The Mysterious Story of Tranzor Z: Mazinger Z's Discarded Adaptation
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 бер 2022
- Use my code TOYGALAXY10 and link: bit.ly/toygalaxyBKMar22 to get 10% off (save up to $47!) your own authentic Japanese subscription box from Bokksu! Don't miss out on this amazing snack-journey through Japan! And thank you to Bokksu for sponsoring this video.
Tranzor Z is another adaptation in a long line of popular Japanese characters reformatted for the US market, diluting so much of what it made it popular in the first place.
In this case Tranzor Z, which aired in the United States in 1985, is an adaptation of Mazinger Z (マジンガーZ, Majingā Zetto) by a mysterious company that cut Mazinger Z down to 65 episodes and then, mostly disappeared.
But Tranzor Z wasn't the first attempt at importing Mazinger Z into the United States and that story is just as strange.
Help the channel continue to grow by checking out our Patreon: / toygalaxy
To become a UA-cam channel member:
ua-cam.com/users/toygalaxytvjoin
Follow Us on Twitch for Hot Livestream Action:
/ toygalaxy
Second Channel:
/ @toygalaxy
Follow Dan on Instagram:
/ toygalaxy
Toy Galaxy
P.O. box 3976
Manchester, NH 03105-3976
Business Inquiries:
toygalaxytv@gmail.com
/ toygalaxytv
/ toygalaxytv
teespring.com/stores/toy-galaxy - Розваги
Mazinger Z was a hit here in Latin America and all kids of the 70s and early 80s remember it fondly. As most anime from decades past, it came here complete and uncensored so it had quite an impact on all of us.
Also 90s and later on got shown again in the late 2010 tho i do believe they have censored it along of doing a re-dub from the original latin dub
Yeah One of my earliest memories is renting the same VHS with 3 episodes over and over again as a kid
Indeed, I remember "f*ck ! war and destruction is not fun at all if your loved ones will die, and people will get hurt...", it was not just destruction , like GIJOE, everyone on a exploding plane escapes, no one gets shots...., Here people, families, kids, were dying and not coming back! Orphans were made! Limbs wee lost! , made me re evaluate all the purpose of fighting for what is right only, not because is cool, not just for fun, there was a price and the Hero maybe won't see the happy ending. Is about losing and getting up, again and again. Best experience ever. Censored Anime takes all that stuff away you end without a plot and without nothing at stake, every one is happy kicking the crap of each other, is so dumb.
There’s also a Hawaiian English dub with the weird English opening by Isao Sasaki.
@@SlapstickGenius23 I hope you meant to say he sings in English and that is why is weird, because the Original One kicksass...
Tranzor Z wasn't a failure to me. I still have fond memories of watching it all of these decades later. I'm from Chicago and, that commercial of Tranzor Z and Voltron from WPWR-TV Channel 60, was what I saw on a daily basis. Channel 60 also aired Robotech.
For a long time I was confused about why there were only 65 episodes of Tranzor Z when a Spanish channel in my area was airing episodes I had never seen and it was called Mazinger Z. I didn't realize both versions came from the original source material. I would still love to see the full 92 episodes dubbed in English.
I watched Tranzor Z and Voltron in the Cleveland area, but I loved Robotech. I'm going to rewatch the entire series someday, and hopefully my kids will enjoy it. Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers were the first anime I ever watched in kindergarten and 1st grade, and I've been hooked ever since.
Absolutely! I LOVED it!!! Glad to see another Chicagoan giant robot fan.
Discotek released them a few years ago I've got them and Great on DVD. They are a little hard too watch in 2022 but there are some genuinely good bits of old school animation in there.
@@TheRayvolution Yup I remember watching these shows on channel 60 before it became channel 50 later in Chicago. They'd aired robotech and some random anime movies back then too.
Same here. We likely grew up close to each other
Such a shame this failed to catch on in the US, even under this preposterous hack job. Mazinger Z is an absolute legend in Latin America and, of course, Japan. It is the series that kickstarted the mecha genre. While Tetsujin-28 came first that was merely a giant robot, not a piloted one. Mazinger was the first where an antropomorphic robot was used a vehicle, paving the way for the likes of Voltron, Gundam, Mechwarrior, Power Rangers and everything else in between and since. And there's not just the original series. There's a whole multiverse of this franchise where they take it in all sorts of weird, different directions.
Mazinger Z was my childhood, and while today is quite hard to watch due to how poorly it's aged (not just the animation itself, but the storytelling), there's still fun to be had with it, and it's surprisingly high on violence and fanservice. No wonder they had to cut down so much.
Mazinger Z's anime is almost 50 years old at this point. It's hard to imagine any television serial or program holding up over that much time. Be that as it may, it still has it's high points despite general 'weirdness' that comes from being a Go Nagai joint production in the early to mid 70s.
(Getter Robo is weird but for slightly different reasons)
@@andrejg4136 You'd be surprised. Although it had it's own fair share of controversy (namely, how much of a dislikeable delinquent Koji Kabuto starts at before he discovers Mazinger and his latter development as he fights Dr. Hell), the show still had a large enough audience to be slightly remastered (without zooming) and getting a brand new spanish dub in Netflix Latinamerica and seems to be doing well all things considered. It clearly is dated in every technical aspect but it's still big fun in spite of being half a century old.
And Super Robot Wars will make Mazinger (and Getter's!) legends live on!
It came out too late even for 1985; buried by Voltron, Robotech, Transformers, and a bunch of other cartoons in the West. By 1985, compared to the other anime, visually it looked dated. It wasnt even picked up back in the early 80s for Force Five show. Should have attempted localization in the mid 70s.
TranZor Z didn't make it because it was a TERRIBLE dub. Very hack editing, hack acting.
It was so bad that even as a teenager I appreciated what a hack job it was! LOL I appreciate the Speed Racer dub, OTOH, but it's a totally different beast than TranZor Z. Speed Racer was done with some love but I don't get the sense with TranZor Z. They didn't even bother to do anything approaching a GOOD localization of the main theme -- they went with generic techno music that was awful!
