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Forum - View topicREVIEW: Mazinger Z: Infinity
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1247 |
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Sounds like it really is what it appears to be - a perfectly fine, if not particularly amazing nostalgia movie.
I admittedly remain incredibly bitter we did not ever get a proper continuation of Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact, which I still think is the best rendition of the material, and I have to remind myself not to hold that against this. It's been nearly ten years by now (!!), so I guess I need to get over it... ;_; Anyway, I've got my tickets for this on Sunday - I'm definitely not gonna pass up on seeing a real Mazinger Z movie in a real theater. All things considered, it's pretty awesome we're getting it this way. |
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BlueAlf
 Posts: 1549 |
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I know this might not make any sense in regards to what was lacking, but if Grendizer made a cameo at least, I believe things might have been different.
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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So it's like Mazinkasier before it, a fun and exciting trip down nostalgia lane but nothing really deep or impactful. That's fine by me. I think I prefer that approach over Shin Mazinger's unsuccessful attempt to be something more.
This is what happens when Yasuhiro Imagawa gets overambitious. He was trying to make another Giant Robo (only not as good in my opinion because it feels often too much like material that GR and G Gundam already did far, far better.) and ended up letting history repeat itself. And things like having the first episode be a confusing in medias res that was bound to drive off a fair amount of viewers really didn't help matters. |
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EauDeBla
Posts: 7 |
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Animation aside since nothing's gonna top the OVA animation of Giant Robo, I thought Shin Mazinger was better than both when it came to the substance of it.
G Gundam dragged on for far too long, and the ending to Giant Robo was downright dumb. Dr. Vogler couldn't even finish his sentence before dying leading up to a bunch of events which shouldn't have happened in the first place. In Shin Mazinger, even if Dr.Hell wanted to use photon power against the upcoming Mycenae invasion, it's not like he was a good guy. It was either join him under his new world order, or get destroyed by the Mycenae. Regardless of the upcoming invasion of an alien empire, the events of the show would still have happened since Dr.Hell was hellbent on getting what he wanted anyway, which was being the ruler of the world. It made much more sense as an ending than Giant Robo's. |
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VinceA
 Posts: 126 Location: Bayonne, NJ |
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Just got back from seeing the movie. Loved it because I'm an old giant robot nerd. The story did wander into super nonsense a bit but that's to be expected, I guess.
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snake-eyes
 Posts: 159 |
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That was...Awesome! Every fan of Go Nagai’s Super Robot Anime should Mazin...Go to the theater Stat! Maybe Grendizer can get the proper Sequel next.
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Sailor Sedna
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I just got back from seeing the film, and Mazinger Z just got itself a new fan (yeah, I'm a noob to this, LOL).
Though I didn't know too much of the characters I was fortunately still able to enjoy and understand it without having seen the show, something I can't say for the US Digimon movie (which turned me off to Digimon even more entirely), and it's made my faith in modern Toei Animation slightly restored...the story was fine also, though it was yes, a bit thin and did come off with some cliches I've seen in other anime (nothing bothersome though). I feel it could be a good introduction to this franchise (compared with other Toei franchises, Saint Seiya: Soul of Gold might not be a good one nor work, and Sailor Moon Crystal, even with its third season, is definitely NOT a good introduction to the franchise and if you strip away all elements of that anime you are left with nothing interesting). I liked the mix between 2D and 3D, both were animated well with good frame rates, they meshed fine and frankly this is something I wish we could see in a lot of modern western animated films nowadays. And of course, it's not a Go Nagai anime without fanservice
I also saw interviews with Junji Shimizu, Hiroya Iijima and Go Nagai, and they were cool, I find it awesome how the former two, both who loved the anime when they were younger and had great passion for it getting the opportunity to work on a film based off of it. |
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Banjo
Posts: 798 |
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it fell from chart in couple of weeks, Mazinger was big back in the 70s, now hardly anybody gives a **** about it.
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Sailor Sedna
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Then why, pray tell, is it still used in the Super Robot Wars games, all of them? I'd hardly say that's the case of nobody caring about it.
It still also sounds/looks better than most anime of today. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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I saw it on Sunday in ye olde Marlborough.
