like humans, so it was kind of justified. However Erika forgot she was a robot, and she constantly prayed because she felt empty and soulless.
• Riding into the Sunset: This kind of scenes happened plenty in the trilogy. In Mazinger Z many episodes ended up with the main characters -in their robots standing against the sunset still inside their robots or driving their Humongous Mechas back to the Institute.
  • One specific episode ended up with Kouji using Mazinger's hand to -carefully- pick Sayaka and she calmly sitting on the behemot's hand and happily talking to Kouji as Sun set after them.
  • Another episode ended up with Kouji (inside Mazinger-Z) holding Sayaka (inside Aphrodite-A) bridal style and walking together into the sunset.
  • The Great Mazinger vs UFO Robo Grendizer ended up with Kouji and Duke gazing at the sunset together after the battle. Kouji even commented on it being a beautiful sunset.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Deconstructed in Shin Mazinger Zero. Kouji and Minerva-X are locked into a Groundhog Peggy Sue loop. Both of them have Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. However Kouji's memory is faulty, and he only remembers what happened in former timelines through dreams and sudden flashbacks, and they are so vague and so random -and seldom he has them when he needs them- that they are all but useless. On the other hand, Minerva remembers with utter clarity how they failed thousands of times in averting the End of the World as We Know It, and how her beloved, her friends and the whole humanity died several thousands of times because she failed.
• Robeast: Dr. Hell's Kikaiju (Mechanical Beasts), Archduke Gorgon's Youkikaijuu and Mykene's Warrior Beasts (Sentoujuu).
• Robot Girl: The Gamia sisters, Erika, Lorelei...
• Rock Beats Laser: New Mazinger definitely subverted the trope. At the beginning Mazinger easily defeats with a sword a bunch of mechas armed with laser blades, ray guns and missile launchers... However Mazinger later faced the whole Zard army. They not even used firearms. Mazinger was loaded with clusters of missiles. He easily annihilated them.
• Rocket Punch: Trope Namer and Trope Maker. "Roketto Paaaanchi!". Anytime anyone says PANCHIE instead of Punch, it's a tribute to Mazinger Z...and inexplicably makes said attack more powerful.
  • Depending on the iteration, the arm would come back on its own, or Kouji would have to pick it up. The standard rocket punch is eventually upgraded to the Kyoukagata Rocket Punch ("Reinforced Rocket Punch"), consisting of identical fists with stronger armor. Mazinger Z possess a technique called Daisharin Rocket Punch ("Giant Swing Rocket Punch") in which it spins its arms rapidly, building up momentum before firing off both fists in standard Rocket Punch fashion. Mazinger Z also once used a technique called "Boomerang Fist", in which the rocket punch was attached to the upper arm with a retractable chain, and the "Iron Cutter", a Rocket Punch with blades extended on the sides of the forearms.
  • Being a Combat Pragmatist and quick-thinker, Kouji comes up with a ton of new uses on the fly... including pulling a Giant Robot Hands Save Lives once.
  • A Mechanical Beast -Dian N4- was equipped with a Rocket Punch variant. Dian used its oversized, flying hands to grab, crush and lift things, or to deflect enemy fire. Another Kikaijuu, Genocyder F9, invoked the trope when it ripped its own arm off and hurled it at its target.
  • Unbuilt Trope: The Mazinger's design also kept in mind several things later shows neglected: the mechanisms of launching AND retrieval were clearly visible, Mazinger was built to be able to use any of its weapons even though it was missing its arms (hence, Kouji was not hindered when a Robeast picked, disabled or shattered the Mazinger's fists, which happened so often like you would expect), and Prof. Yumi ensured there always was at least a pair of Mazinger's spare fists in the Institute to launch at Mazinger in case of Kouji needed them urgently.
  • Deconstructed Trope: Ironically, the Trope Maker series also deconstructed the trope. In one episode, Boss cajoles Prof. Yumi's assistants to build him his own Humongous Mecha (Boss Borot)... using junk. When he eagerly asked if Boss Borot will have a Rocket Punch, Prof. Morimori's answer was: "Are you out of your mind? Your robot is made of SCRAP METAL. The fist would shatter upon impact."
  • Power Fist: Mazinger-Z not only sported a Rocket Punch, but in one episode extendable cutters were added to the forearms (the Iron Cutter). And in another episode, its fists got reinforced to make them sturdier.
  • Hand Blast: In one of the first episodes, Mazinger-Z shot missiles from its fingertips. This weapon was quickly ignored for obvious reasons.
• Rod-and-Reel Repurposed: In episode 52, Shiro's toy ends up in Sayaka's bathroom while she's in there brushing her hair fresh out of the shower wearing only a Modesty Towel on. Not wanting to alert her, he tries using a fishing rod to get back his toy, but accidentally ends up hooking her towel instead and ends up snagging it off her (The audience only sees her bare back before she covers herself). Shiro flees while she's having a Naked Freak-Out and she comes to the Wrong Assumption that Koiji did it, and pays back by using the rod to beat him up, much to his confusion.
• Role Called: Named after the Humongous Mecha that the main character pilots.
• Rousseau Was Right: The "Theme of Z" seems to think so. Kouji and his friends meet many people behave like jerks but deep down are not bad people, and Big Bad Dr. Hell's reasons for being evil are he was The Woobie when he was young. However, this series somehow manages mixing this trope with Humans Are Bastards.
• Rule of Cool: Go Nagai explicitly said that this is the reason Mazinger Z (and as a result the Super Robot Genre) is what it is. He DID his research about science and technology, but ultimately he did what he thought seemed cooler. Thus, we got a Made of Indestructium eighteen-meter-tall humanoid war machine and Eldritch Abomination created by a Mad Scientist, piloted from within, powered with Applied Phlebotinum, equiped with punches can be thrown at the enemy, optical weaponry, corrosive gusts of wind and heat blasts capable to melt at seconds a monster made of metal, capable to fly, swim and to withstand a nuclear blast and be dunked in magma for a short while, and constantly fights robotic gladiators capable to shot lightning bolts and make 3-D mirages in thin air without a screen, flying medieval knights, whales loaded with nukes, three-headed dragons, giant crabs capable to set off earthquakes, Transforming Mecha capable turning into giant landmines, Ninjas, archerians, snipers and humanoids capable fly at Match 6 speed. And that is without getting into the Home Base equipped with a Beehive Barrier, the zombie cyborg Mooks, the ancient civilizations capable to build superweapons, one of the Co-Dragons that is a half-tiger cyborg, or the Super Villain Lair that in reality is a humongous Humongous Mecha disguised like an Island Base.
• Rule of Three: The Mazinger series used this trope over and again, starting with the fact of the original series formed a trilogy. The titular Humongous Mecha is a Combining Mecha formed by three parts: Mazinger-Z, the Hover Pilder and the Jet Scrander. The Photon Atomic Power Research Institute is protected by three Humongous Mecha: Mazinger-Z, Aphrodite-A and Boss Borot. Throughout the series three FemBots show up: Aphrodite A, Minerva-X and Diana-A. Prof. Yumi is aided by three scientists (Profs. Morimori, Sewashi and Nossori). The Boss' gang is formed by three members: Boss, Nuke and Mucha. Dr. Hell never had more than three Co-Dragons at once, and several times he sent three-mecha teams to take down his enemies (Aeros B1, B2 and B3; Megaron P1, P2 and P3). Baron Ashura kidnapped three workers of the Institute in one episode (Kasuya, Kata and Yokoi). A Mechanical Beast could split in three parts could act and attack independently...

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