Tetsujin 28-gou: Hakuchuu no Zangetsu

This theatrical version based on the manga by Yokoyama Mitsuteru, deals with the genius boy detective Kaneda Shotaro and his giant robot, Tetsujin 28, set in Tokyo ten years after the end of the Second World War.

Shotaro's missing brother appears as a a new character who was trained as a pilot of the soldier robot Tetsujin which Japan had created for the Second World War. However, with the end of the war, there was nothing left for him but a peaceful Japan. In the meantime, "Destruction Bombs" are found in many places in Tokyo. The bombs were developed by Professor Kaneda, the creator of Tetsujin 28 and Shotaro's father, as the ultimate weapons to protect the mainland. If the bombs explode, Tokyo will be reduced to ashes.

Kaneda, Shoutarou Main

Murasame, Kenji Supporting

Ootsuka, Chief Supporting

Shikishima, Professor Supporting

Murasame, Ryuusaku Supporting

Takamizawa, Ahiru Supporting

Imagawa, Yasuhiro Director, Script, Storyboard

Kogawa, Yoriyasu Episode Director

Yokoyama, Akitoshi Storyboard

Yokoyama, Mitsuteru Original Creator

Reviews

Jan 14, 2020

hdr0

Mixed Feelings

Note: familiarity with both the 2004 Tetsujin series Imagawa also directed and the Giant Robo OVA is helpful in understanding this review. They're both incredible, please watch them if you're a fan of mecha and haven't yet. You can watch this without having seen the series but I do not recommend it as it assumes familiarity with the main characters.

It's no secret that Imagawa himself wasn't happy with how this film turned out, and it sharing its name ("Zangetsu" - the lingering moon) with one of the Magnificent Ten from his Giant Robo OVA has led some to believe that Imagawa just used this ... opportunity to animate one of the chapters that would have chronologically preceded the OVA ("The Birth of Zangetsu the Midday"), but replacing all of the characters with Tetsujin 28 characters. Shotaro's older adopted brother, while not featured in the original manga or any of its previous adaptations, does bear resemblance to some of Yokoyama's characters. The same goes for the apartment manager he lives with, who is based on a character from Sangokushi.

The backgrounds are as good as the show, though for a movie it's merely the expected standard, and the animation as well is decent but nothing noteworthy; character acting's almost nonexistent and the film only has a few robot fights (one of which reuses footage from the first, though for plot-related reasons). The visual presentation of the finale will be extremely familiar to you if you've seen Giant Robo.

Tetsujin himself is practically a background character, and while it does attempt tackling some of the same themes as the series, the short length prevents both the impact and depth it presented. Though I do appreciate how it depicted some aspects of the era not present in the series, like the unexploded bombs or repatriated soldiers.

If you liked Takamizawa and Kenji in the series, here they act essentially out of character, Kenji presumably because he hasn't gone through the trauma of having lost his brother (though he strangely still acts as a journalist for one scene), but Takamizawa is just inexplicable. The rest of the cast who do act the same as in the series lack depth across the board due to not having experienced the same events.

The antagonists' (there are multiple) motivations range from shallow to a tad incomprehensible, and some of them are just trivialized versions of the same antagonists from the series.

All this said, it's a passable film overall that I don't regret spending my time on, but there's no loss in skipping it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 31, 2023

Ionliosite2

Not Recommended

Note: I'm writing this with the assumption the reader has finished Tetsujin 28-gou 2004 before watching the movie, so spoilers for the show are going to be mentioned a lot.

Yasuhiro Imagawa is a legend among mecha fans, the combination of his strong narratives and love for classic old school robots lead to his reboots of old properties being considered on par if not superior to the originals, and his 2004 version of 60s anime Tetsujin 28-gou is no exception. By combining a magnificent retro aesthetic, epic orchestral OST, a likable cast with great chemistry, solid character development and strong thematic writing, it's easily one of ... the most overlooked mecha shows I've watched. Needless to say, this movie doesn't live up to the standard set by its predecessor, and there's just way too many reasons why.

Let's start with the elephant in the room, there's no way this movie is canon, between Ryuusaku being inexplicably alive, Kenji being reformed and the Velanede group apparently being unknown to the main cast, there's no point in the series' timeline the events of this movie can take place in. If that wasn't enough, it also retcons a lot of the stuff we knew about Kaneda, not only with these new Ruin Bombs and the way they completely contradict what we knew about the Tetsujin Project, but also introducing Shotaro's older brother of the same name, whom I'm going to call Shoutarou from here on. Shoutarou's entire existence undermines Kaneda's motivation for creating Tetsujin 28, as he wanted the robot to serve as a replacement for his unborn child that he believed to be dead, so him actually already having another son makes what the series had established about Tetsujin that served as the basis for the relationship between it and Shotaro to no longer make sense - something the movie itself seems to acknowledge, as Shotaro has to go by the same arc he went in the first 5 eps of this series in this for no explicable reason.

Going back to things that have no explanation, let's go back to the fact a lot of characters are just completely out of character, from Takamizawa suddenly becoming a shotacon (fun trivia, this Shotaro is the origin of the word irl, and we even see her coining the term early into the movie), Kenji being very open about his love for her and showing none of his grislier side, Big Fire and Velanede wanting to blow up Japan for no clear motivation, and Chloroform, who had been little more than a prop for Shikishima in the series but was at worst a jerk cop from what we saw of him, acting as the main antagonist who's even viler than the previously mentioned duo. While the trio of Shotaro, Otsuka and Shikishima aren't ooc, they lack any of the depth they had in the series, so they still come across as flat compared to their original nuanced portrayal. Tetsujin itself was treated as a character with its own arc and themes in the series, and yet, it's just a plot device here, effectively only being in the movie because it's in the title. All the antagonistic mecha from the show also come back, again with no explanation, and they're defeated with no fanfare.

Music and animation are as good as in the show, but this is a movie, the fact it looks the same as a TV series is plain bizarre. There's also some footage recycled from the series, and even from the movie itself, during the fight scenes, but at least the latter had a plot reason. If anything, the advantage the movie had was lacking the TV restrictions, so they could show Shotaro indulging in more adult content like drinking alcohol, bleeding and even using the gun that had been forbidden from being added by exces. From the staff list, I can tell the writers changed, and I heard Imagawa didn't like how this movie turned out, and it's clear that he just wasn't that into it, as his dramatic cinematography is barely present throughout.

Overall, this movie adds nothing that the series didn't do already, derails a good chunk of the cast, trivializes all the antagonists, and in general just feels like it would've been better to just make it a sequel rather than the weird alt timeline stuff going on here.

Thank you for reading

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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