I went into it worried about the same things the writer talked about. 3DCG tends to be lightweight and inconsequential. I mean, watch the first episode of Mazinkaiser. I probably rewatch that OVA set, the first episode or two, several times a year. Mazinger Z's first photon beam attack was slow and heavy and had weight. Also some shots of the enemy robots were really spooky and intimidating as they moved in to the attack - but they were all effortlessly routed and did virtually no damage. But the movie STARTED with Thunder Break. I love Great more than Z, so that set me in god places. Also what I loved? Any voicework by Uesaka. As for writing? They had tons of nice ideas, but didn't develop anything. The Mazingers get a late-movie powerup like in a Toei-Precure All Stars movie - except the photon power that powers the planet is theirs. So kids are turning off the lights to conserve electricity. What a theme! but the movie doesn't do anything more with it. Or when Dr. Hell is complaining about Diversity, maybe this'll factor into the resolution where we use that to defeat Dr. Hell!? How about the dropped plotline that Sayaka wants to keep ahead on the tech race, thus won't give up Photon Energy secrets? How about the fact the whole energy grid seemed to be getting built up to something more, but was also dropped. Also Kouji walking around playing scientist was really weird. A decade later and he didn't even have a haircut to pretend he was changing? That whole scene after Texas and them discovering Lisa was too much standing around and exposition. plus we missed out on the typical Baron Ashrua development I've come to expect. The movie was a fun romp, but I still prefer Mazinkaiser or the oldie Mazinger Z vs General of Darkness where the baton first gets passed. |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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I had fun, too! You know, sometimes I think ANN has the WRONG people review films or they have no context whatsoever to judge these things by! If all you have to judge by is the last five years of anime shows OR you're strictly a Naruto/Bleach/Dragonball fan or insert anything produced after the 2010s, you're missing out on so much. Satire goes over some people's heads or the young 'uns are just a WEE bit too politically correct and can't forgive a a bit of cleavage! Sometimes I wonder about this website. You're covering anime and it's about one of the last spots of political correctness left. This is not Tolstoy or Shakespeare guys and it's ironic that I say this but you're WAY TOO SERIOUS at times! Either way, it was a Go Nagai production whether he was directly involved or not. His ideas, partial rehash of some old anime concepts and plotlines What do people expect? At least I was entertained. From what little I've seen of the live-action Transformers, I would have been gritting my teeth through the STUPIDITY of that as much as I was wondering why the last few Hollywood films I saw were greenlit! According to the older more rabid Transformers fans, the best TF film was still the 1986 Transformers movie (which I saw in theaters) with Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, and Robert Stack doing voiceovers. All else live-action is garbage! I understood the context of Mazinger Z: Infinity, I've seen enough robot shows and there are basic rules they follow and this film I felt was a nice tribute to those things. If you want angtsy, emo films -- this isn't for you then and I'm sorry folks but that's too depressed for me as well! And I did like EVA, too. I liked MZ:I and I didn't feel the CG was bad, either. At least it didn't look like Play-doh or pears like the characters in many of the Western CG films, do. I liked the fact the PEOPLE were drawn. The robots SHOULD be the CG animated part. Other than that, it was great nostalgia or a good Cliffs Notes version of Mazinger for people who haven't been exposed to this before. Of course, the film's not going to do well in the US! The American market, most of the world, has no context for giant robot shows like this. The last time a Mazinger series got shown in the US was in the 1980s and it was a badly dubbed, edited version of the original show called Tranzor Z which looked creaky a decade later when it finally did get aired in the US! The dub just -- oh, boy! As a kid, I knew it was crap and I don't remember THAT fondly but the same thing that DIDN'T seem so special back then came off fine in this new film which was allowed to be Japanese and go with the fantastic plot elements. Some of the current anime fans, IF they got into Hollywood and became film producers, would RUIN these shows with their "new spins" because they would trash whatever made it Mazinger in the first place! I've seen this happen with too many things. I could count the number of faithful, really good comic book film adaptations on the fingers of one hand! The rest are just so generic and they might have well not even used the names of the characters they were allegedly bringing to live-action! This is why I'm praying the anime industry DOESN'T sell out to the Hollywood international conglomerates. I've seen these corporations make so much of what they acquired become bland. I gave Gatchaman another chance after ADV did their dub and it was MUCH better. Of course, I also saw it in Japanese with the subs as well and I could see why it was a classic in Japan. You wouldn't get that from the first two awful English dubs unless you looked past the edits and could see something good there or watched the Japanese version. This film was a brighter, better-animated version of classic Mazinger but thank goodness they didn't change the character designs and try to something like that awful Power Rangers movie a year back or the last few films with DC characters. When something's good, LEAVE IT ALONE. The wheel doesn't have to be reinvented! |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Tell the people STILL buying and playing Super Robot Wars that no one cares about this or remember YOU'RE the one speaking for yourself NOT everyone. You really haven't seen anything made before 2010, have you? There WAS an anime fandom before Naruto, Bleach, and many, many things made after 2005... Gundam alone has been going on for 40 years now. What do you suppose INSPIRED Gundam? Mazinger Z!!!! Hardly irrelevant. Mazinger Z informed a lot of the tropes STILL being used in mecha/big super robot series even today. And it did a lot of those tropes FIRST. |
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