The other thing is the age of the animation and the content. The animation in the original Mazinger Z any way you slice it is ancient and far from the best animated series of its time. [The original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was released the same year as Mazinger Z and has far better animation. I think it's a better series than the original Mazinger Z even if Mazinger has had more follows and reimaginations than Gatchaman.] You have hermaphrodite villains and just utterly weird characters with a main villain named Dr. Hell! Yes, it's meant to be parody and absurd BUT the S&P people in the US do NOT have a sense of humor and what Japan considers okay for its children is NOT the same standard for other cultures and countries around the world!
That said, I LOVE Mazinger Z in his original series with subtitles but the English dubs for all the Mazinger series I've seen haven't been great. Even the dub for Mazinger Z: Infinity was surprisingly badly cast as far as the main lead went. It was also a subdued directing job and NOT the best work from the dub studio that handled it for the American market.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this.. this series is almost never discussed and it was a huge part of my childhood.
Same here loved this series. I watched it everyday after school in Sulphur Louisiana 1985 ish
Right?!? I loved this show!!
Wow you are very beautiful
I absolutely adored Tranzor Z as a child. In fact it was a close tie between it and Voltron for why I am a fan of robot series to this day.
agree
Me too. The only problem was that I was only able to see it whenever I was home sick. It was never on during "after school" hours.
Same
Agreed
If you haven't yet check out Super robot taisen W, it recently got a fantranslation posted online and the game has both Mazinger Z and Voltron in the game and one of the games final chapters involves the team of heroes from the various shows in the cross over fighting the main villains from both Mazinger Z and Voltron in one climactic space battle.
Could've sworn that _Tranzor-Z_ was a fiction of my '80s memory. I remember loving it before it was overshadowed by _Voltron._
I saw it when I was REALLY little, but I loved it... Remembered it forever.. Never knew there was an actual "ending" though.
For years, I fondly remembered a cartoon with a girl robot that shot her boobs like missiles but could never remember the name. I was aging out of cartoons by 1985, so Tranzor Z was the first and only giant robot cartoon I watched.
Capt flash i dont know tranz or z held his own against the all mighty voltron member robotech
That was tha highlight of the show the missile launches
Here in Panama - and I believe all throughout Latin America - Mazinger Z was HUGE. I believe it started airing in the mid to late 70s. I had no idea this was not so in the US. And I had never even heard of "Tranzor Z".
First time ever to heard Tranzor Z 😂,to me It will always be Mazinger Z (maginga Zeto😂)
I used to watch tranzor z in channel 8 and Mazinger Z in canal 4, good days....
I lived in Panama and I watched Tranzor Z and Mazinger Z,lol.
Loved watching Tranzor-Z as a kid. I could never figure out why the 'power up' sequence was different in the opening credits than in the actual show, so thanks for the history behind it all!
Me: About to take a nap.
*Notification goes off of a new Toy Galaxy video*
Me: I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Lol same
I remember this when it came out. The.....chest missiles...launch system DID make it into at least one episode as I remember my mother being none to pleased about it. Dad stayed out of that discussion. 😄
First thing that comes to mind when I hear Tranzor-Z. Lol
Nylon missiles!
Perfectly missed opportunity to ask "if Tranzor Z was Arm Cannon."
I was exposed to Tranzor Z as Mazinger Z during the '80s in Los Angeles on one of our local Spanish TV stations that had a block of dubbed anime every Saturday. Nothing was censored and it was glorious.
Hi, long time anime fan I have a question, did your Spanish-language station in LA broadcasted anime beside Mazinger Z? I asked because there may have been anime that never got dubbed or licensed in the US in the 80's and early 90's, but it's spanish dubbed version may have been broadcasted on US TVs via Spanish-language channel(s). I wouldn't be surprised if something like Saint Seiya (the Spanish dub of it was very popular in Latin/South America) was broadcasted on US TV in Spanish before it got a English dub and subtitle version.
@@mdo7 There were quite a few. The ones I remember most that were dubbed in Spanish were Ulysses 31, Galactic Gale Baxinger, Captain Tsubasa, Gaiking, and La Batalla de los Planetas (Gatchaman), the latter of which I actually remember also watching as a little kid, growing up in Nicaragua in 1980.
@@Kansas462 Thanks for the reply, and sorry for my late response.
That's what I thought, So we had unlicensed but dubbed in Spanish anime shown on US airwaves. Glad you mentioned Baxinger because that anime just got recently licensed in the US thanks to Discotek. Baxinger was never licensed in the US before, and had no English dub.
Now that you gave me information. Now I know how Ranma 1/2 got popular in the US English-speaker despite the English dub was never shown on US national TVs (one California station, KTEH now called KQED in San Jose, California broadcasted a lot of anime, and Ranma 1/2 is one of them). That's right Ranma 1/2 was able to get popular in the US despite it was never shown on Cartoon Network, Sci-fi Channel, nor any cable channel. It relied on VHS sales alone (and that KTEH TV channel in San Jose, CA alone).
But now since you told me about these Spanish-language TV channels in the US broadcasting Spanish-dubbed anime, I think I know how Ranma 1/2 was able to get popular in the US despite not being shown on national TV channels). Ranma was not only dubbed in English, but Spanish too. The Spanish dub from what I was told from Spanish-speaking anime fans was so popular in Latin/South America (including Mexico, & Puerto Rico) since it's debut. I have to assume the Spanish dub may have found it's way into the US on those TV stations you mention. So Ranma fanbase in the US wasn't limited to just small non-Asian anime fans (at that time), it's fanbases included mainstream Spanish speakers too!!! So that means you can have cross demographic between small anime fan circle and a larger Spanish-speaking audiences that watch that anime on those TV channels.
That's how Ranma 1/2 got a big audiences in the US despite not being shown on Cartoon Network, Sci-fi Channel, etc.... Had to have that big Spanish-speaking fanbase in the US that got the Spanish dub for Ranma to get that popular in the US.
