Tetsujin 28-gou (1980)

Ah, what's there to say? A show about a boy and his drone. A clear indicator of the conflicting values placed in a children's show that would not make publication today, Tetsujin 28-gou is a remake of the iconic sixties series chronicling the adventures of Shotaro and his robot, the colossus known as Tetsujin. A present from his father, he uses it to battle enemies of global order for Interpol. These foes include giant monsters, terrorists, and supervillains. Sometimes they try to steal it, other times they want it annihilated. Shotaro is helped by the local police inspector who is also happy to feed his ... delusions that drone operation is safe.

Shotaro himself is a bland deal. A clear self-insert of the author, his most redeeming features are his Sperry Topsiders and his country-club outfits. He's meant to be childish and young, which is becoming on him—however, he is largely clueless of real life, and this means he does not fit operating Tetsujin in most cases. He kills people with impunity in a way, where the audience is left wondering why the series is on children's blocks, if not television at all save for legacy points. Sometimes the author chooses to virtue signal at the wrong thing, especially for a kid's show. His sister exists to be weak, and usually "delights" the audience with her dress lifting despite her young age. The tragedy of classic anime. There are no other strong female roles in this series, with the exception of an American villain who vanishes after two episodes trying to steal the robot. Episodes will always end with Shotaro smiling despite killing or destroying plenty. The viewer will have to wonder why Shotaro isn't taking Tetsujin to Yemen today.

One good example of this lack of self-awareness on the author's part would be Shotaro's stepfather, who makes references to their father dying and his sexual relationship with his mother in very uncomfortable ways. In most cases, I wondered if these were the author's fantasies of what remarriage or single parenting is like. If the objective was to paint Shotaro as the classic shonen then it was lost on making fun of both him and his family. It's a surprise the author chose to be so self-deprecating given his obvious insert, and disappointing he assumed this would make for interesting character dialogue inside a household where parents would be watching the series with their children. Maybe he should have tried writing adults?

I had enough problems with it by the twentieth episode. The pacing is bad, the fights are mediocre, and the writing is terrible. There's the fact that it's a much better version of the 1960's original in animation, but beyond this I would not advise someone waste their time feeding whoever monetizes this show and wherever their money goes. The series itself still amounts to an anime classic, but not one that has any value to the viewer. I would not recommend it for a clear because of the length and general disappointment one will get unless they're tolerant of that classic mid-century bigotry that the first two adaptations of Tetsujin thrive off of. If interested in classic anime, this would be a fun one to examine for a classroom. There are plenty of things to psychoanalyze from the way the author talks about himself.

4/10. Not worth the time or effort unless necessary.