Trivia / Giant Robo

• All There in the Manual: For the Toku: Do you ever notice the one Big Fire/Gargoyle henchman with the goatee that appears in nearly every episode? Guidebooks for the series give him the name of "Lieutenant Piranha".
• Creator Backlash: The series' creator, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, was incredibly dissatisfied with how the original manga turned out, due to Executive Meddling from the publishers, to the point where he actually refused the manga to be reprinted, until after his death.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • In NYAV Post's English dub, Daisaku Kusama, a young boy, was voiced by a woman (Michelle Newman).
  • The same goes in the Latin American Spanish dub, when the same character is voiced by Gaby Willer.
• Development Hell: The OVA actually began work on 1990 as a straight up remake of the live action version. Due to Executive Meddling and budget crunches, it wasn't completed until 1998 and without its main plot fully realized.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • In the Animaze English dub, Kevin Seymour was the ADR director as well as Issei Dojin's voice actor.
  • Besides writing and directing NYAV Post's English dub, Michael Sinterniklaas also appeared as Gen Shoji in the seventh episode.
• Dueling Dubs: Two English dubs were made for the North American release. One was produced by Animaze in California for L.A. Hero. Several years later, Media Blasters released it in 2004 with another dub recorded at New York City's NYAV Post, in addition to the Animaze-produced dub.
• Franchise Killer: The overall failure of GR: Giant Robo not only put a halt to any future adaptations being made, it also put a stop to any new anime adaptations of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's works since. ^note  However there was Tetsujin 28 Gao! in 2013. But that adaptation also fell to obscurity.
• He Also Did: Phoenix Entertainment, the animation studio behind the 1992 anime adaptation of Giant Robo, are also best known for working on the infamously gory Hentai OVA series, Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The English releases of the 1992 OVA had long been out of print, until it was eventually licensed by Discotek Media.
  • Johnny Sokko suffered from this fate for a long time. Orion Pictures had released 8 episodes of the show on VHS through Streamline Pictures before MGM bought the company out, thus leaving the remaining 18 episodes unavaliable. It wasn't until 2013 when Shout! Factory licensed the entire series and put it out on DVD.
• Late Export for You: Spanish-speaking Latin America didn't get the 1992 OVA until 2023, 31 years after its original release.
• No Export for You: Unlike the 1967 live-action series and the 1992 OVA, the 2007 anime has never been released outside of Asia and Brazil.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The first 12 chapters of the original manga were co-written and drawn by Submarine 707 creator Satoru Ozawa while Mitsuteru Yokoyama finished up the Akakage manga.
  • When Media Blasters acquired the rights to the OVA in 2004, they dubbed it at NYAV Post with local voice actors. For example, Daisaku Kusama, voiced in the first dub by Joshua Seth, is voiced in the second dub by Michelle Newman.
• Schedule Slip: The OVA suffered massively from this thanks to its Troubled Production. The first episode was released in 1992 with the intent to be finished within 2 years. The seventh and final episode did not come until 1998 and that was after a 3 year gap between episodes 6 and 7.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: The tokusatsu only ran for one 26 episode season, but it was considered by Toei to be their first modern tokusatsu employing all the tropes they still use to this day on Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, as well as introducting Humongous Mecha heroes to the world of Toku.
• What Could Have Been: Lots and lots.
  • 1967 Manga
    • The original design seen on the front cover of the first chapter bears a completely different chest symbol that bears a striking resemblance to the design of Calamity/GR4 from the Toei tokusatsu.This was changed by request of the editor because it resembled the Iron Cross used by the Nazi's too much.
    • Giant Robo co-creator and artist for the first dozen issues, Satoru Ozawa, has stated in his idea for the series that the GR-units were self aware (albeit mute) and wanted Giant Robo to be akin to Astro Boy but this was scrapped in favor of the more familiar use of the Kid With The Remote Control trope.
    • In 1999, Mitsuteru Yokoyama had expressed interest in redrawing the entire series in his current artstyle even using newly redesigns colors◊for Giant Robo and the other GR's. But thanks to his death in 2004 his finished redrawn GR manga never came to be.
  • 1967 Toku Series
    • Originally in Episode 13 of the Toku, the villain Black Diamond/Harlequin was meant to be killed off in the shed explosion and offscreen be turned into Red Cobra/Fangar which explains how he disappears after the first dozen or so episodes with no explanation given and Red Cobra suddenly appears out of nowhere with only a throwaway line explaining Black Diamond died offscreen.
