Mazinger Z

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Mazinger Z is a simple, yet bizarre and interesting manga, where Go Nagai's ability to clearly tell is a story is on full display, even if the overarching story is a little flat. His visuals are very clear, and many of the ideas in the manga are quite interesting, even if variations can be found elsewhere. There is little to really hold your imagination on this five volume manga alone, but the simplicity of the manga is also a strength as it is quit easy to read.

The major flaw is that most of the characters lack real development, and at times feel a bit ... childish. That could be due to the intent of Nagai's audience with this work, as something like Devilman has much grander themes, regardless of how you feel about their execution. Mazinger Z doesn't really present any important themes, although the characters themselves, both heroes and villains, are quite enjoyable, if at the same time bland.

Mazinger Z is a good old mech story, a giant robot trying to protect the earth from a greater evil force, fighting monsters and with charismatic characters. However, this simplicity is what makes Mazinger Z so special and a huge inspiration to others of the same genre.


The story starts with Koji Kabuto, who is the grandson of a huge scientist (Dr. Juzo Kabuto), his father and mother died in a fatal accident while on a joint project, so, he lives with his grandfather and his brother, Shiro Kabuto. One day, a great earthquake appears in the town, destroying Koji's house, and killing his grandfather too. ... Before dying, Juzo says to Koji about a super weapon he was developing, called Mazinger Z, and that Koji has to pilot it to save the earth from the attacks of Dr. Hell, an evil being, who has a huge army of mech beasts, one part of the army commanded by Baron Ashura, and the other commanded by Count Blocken.


With that said, Mazinger Z holds the story pretty well, being straight up to the point where Koji fights the villains, but unfortunately, the end doesn't go how it was expected with Mazinger fighting Dr. Hell, lefting the reader to go to Great Mazinger to see how it goes. The annoying part comes for the amount of chances that Mazinger had to defeat Baron Ashura and Count Brocken where almost in every chapter, and for no reason, he just let they leave, causing the manga to just end with Mazinger defeating Baron Ashura.


As for the characters, they are pretty funny sometimes and engaging, Koji is a good protagonist, Sayaka is sweet, Boss is the silly guy who has a crush on Sayaka, Shiro helps Koji when he needs to. And for the villains, they have a unique design and unique personalities (villains who are just evil can be pretty good). However... It seems that the supporting characters haven't done anything, they are just showing to get their robots destroyed or get hurt sometimes. It leaves me pretty sad, because I like the characters.


The art is the usual Go Nagai, the designs are unique, like Mazinger's design.


In conclusion, I recommend if you're a fan of the Super Robot genre, it can be considered as the father of the genre, and if you're a fan of Go Nagai I recommend it too. His writing, art and essence, are always present (I apologize if it has some english errors here and there).

You know the story, Kouji Kabuto's grandpa has built a giant robot for him, called Mazinger Z, and gave him the choice of either doing good or evil, to become a god or the devil.

But if you don't, you shouldn't make this your first contact with the series. While it's a fun read for veterans on the series, if you're getting into it for the first time, you can get really confused, as many things are simply dropped on your face without any explanation.

The series stays in a steady pace for most of its run, but in the last two volumes you can tell ... the author was either tired or wanted to focus on his other works, rushing for it to end, only to stop it abruptly after an event that while may be the climax, it's also nothing close to a conclusion. After it, you have a string of episodic short chapters to wrap up the final volume. You could read it as him just giving up of making this a series and instead just him trying to promote the anime, which had recently started, and its original concepts.

One could call it dated, but Go Nagai's '70s art style is so charming and dynamic that you can't help but love it, the fight scenes are well executed and with the poses he draws, it really gives you a sense of movement.

None of the characters are actually fleshed out, but they're mostly unique and memorable. Kabuto may be a pretty generic mecha protagonist from the early days, but characters like Baron Ashura and the other villains keep the series fresh and enjoyable. Also, the manga has a few bad jokes here and there, so you may either chuckle a little with some of them or hate them.

TL;DR it's a fun manga with a not-ending. You either like it or hate it.