@@mdo7 btw, I didn't know about Saint Seiya until 1995, when I went to visit family in Nicaragua and one of my cousins friends brought over this large collection of VHS tapes with an entire run of episodes. In Latin America, it's known as "Caballeros del Zodiaco" and it's hugely popular. Of course, it wasn't censored at all so, it retained all the violence and seriousness that was omitted from the US version.
Great Video. I actually liked Tranzor Z better than Voltron as a kid. I'm glad Discotek eventually released Mazinger Z on DVD in North America. Also there were a couple of Tranzor Z tapes released on VHS. I rented a compilation film from Blockbuster in the early 90s that spliced together the first episode, first appearance of count decapito, and the last episode.
Yeah, better than Voltron imo. Even as a first grader I saw this, Only having ever caught the tail end of any given episode, I could see there was something different about. When Voltron came on immediately afterwards, even then I felt it was just a copy of something better.
I personally own a VHS tape of Tranzor Z U.S. release. It is the entire first season edited down into a film for kids. It is mostly the first two and last two episodes, with some major story beats thrown in. It makes a fairly cohesive story but it's missing about as much as you would expect. Still a great thing to own as a kid.
I'm from Argentina and i remember watching Mazinger Z and having the toys when i was 5 or 6. I think it was the original series but dubbed in spanish because I remember the violence, dismemberments and Afrodita's boob rockets plus the character all had japanese names
In Puerto Rico, we knew him as Mazinger Z, so when I first heard he was localized in the US as “Tranzor Z”, I was so confused cause Mazinger is a way cooler name, so why change it? lol My mom and most of her friends all grew up with this show. She had a friend from work bring some bootleg DVD with the Mazinger movies and TV specials and the Devilman crossover is the one that made me a fan ever since.
100% true.
I too was introduced to Manzinger Z in Puerto Rico during summer vacation in the 80's. I loved the show and was excited when it aired in the states but as Tranzor Z. Being so young I didn't know about licensing or marketing. I was just happy to be to watch it again.
It’s the remnants of a form of underlying or subconscious racism mixed with executive meddling. It’s the exact same thing that happened with honk kong cinema, japanese tokusatsu and anime in general.
First they say americans won’t like it, then when they are proven wrong they need to put their twist on it otherwise so they can say they become a sucess because of their changes and don’t become superfluous ie disposable.
@@SaulGMV Would add that the religious connotation of Mazinger's name might not fly back then, can't have this man-made machine give the user the power that lets them be either a devil (Ma) or a god (Zin) after all
So who here cried when Lorelei Heinrich had to be killed?
Great video. You really did your research well and even included when it was aired in my country the Philippines. Mazinger Z wasn't the only super robot show that was removed from our local tv channels. There was Grendaizer, Mechander, Daimos, and the most popular one Voltes V. Marcos banned those shows because he thought it would incite rebellion among the youth. Ironically removing them indirectly paved the way for youth activism and protests towards the Marcos regime. Oddly Macross was not removed when it was aired here in 1985.
definitely one I remember seeing as a kid! of course it was prior to learning what 'anime' even was. probably don't remember it as well as voltron, but still a pretty cool show I mean, can't go wrong with giant robots! learned later about the mazinger z that whole thing.
Back in the late 70's, maybe even 1980 or so, me and my friends were OBSESSED with Shogun Warriors. Between all of us, we had ALL of them. All the big giant ones. All the little transforming metal ones. All the little action figure size ones. We had them ALL. And each one of us collected every single Shogun Warrior Marvel comic. I still have the full Shogun Warrior comic series in my collection. I remember sometime, in that time period, just stumbling randomly across a Tranzor Z movie that the movie channel, "Spotlight" was running. I freaked because it was the first time I had EVER seen an animated series with a Shogun Warrior in action. I invited my friends over to watch this movie the next time Spotlight showed it. We were mesmerized. None of us had any clue that it was a TV show, let alone that there were TV shows of every Shogun Warrior that we loved. It wasn't until we were well into adulthood that we became aware of this through the internet. We lived our entire life thinking that that Tranzor Z movie was the ONLY animated Shogun Warrior thing ever produced. We didn't have the internet, or VHS back then. All we had to go on was what the TV showed us.
Hell yeah, I was also into Shogun Warriors when I was just a young kid back then also too. LOL!
Tranzor Z was the first TV show I remember being obsessed with. I watched it everyday after school. The bus dropped me off around 3:40. The show started at 4 and playing with my friends waited until 4:30 when the show ended.
I saw this as a kid in Spanish and while technically we were under the FCC, the nudity and the chest firing missiles did survive and there was just translated as is. Meaning it was massive in Latin America.
Same in Italy, when the church and a bunch of psychologists used to say that kids watching those cartoons would all eventually become criminals and perverts due to the violence and nudity 😂🤣😆
@@LRS905 Ironically, Mazinga Z also shot a missile, but from his stomach. I'm sure Go Nagai would have wanted to make it shoot from its crotch but the publishers must have said to him: "that's too much, you can't do that".
@@souljastation5463great mazinger shots a misile from his crotch
In combattler v he has a middle firing from his crotch lol, @@souljastation5463
Go Nagai is an interesting character. Funny to think his biggest hit in the US was the Netflix adaptation of Devilman. I still don’t know how Mazinger Z Infinity swung a theater release, and I went to it.
The Mazinkaiser OVA got an english dvd release and was bit of a cult favourite for whatever that's worth.
Iron Virgin Jun is still his greatest creation for my money. He's great when he's doing tongue in cheek, but unintentionally hilarious when he tries to be dark and serious (see: both OG and new Devilman).
@@TeamTowers1 First anime DVD I ever bought, and it probably informed a lot of my tastes in robot shows.
The Mazinkaiser OVA possibly has the world’s best English of all Mazinger Works.
I have said it before, this channel is a Museum To Memories. The detailed research spoken so eleqeuntly it's like poetry. Which makes this one of the best channels on UA-cam. ❤️❤️❤️
Mazinger Z was finally brought over to the U.S. complete and uncut several years ago onto DVD from Discotek Media, along with its sequel series, Great Mazinger. They also gave Go Nagai's Devilman series a U.S. DVD release.