    • The original planned ending was a much happier one, with Robo becoming an amusement park attraction for kids to play with. The head writing staff of Toei Company criticized Director Toru Hirayama for making a relatively dull ending so the now infamous Bittersweet Ending was chosen instead to make it stand out to viewers.
    • In addition, the finale was originally supposed to include Gangar (The Iron Klaw in the English dub) as one of several kaiju/mecha that appeared in that episode but was cut for unknown reasons.
  • 1992 OVA
    • Early on, Yasuhiro Imagawa only planned on making a single 70-80 minute movie, owing to the Japanese recession of the 1990's, but Bandai Visual gave him enough money to at least get 3 to 4 episodes produced, with the possibility of more episodes should the OVA's do well financially. Though early drafts for a 4 episode mini series do exist (and were the basis of the 1992 OVA manga), it ultimately led to 7 episodes, 3 mini specials and an one shot audio drama being made.
    • The Original Magical Girl, Sally the Witch, only really shows up as a cameo and plot device, falling prey to the dark gods of story compression. In the Siege of Babel arc, her, Big Fire and Daisaku would've made some sort of friendship.
    • The OVA was intended as the second-to-last chapter of a 7 part meta story, hence the deliberate cliffhanger.
    • The remaining 6 chapters have been titled, but not fully produced. These titles were: The Birth of Zangetsu the Midday, The Plan to Assassinate Daisaku - the Canary Penitentiary, The Boy of Three Days, The Greatest Battle in History - General Kanshin vs. Shokatsu Koumei, The Boy Detective, Kindaichi Shotaro; Appears!, and The Siege of Babel. Various Japanese and English publications gave basic summaries of what would've happened in these arcs.
    • Had Jason DeMarco made successful negotiations at the time, Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still would've aired on Toonami as part of Giant Robot Week.
    • In the original planning in the finale battle between The Experts and the Eye of Volger (which originally was just Globar from the toku), The Poisonous Shizuma Clouds would be absorbed and converted into cleaner energy by way of a 4th GR unit modeled after Calamity from the tokusatsu version, who would emerge from the Eye and fight GR-1 and the Experts to avoid them from releasing the toxic clouds from within it. Imagawa scrapped this idea early on, as it made little sense within the story itself, though art of GR-4 exists via the 1993 OVA manga which itself was heavily based on those early concepts.
    • This series was deliberately made with no real ending due to budgetary and licensing issues, and when the licensing fees became relatively cheaper, Hikari Pro and another studio, Softgarage, opted for a full blown Continuity Reboot with aesthetics much closer to the first half of Neon Genesis Evangelion, rather than the fun and over-the-top style that the original OVA was known for. It doesn't look like we'll ever get answers to the potential plot threads the OVA left us, with the Yokoyama estate's less-than-generous licensing policies not helping. (The same reason why Giant Robo all but vanished from Super Robot Wars after Alpha.)
  • 2007 Anime
    • Originally, the 2007 anime was going to be a faithful adaptation of the original manga, according to the pilot.
    • The 2007 anime was supposed to get an additional 2 seasons to expand the plot. While little is known about the plot of these two seasons, it is believed that it would've been a modernized retelling of the live action version's alien invasion plot. But due to a lack of viewership caused by the shows odd release schedule, the show had yet again became another example of this franchise Left Hanging.
    • In concept art seen in the GR: Giant Robo art book, early concept art shows GR-1 having an identical head to GR-4 with vertical stripes◊ rather than the more familiar horizontal lines around GR-1's head. This presumably was changed so GR-1 had the more familar look to distinguish itself from GR-4.
    • Animation duties were originally going to be by OLM Incorporated, but they were dropped after the initial pitch trailer and replaced by A.C.G.T. for the show proper.
  • Misc.
    • Shortly before his death, Ultraman director Akio Jissoji had planned to make a Giant Robo movie with Shochiku but after many mishaps and licensing conflicts this plan fell through. In addition, the earliest incarnation of what later evolved into the 2005 Live action Tetsujin 28 film was to include all of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Super Robot characters, with Giant Robo and Daisaku taking a predominant role.
• Written by Cast Member: In NYAV Post's English dub of the OVA, Dan Green was one of the ADR scriptwriters as well as Genya's voice actor.

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