Gigantor

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.

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.

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.

Every time I come to IMDb, I want to crawl back into five-year-old-dom. I used to rush home from first grade to catch Gigantor at 3, followed by Kimba the White Lion at 3:30, hoping that the bus driver wouldn't be out of root beer lollipops that day. Now they show selected reruns of the original series (no, not the later, full-color "Tetsujin 28-Go" ["Iron Man No. 28"]: I can give you the kanji, too, but not with _this_ keyboard) on the Cartoon Network at 5:30AM, before reasonable people have awakened. I seem to remember that my favorite episode involved Gigantor fighting against an evil robot that could shoot lava bursts out of a slot above his forehead. Naturally, the robot was gigantic and could fly, etc. (They're everyday phenomena, no?) I always thought something was fishy about Jimmy Sparks's voice--only later to learn that it was a female--but, then again, Debi Derryberry does a fine, thoroughly convincing job as both Jimmy Neutron and Zatch Bell, so I can scarcely complain.

Loved this as a child , would get up early on a saturday morning to watch it , brings back so many memories classic series