Gigantor

I saw this about twice in the UK back in the 1960s, but it disappeared from our telly schedules for some reason, they must have been pilots which were dropped.

I enjoyed it so much I never forgot about it, wondering for years what happened to "gigantor" So we in the UK never got to enjoy the series, and I searched for it, even asking my parents about it.

My 10/10 is a five year olds vote.

It looks awful to an adult, but was top stuff for a youngster, and here I am decades later wondering if I imagined it because no-one else I know who lives over here can remember it.

Who wouldn't want a remote control towering machine that's as big as a skyscraper, flies, fights and can do anything you want? I recall his cartoon being played on Sci-fi weekday mornings after Robotech. It was originally a black & white comic called Tetsujin 28 or Iron Man 28 turned cartoon series "Tetsujin 28-Go", the animation similar to Astroyboy. Eventually it became "Gigantor" a few years later. The plot consists of a young boy, Jimmy Sparks controlling the huge robot Gigantor. Dr. Brilliant created the robot, and acts as a mentor for Jimmy. They also team up with the police chief and take Gigantor on crime-fighting adventures. Jimmy operates the robot from a little lunchbox type carrying case.

I never really liked the show that much, some of the robot vs. robot battles were cool. At one point another robotics professor tries to build a robot as good as Gigantor and they fight, hoping that his model will take it's place. I forget why the let the boy control the robot, probably because he was less likely to want to use it for evil purposes, maybe. The theme song is also really annoying, it's just guys chanting "Gigantor" a whole bunch of times followed by some cheezy rhymes.

Actually the theme song for Gigantor had no rhymes in it at all. There was the chorus: "Gigantor" (2x)

followed by: "Gigantor the space age robot, he's in your control, Gigantor the space age robot his power is in your hands"

followed by the chorus again.

I don't recall any other verses but what do you expect from such an early import. The transition from Japan to here of this cartoon was equal to other early imports like Kimba, though perhaps less refined than Speed Racer. As to plot I have no recollection only a warm hint of a memory. But this was not from SciFi airings but from the original run on television.

Japan's first anime was "Tetsuwan Atom" (Astro Boy). Gigantor was the second. Astro Boy's animation was done by its creator Osamu Tezuka's own production studio the "Mushi pro" (Osamu's "mu" is kanji character Mushi which means insect, hence the name) so the quality was as good as it can be made at the time due to his supervision, but Gigantor was an attempt by TV network to jump in both feet first into the media that was attracting lot of attention at the time. Based on a comic by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Gigantor or "Tetsujin nijyuhachi (28) go" was two most popular boy's cartoon along with Tezuka's "Tetsuwan Atom" at the time (both featured on a now defunct monthly boy's magazine called "Shounen"). But because Gigantor was done by a TV network, it's quality wasn't as high as Astro Boy. At the time, profession now known as "animator" who draws the pictures didn't even exist in Japan, and they had to hire amateurs to create this series.

Unlike the scenario of the version dubbed for U.S. market, Gigantor was meant to be a war machine developed to win the war for the Japanese (WW II that is), so it's a 20th century creation. Japanese government set up their skunk works in Mt. Norikura to develop robots to supplant soldiers in the war. Gigantor was their 28th prototype. Yokoyama himself didn't think the comic was going to be such a big hit, and his original idea was that after Gigantor fights his first battle, it would be deemed too dangerous to keep around and would be smelted back to metal. But as soon as it hit the stands in July of 1956, it became the number one rated comic of its time and its syndication continued for 10 years until May of 1966. This by the way was my most favorite Japanese comic for a long while, and started my interest in other areas of art, so I owe Yokoyama, and Gigantor a lot.

Okay, that's the complete back ground for this very fine animated series. Watching this is like seeing the Beatles in their Hamburg days of Japanese anime industry. A boy controls Gigantor, because it was first syndicated on a magazine for boys. In this, and Astro Boy you can see the genesis of a complete industry we now know as anime. The likes of "Inuyasha" have their roots in Gigantor. To see this is to see history in its making, and is a priceless artifact from the '60s Japan.

Without a doubt this has to be one of the best "Classic" cartoons I have ever seen. I first watched it on VHS as a kid and had long forgot about it, then one night I fell asleep with the TV on and woke up to the GIGANTOR theme song. I said to myself I must be dreaming, there is no way that this is back on TV, well sure as sh** it was, so I stayed awake to watch. The next day I went online and purchased the 2 DVD boxed sets that I saw on Bestbuy's website. Man it made me feel like a little kid again it was AWESOME!! I can definitely say that waiting to see all these great episodes will be well worth the money I spent on them. Gigantor rates right up there with other classic favorites of mine such as ThunderCats, Transformers, GI Joe, Fraggle Rock, HE-Man, and many more. If you have never seen GIGANTOR before I would say first off you are missing out big time, secondly you must a least buy or watch one episode. Only downside is that it is Black and White, However depending on how "old" you are you'll be able to appreciate it's modernness for its time.