Good News, Discotek has just released Mazinger Z on blu-ray (in high definition of course).
I definitely remember Tranzor Z from my childhood in the southeastern US. In fact, I could swear I remember seeing Aphrodite A's "missiles" being fired. I thought it was hilarious, and I still do! P.S. I watched this video while eating my very first bowl of Magic Spoon - thanks for telling me about this cereal, it's awesome!
Did also. Alot of these shows have cool connections.
This is a point of discussion my sister and I have to this day. What always irked us was that once Aphrodite A shot off her only two missiles, she was helpless. Her missiles were hilarious, the fact that she was essentially powerless once she had discharged them was an eye roll. Also Magic Spoon is awesome.
Lolz I thought that was funny also, couldn't wait for tha missiles 2 b launched
Oh yes! I watched Tranzor-Z all the time here in my area of the US. I remember Aphrodite-A's Mamo-missiles as well; we all had a great giggle over it as kids. I also remember the Bobo-bot and his absurd wind up smackdown.
We all could see the origin of the missiles on the east coast.
Mamo-missiles! Good one! My childhood friends and I tittered over that, as well. I don't know how adults didn't think kids wouldn't figure that out just because they cut the footage of them firing out (which I swear I saw as a kid, anyway).
@@ThomasMHead Yeah, we saw them too. I think they must've miised at least a couple of the launch scenes.
@@bryanb30 same here on the west.
I thought I was the only one who remembered Tranzor Z
Nope
You never are
Tranzor Z was broadcast here on the ABC station from Plattsburgh NY. There were 2 big advertizing errors:
1- The commercial blatantly stated, "If you want the latest in rocket Transformers, ..."
Although he was not a Transformer.
2- The tv times identified the show only as "Tranzor", lol
An interesting fact about living in Quebec was that you could watch "Goldorak" (Grendizer), in French, in the late 70s, and then watch Tranzor Z, in English, almost 10 years later... and become extremely confused.
so is transzor Golderak??
@@TheAMSport nope, Goldorak is Grendizer
Watching Goldorak, Albator, Capitaine Flam, Heidi, Belle et Sebastien, etc... was what got me into anime as a kid.
True. I tough Tranzor Z was a copy of Goldorak (Grendizer) in the first place. And I was confused as to why Tomy looks exactly like Alcor. I later found both Tomy and Alcor where the same character known as Koji Kabuto in the original Japanese version. A few years back I bought the complete series of Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer in their original Japanese version with English subtitles and watched them with my seven year old daughter. Gilles, si tu a aimé Mazinger Z, je te conseil d’écouter le film Mazinger Z Infinity paru en 2018. The action take place 10 years after Great Mazinger
As a kid, I loved Mazinger Z. I even went to the theater to see the end of Mazinger and the introduction of the Grand Mazinger. They showed these in addition to several other anime shows all rolled up into a single theater experience.
It was awesome.
To this day, I am looking for the definitive Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Mazingkaizer, and any other official iterations in toy form that are not going to kill my wallet.
My mom and grandma took me to the theater to see the Mazinger Z movie, which turned out to be the final episodes, needless to say I came out traumatized. Look what they did to my boy Mazinger!
My grandma took us to watch that same "movie" here in Costa Rica back then, boy that was a finale.
There are some Mazinger toys out there ( even fairly recent releases ), but nearly all the related toys are priced to kill your wallet.
I was 12 years old when Tranzor Z was televised on one of the cable stations from Boston.
I absolutely loved Tranzor Z; much more than Voltron, which I thought was utterly stupid.
I hear ya,' my best friend and I both agreed Tranzor Z was better than Voltron.
I always preferred Tranzor Z over Voltron but I did get that 5-piece Voltron toy that connected altogether to create the main robot. I still have that somewhere. I never understood as a kid why there were no Tranzor Z toys to be found at Toys R Us and drove my poor parents crazy trying to find one. They always confused Tranzor Z with Voltron which is how I wound up with the 5-piece, I believe.
I will never forget seeing this series on Cable as a kid, it had a lot of cool action scenes tons of excitement. I’m pretty sure that I’m one of the very few people here who saw this series in the rerun era but it definitely made a great impression on me. Thank you for doing this video for all of us Tranzor Z fans! He may indeed be an under appreciated big robot hero but he’s our under appreciated big robot hero and that is all that matters to us!
I , for some reason , could only catch this at my cousin’s house (I think he had a satellite dish back in the 80’s) . My mom and aunt would then through my entire life bring up the show by calling it “the show with the missile-tits”
I found out what the show actually was , when the fledgling internet allowed me to ask Jeeves about “Japanimation with missile tits”
Loved this video, keep up the good stuff!
The dumb thing about it is that Mazinkaiser's OVAs lean into this in some ways where the Aphrodite lines might have a touch of oppai bounce despite them being literal missiles. It even happens in Super Robot Wars J and W.
lol "The show with the missile tits."
This was my favorite next to voltron. As a kid I thought the boob missiles were weird
I remember watching Tranzor Z, and telling my friends about it - they thought I was confused and no such show existed. The edited series was so generic I can't remember any of the characters or plot lines. The only detail I remember was the bewb-rockets, which actually fired from the chest at least once in the American show. My school-aged self was never able to unsee that image.
This was my experience exactly lol
Tranzor/Mazinger is such an awesome giant robot design. But honestly, the bewb-rockets are by far the most memorable thing from the show.
First, I wanted to point out that this actually was released on Home Video. I rented two different VHS tapes from a local Blockbuster in California when visiting my Aunt and Uncle back in the Summer of '92. There's a video rental store in Seattle called Scarecrow Video that has one of the VHS tapes for rent still.
Second, I grew up watching this along with Speed Racer, Robotech, Voltron, Force Five, Transformers and basically anything else of it's kind. The Mazinger series is still one of my favorite franchises of all time!
Still remember the first time Mazinger Z was able to "fly", he held on to both of Aphrodite A's breast missiles to defeat a flying robot. Truly, a trend breaker series. XD
Growing up in Mexico, Mazzinger Z was one of my favorite series. I have very fond memories of the show. It was definitely more mature than any of the American cartoons of the era. It depicted actual violence, death and romance in a way I had never seen before. I never got to see the sequel series because it never imported. However some other awesome series such as "Los Caballeros del Zodiaco" (Saint Seiya) filled the gap over time.
I remember going to visit my grandparents in mexico as a child and watching both shows on a tiny black andcwhite tv they had. I can still hear the theme song to Caballeros del Zodiaco in my mind.
Thank you so much!!! I was obsessed with this show when I was a kid and I couldn’t remember the name. I have spent decades asking people if they know it and everyone looked at me like I was a crazy person. I was starting to full on gaslight myself that I had dreamed it or something.
Me too!!!!!! I just found the name of the show on Google tonight and then ended up watching some videos on UA-cam and now I'm here! Memories of this beautiful show are coming back to me. I remember I had one of the toys. My inner child is so happy right now
I remember liking Tranzor Z. I also remember the first time I saw the female robot firing her breast rockets. We talked about it the next day at school. I also remember thinking the actual rockets were really large overall (not just the warheads) and wondering where the robot stored more than 4 of them. Major drawback was Tranzor Z would fight and not be winning then "Chest Fire!!" to end most episodes - it was very quickly noticeable for lazy writing.
I absolutely remember Tranzor Z. It was on in the mornings before school, and I watched it only occasionally because I usually had to leave to walk to school before it ended. But the main reason that I still remember it is because when they took it off it was replaced by Robotech. I was already a huge Robotech fan just from the Comico comic books, and I was desperately wanting to see the show, but it wasn’t on in my area yet. Then one day at school someone asked me if I saw that new cartoon Robotech, and I went nuts. They told me it was on that morning instead of Tranzor Z, so from then on I would get up early and get ready for school, and then watch Robotech right up until the end credits started and then run out the door and hoof it to school as fast as I could. As for Tranzor Z I have a friend who I’ve known for like 35 years, and to this day we will still occasionally make comments to each other about the robot with the breast missiles. I guess their editing didn't work too well, since we both totally understood where those missiles were coming from.
FYI, Mazinger Z was trasnmited in Mexico and has 3 dubbing variations. Cuban actores were used for the first episodes and there was a mix of main character voices for the rest of the show.
On 2009 it was released several DVD Boxets wich turned out to be non official but sold as such. After this was discovered, a few months later it was released a 100% official toei licenced Boxet wich, sadly, I got robbed after lending it to a "friend".
Man, I remember the Cuban dub. Koji was ko-JI
They were Cuban, I always thought they were from Argentina, they had an accent, and the Ko-HIIII... yeah i remember that part, but mexican Dubs were the best back in the day, guys really put their souls into it, and was validated by all Latin America.
The Cuban dub for the first Mazinger Z episodes was downright weird. Heheheheh.
I remember Tranzor Z airing opposite of Voltron where I lived. I grew up in the Midwest U.S., so the ad in your video makes sense. This was in 1985 I believe as well. As a young child I enjoyed Tranzor Z, however there were obviously other shows that grabbed my attention at the time including Voltron, Transformers, and even GoBots just to name some. I still remember bits and pieces of some episodes to this day. Thank you Dan/Toy Galaxy. You brought back great memories of my childhood! Keep up the great work.
In my country (Costa Rica) was played on tv at the time my older brother was a kid in the early to mid 80's but in our case we got the original Mazinger Z version from Japan uncut and just translated and with most if not all of the Mechas and characters original names kept. I watched later on on my early teens subbed, on video, and later on my late teens when it was brought back on TV with the original Latinamerican dubbed used when my brother saw it as a kid.
Similar but later on when I was a kid or teen (depending on the series) and my brother an adult, we also got many more anime series just translated from the original Japanese version, like Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball / Dragon Ball Z / Dragon Ball GT, Sakura Card Captors, Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, Gundam Wing, Ranma 1/2, among others (most dubbed in Mexico).
I saw Mazinger Z back then when first was aired in Costa Rica, hell my grandma tools us to watch the final "movie", those were good old times.
The theme for this show was stuck in my head randomly last week, and I couldn’t remember what it was from. So thanks for banishing my ear worm!
My friends and I watched Tranzor Z and loved it.
I also can confirm that their efforts to obscure where Aphrodite’s rockets fired from were lacking based on how much we giggled about it.
I only saw Mazinger Z in Mexico, one of my staples. It was not edited in Mexico, which was great. Aphrodite shooting her breasts as missiles was slightly shocking but made sense.
el poder la verdad koji puede controlar y con su robot mazinger Z.
Thank you for making this! I remember watching Tranzor Z in 1985 in Italy. When I moved to the states, no one had ever heard of it, so I thought it was a fever dream. Now I know it's real
Mazinger Z was very popular in Latin American countries in the late 70s and early 80s. Here in Puerto Rico we were fortunate enough to get an uncut Spanish dubbed version on local TV (although the dub seemed to have been commissioned to several different studios and/or they had a huge voice actor turnaround because the voices changed every few episodes). Sadly that TV station never brought Great Mazinger over here, even though it had been dubbed and shown in other countries, so you can imagine my shock at seeing the original show's ending and not being able to see what came after it.
A bit of an addition to the end of this video, but some Mazinger series have indeed made their way over to the US in the last couple decades, but rarely in a major capacity. It seems like the market for Mazinger is moreso in the collector's market and for enthusiasts of old school mecha and anime series.
ADV Films licensed and released the spin-off/sequel series Mazinkaiser in the early 00s, but their license has long since expired. Discotek Media has released Mazinger Z on DVD, as well as Great Mazinger, God Mazinger and Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact on DVD and Blu-ray. Viz Media released the theatrical movie Mazinger Z: Infinity in US theaters in 2018 followed by a Blu-ray release in 2019. Media Blasters currently holds the license to Mazinkaiser SKL (pronounced "skull", also a distant sequel to Mazinkaiser) and has two different Blu-ray releases; one in 2011, one in 2021.
Another great episode featuring one of one of my favorite anime to America transplants. Looking forward to the Mazinger-Z episode down the line!
If you're taking suggestions, definitely add Shin Tetsujin-28 to the list
I think Tranzor-Z was my first giant robot cartoon (either it or Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs). Happy to know I'm not the only person who remembers it.
A neighbor kid when I was very young had one of the Mazinger Z toys. I remember thinking it looked cool, but had no idea what it was from. He had a lot of nice toys since his mom and dad both worked at Kmart.
i really enjoyed watching this show as a kid in hawaii, i had not realized that the one showed there was a closer adaption in till now and i am thankful for that
I remember watching Transzor Z on the US military TV channel as a kid living in Germany in the early 80s (dad was an Air Force fighter pilot). I don’t remember any specifics of the story, just the robot.
It was only relatively recently that I came across Mazinger. I never found anyone else who recognized the name “Transzor” after we moved back to the US in 1984.
I remember when I was a little kid and I was watching this cartoon with my aunt and she was like that pimp walk he has,has got to go.
Tranzor-Z is one of my earliest memories, it was 3-4 year old me's favorite cartoons. Thank you for confirming this isn't a Mandela effect, as whenever I would search for "Tranzor-Z" I would be bombarded with Mazinger-Z, and a friend remembers the show and tagline "The Mightiest of Mortal Men, the Mightiest of Machines" but as from Mazinger Z [he is from Cuba, I am from Chicago. where that commercial was from. WPWR 60 [later WPWR 50, then UPN 50] was half my life. From Tranzor-Z to Voltron, to Star Trek [TNG, VOY and ENT] to WWF/E Smackdown. That is half my life right there. Thank You
I remember Transzor-Z and I really liked it! I remember pretending some of my other toys were a robot like Transzor-Z, with the ship that would dock in his head, but I don't remember what toy that was.
Finally Dan talks about Mazinger. The reason why today Im a toy collector and avid robot lover
Wow se we Latin America got the good translation version. I remember seeing Mazinger with all the OG names, blood, music, violence and the "First Flight" episode where Mazinger/Koji use (grab) Aphrodite/Sayaka breast missile's to fly". It's all about the context 😉.
I remember watching Tranzor-Z in 1985 and liking it a lot! Pilot a helicopter to dock in its head, it had that awesome jetpack, rocket fists, it fires a beam by flexing!! What's not to love!? My first grade friends and I knew Aphrodite shot breast-missiles--one of the most memorable things about the show--so I don't know what the adults who "sanitized" it thought they were sparing us from.
Thank you for doing this video. I LOVED this show back in the day and recorded them all on VHS to rewatch. I wish I still had them.
I’ve never actually seen Tranzor Z but I have seen Mazinger Z and while it hasn’t aged the best on at least 4 or 5 fronts, I still had a decent amount of fun with it! Granted I’m not actually done with it yet so…yeah. I will say that from what I have seen I liked it better than the 2007 remake!
Mazinger Z suffers from everything bad shonen anime tend to suffer from, and doubly because it was from before a time when anyone would really start talking about those problems being problems.
(Which isn't to say that Mazinger Z is a bad shonen anime, it just has a lot of problems that started cropping up in things we'd think of as 'bad shonen anime' even for its era)
The 2009 reboot seems pretty depressingly dull. I’ve heard that the Japanese voices of Koji and Sayaka in that reboot sound pretty different from their counterparts in classic Toei and Mazinkaiser versions.
@@SlapstickGenius23 Nah man, the reboot is actually pretty solid. It’s basically an adaptation closer to the original manga that also includes elements from other Go Nagai series. Only thing that really sucks about it is that it ended on a huge cliffhanger that was setting up a Great Mazinger reboot.
I wish that you had addressed the very popular European localization of various Mazinger cartoons which played across the world in place such as Canada and Latin America. The Italians, The Spaniards, the French, and Germans were quite good at translating early Japanese cartoons too. While in the US, this series and the others in the same universe were not impressive and baldly dubbed, in European markets it was a different affair. Theses series were HUGE and the edits fewer. Grandizer was known as Goldorak and there was a lot of merchandise around, such as toys, comics, colouring books, lunch boxes and whatnot. They were introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even kids from US border towns with Canada could watch these cartoons. These were bigger than Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformers in the schoolyards. Just because these series were a blip in the US, it does not mean that they were a failure. Ask any Gen X kid girl or boy from Western Europe, Latin America, and Canada and you will get a whole other perspective on this. Some other viewers mentioned the Goldorak version of Mazinger below. Mazinger and Grandizer were so huge, that they forced changes to children broadcasting regulations in many countries which led to more co-productions between Europe and Japan to circumvent newer tougher laws, while delivering Japanese cartoons with a hint of educational contents. This led the ancestor of DIC entertainment to co-produce series such as the Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31 in response to tougher broadcasting regulations for kids.
Going to the movie theater with my class as a kid to watch the mash-up Goldorak and friends "movie" was a big deal.
Thanks for mentioning this, as I definitely remember watching Goldorak in Canada. I also remember picking up a french Goldorak comic book despite the fact that I could only read maybe every other word.
Do you know if there were any English dubs of Goldorak in Canada? Or was Tranzor Z shown in Canada as well? I know I watched the French version but I thought perhaps at times it there was an English version of the show, but I'm not sure if I'm just misremembering it as it was so long ago.
@@MatthewFabb Grendizer has an English dub by Jim Terry Productions.
Exactly. Aren't France, Germany, Italy and Spain part of "the West" too? I'm always confused when Angloamericans say "the West", are we Europeans in it or not?
And as kids we got to play with the Japanese die-cast version of these robots (they were so heavy that they could have been used as a blunt weapon).
Fun fact: in my country (which is Italy) GoLion aired a couple of years before the Americans decided to turn it into "Voltron", so we got both set of toys: the die cast Japanese ones (in two variants) and the plastic American version.
I am 48 years old. I remember after school watching Tranzor Z and Voltron every day. Even through Tranzor Z was the lesser of the two, I loved it. I remember us mocking it some as "CHEST FIRE" closed out every battle, always wondered why they did not start with that. Epic Childhood memories. Not a lot of vintage, but have been grabbing up some of the modern Voltron toys from various sources, and looking to grab a Soul of Chogokin Great Mazinger. Just fun memories!
I drew Tranzor Z cartoons all the time as a 7 year-old in 1985 and did a full-fledged comic book that I still have somewhere thanks to my mother's mad archiving skills. I loved it as much as I loved Voltron and they both aired together every afternoon.
I know everyone loves Voltron(Golion), but I wish Mazinger was more popular here in the states.
Saw it! Loved it! Out here on the West Coast, L.A. region. I was already in my teens, and a long time Battle Of the Planets fan. ThunderCats and Voltron were picking up steam. But early in the morning, there was this odd show where I could tell the animation was closer to the simple style of the old Kimba: The White Lion. But this was a giant robot show like Johnny Sokko...in cartoon form. So the fact that basically a *kid* was piloting the thing was all I needed to know.
NOTE: An old animators trick is keep the background still and move only what you need animated to save on production time as many know, but that leads to parts of the animation not quite in mesh or where the color's are a touch off - so I could always tell - even as a kid - what parts were going to move and what parts were just background (I still enjoy my shows, but once you know, you can't unsee it) ... SO ...
No nudity made it into the versions I saw, but when I first saw the girl robot...I was like...she's not gonna do what I think she's gonna do. And sure enough...I was all of a sudden a mixture of knowing (1) they allowed for a lot more in Japanese cartoons than western, (2) unbelievable embarrassment that the author thought that was acceptable being so corny and sexist, and (3) prurient delight at seeing chest firing missiles (head in hands, shaking head no, and laughing my eyes tearful). I decided Tranzor-Z was a classic, but one best not shared with Mom units. Still the mythos of a boy and his robot was captured here.
You see...with Voltron, you need *4 other pilots*, or 14 with Dairugger - with Johnny Sokko you only command it with your voice, but with Tranzor *you* get to ride it and pilot it. It felt more like an extension of your will and skill. So when Macross/ROBOTECH landed - I was primed and ready to see a screen filled with an army of Battloid warriors. 😃
Thanks again Toy Galaxy for another great job, and great memory - DJ xSUBn
Yes, Tranz-Or-Z is what I was watching around 1984-85 here in L.A.
lol! As I recall they saved on animation by sometime keeping the same panel on screens for several seconds from time to time!
Yeah, I guess it was more offensive to some to see Aphrodite's bombastic chest missiles than seeing a door open just above Tranzor Z's belt line so that I rocket can shoot out! ...which wasn't edited out.
Thank you for the info. This was probably my most favorite cartoon during that time that it aired on American television, and I had wondered what happened, why, and why there wasn’t any toys made after it. Your video explains so much!
Hilarious timing, I was just talking about this show with a friend the other day. We both could barely remember details, but it was still a fond memory for both of us.
I love how Tranzor Z isn't a hulking heman of a robot. Tranzor Z has a dadbod
Nagai didn´t create the magic girl genre in manga. Tezuka did that. Captain Marvel/Shazam comics also preceded Tezuka through Marvel Girl but she wasn´t the protagonist of course.
I remember that WPWR 60 spot! Maximum nostalgia. I loved this show by the way!
i grew up a military brat, and i remember watching this as a kid. i never lived in hawaii but i knew a few families that did. and only they knew about tranzor z. i was introduced to this by means of vhs. i will never forget.
In the Japanese version, Mazinger Z translates roughly to ‘demon-god Z’; with the Z meaning ‘Zeus’ according to some updates.
The US VHS releases of Americanized Japanese anime mecha such as Mazinger Z, Tosho Daimos (Starbirds in the US) and Voltes V (Voltus V) usually screens the complete first episode, then the rest is a truncated version of the series overall.
Gaiking and Starvengers did that with their respective sources. They have "movies" of them both that I never realized weren't the full thing until I was older and found out they were a TV series not stand alone cartoons.
Wow didn’t know Tranzor Z failed. That explains why I never saw too many episodes. I was definitely becoming a fan of the cartoon but unfortunately it wasn’t around long. I remember as little kids in elementary school my friends and I used to debate who would win in a fight between Tranzor Z and Voltron lol. Well at least we know who won in longevity lol 😂.
If you want to watch it all how it was meant to be mazinger z got a release on dvd through,discotek media.It's ending is bitter sweet but that leads into great mazinger and a few years ago it got the movie mazinger z infinity.
Tranzor Z was on a local independent station after school, back-to-back with Voltron. I don't recall any friends or classmates ever talking about it, but I was a fan. I took notice because one of my nursery school classmates brought a couple of the 24-inch Shogun Warriors toys in one day. I don't recall ever seeing those toys again. I had begged my parents for one and ended up with one of the small diecast Mazinger Z toys. It had been years since I'd seen any similar toys, but I had immediately recognized the Tranzor Z robot.
I do remember watching "Tranzor Z" as a child. My folks rented it from a shop and is the biggest reason why I started getting into the Mecha Genre.
I remember Tranzor Z. Was it 6th - 7th grade for me when it came out? I recall the “3B” Productions and my friend and I thought it was an odd name, and would “buzz” the theme song to amuse ourselves.
We had gotten our first VCR and I actually was able to rewind and pause and see the two different robots. I didn’t know one was “Mazinger Z” and the other “Great Mazinger”. I never had a shogun warrior toy and couldn’t remember their details a few years later (which is a long time for a kid) so I forgot that one of them looked like TZ - or rather Great Mazinger. Nowadays they sell for hundreds of dollars. Back then I recall they were taken off the shelves so we kids wouldn’t eat the small rockets or poke out our eyes? We’re we that helpless? We’d just find new dumb ways to get in trouble so give us our toys!!
Anyhow… I always wondered how the hovercraft that slowly descended into the head of Tranzor Z was suddenly a jet or sorts, and how the yellow pointy things coming out of the neck were bent at 90-degree angles, and how the red chest plate became more “V” shaped and one piece without a break between the two halves, OH and how did the wings just pop out of his back? I mean, having to run and jump and have the wings clamp onto TZ was a thing.
Growing up in french I had already seen Goldorak as a small child so when Tranzor Z started to air on US TV in the mid eighties I was kind of confused. Firstly the main character looked like the sidekick on goldorak but everything about the show was so much worse. Oh and americans were very bad at localizing content in the 80s. The french were used to it as they localized all US movies and as such voice acting was way better as was the translations.
Just want to boost this reply and urge you guys to look up Goldorak. While it may be true that transor Z never found its audience in the English speaking west, us French Canadians remember our version quite fondly!
@@charon59 Je me souviens! I mean it is on our license plate.
Ditto. I'm also a French-Canadian who grew up with Goldorak (UFO Robo Grendizer) and also watched Tranzor Z when it was first broadcast.
I still remember the pilot episode that had clips from Great Mazinger, and already knew something weird was happening. But still, GIANT ROBOTS! So I was content.
Took me years to realize the original name was Mazinger Z.
Because that was Koji from Mazinger Z, he returned from the USA finishing his UFO studies and made that dinky flying saucer... Fans from Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger were not pleased about that.
@@vicserr1 I know that now but the internet didn't exist when I was 12 so I was confused.
My younger brother was obsessed with Tranzor Z. We used to rent it from our local VHS store (in Australia) in the late 80s (maybe early 90s?) at least once a month.
To this day we still yell quotes from it at each other.
“Tran Zoe z” and “G Force” were on about the same time when I was a kid - they were respectively my first introductions to the franchises that were better known under different brands
11:53 speaking of the Philippines, unless you specifically focus on American stuff, are you going to do a review of Voltes V sometime in the future given the series’ popularity in the Philippines (personally I think Daimos is the better show)?
Another Great Video, Dan! I still remember when Tranzor Z debuted on WPHL 17 Philadelphia at 4pm in the fall of 1985 right before Voltron at 4:30. The 80's were a Great time to be a kid!
My grandparents saw me watching the Force Five lineup, so bought me a Mazinger Z toy when I was very young. They just saw big robot, and the box resembled what they saw. For years I wondered what this toy was from, until a local station picked up Transzor Z years later.
I remember this!!! I watched this as a kid in the early 80s & when I speak about it, no one knows what I'm talking about & now, here it is!!! So cool.
Growing up in the 80s Venezuela, Mazinger Z was HUGE. Big hit. You saw Mazinger Z books, comics, cards, plastic robots, masks, you name it. I was a big fan. When i came to the USA, at a rental video store i saw the image of Manziger in the case of the VHS tape but with the name of Tranzor Z. I was confused. Years later, i came aware of the name change here. I owned several Mazinger Robots from Japan (soul of Chogokin). Mazinger Z holds a special place in my childhood.
One of my favorite sequence of Tranzor-Z episodes was the run leading up to Tranzor-Z getting the capability to finally fly. Pity there aren't full episodes on UA-cam.
Wow I can tell you worked very hard on this video. By the way, I got my Magic Spoon cereal. Thanks for the recommendation. I'm so glad you're covering so many great classic action cartoons!
The show was aired on a local TV station in the early 80s. It would be on around the time I got home from school. For years afterward, I thought I had completely made the series up in my head.
I watched Tranzor Z every day. Loved that show! This episode brings light to why I never saw it again, anywhere, ever.
Nice work, as always.
Another welcome flashback…I even grew up in Chicago so you played the promo I saw as a kid. Thank you!
I remember my best friend and I watching Tranzor Z all the time. As I grew up, I tried explaining it to people and every time they thought I was thinking about Voltron. So glad for the internet and rediscovering this great animation!
I'm also one of the relative few who was exposed and remember Tranzor Z fondly. Though, oddly enough, none of the Mazinger Z recent movies have caught my heart. It was a brief, "oh look, it's Tranzor Z I mean Mazinger Z" and I am filled with nostalgia for about 15 seconds. The feeling dies quickly as I continue to watch for some reason. It just doesn't take like the old series.
As a kid in New England I knew Great Mazinger from the Shogun Warriors toys and comics, and was surprised when a dubbed version finally happened. I enjoyed Tranzor Z as kind of a retro thing, it felt more juvenile than Voltron or Robotech. Before Tranzor I remember drawing pictures with a friend who got super-excited because he recognized Mazinger as "Robot Taekwon V", a Korean copy of Mazinger who nobody in our area had heard of.
I remember Tranzor Z from my childhood. My dad would bring me to a local video rental store and I'd always pick it. I've seen the video several times. Enjoyed watching it. Great memories.
So cool that you did this episode as I loved Tranzor Z when I was a kid. I like Voltron as well, but Tranzor rising up from under the swimming pool sticks in my mind a lot more.
I watched this 30 some odd years ago as a 7 year old kid and still remember the awesome OUTRO song and video with the inner workings of Mazinger. I can still feel that tingling sensation of watching something that I knew would inspire me for life
As an army brat, I lived in South Korea, and I remember watching it in the late 1970s. They had their Korean dubbed version which was not edited. Love that cartoon! Wished it had lasted longer and caught on in the states.
I watched Tranzor Z in the California Bay Area growing up back around the mid to late 70's to early 80's. I also had the red Shogun Warrior with the spinning blades on the wrists and a shuriken launcher on the right arm!!! Keep up the great vids!!!
I used to watch that first translation of Tranzor Z when I was a kid in the early-mid 80s here in East Texas. It came on early in the morning before school. It was my favorite show at the time.
loved Tranzor Z. watched it on channel 60 in Aurora IL. Had not thought about it in years. I remember having the toy years before seeing the show. okay. probably a year before. Kid years were so long