#govarian

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サイコアーマー by Ken'ō (ケンオー)

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Whatever. go my robot artwork

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Since a new episode of Robot Girls Z was announced featuring those three new characters, it’s time to introduce their respective series. 

All three shows had Go Nagai’s involvement, but in the case of X Bomber, Kimio Ikeda was the first to think of the idea, and contacted Go Nagai to help on the project. 

Psycho Armour Govarian (1983) (26 episodes), director Seiji Okuda’s debut, who went on to direct Dancouga later. The show was animated by Knack (Studio Ichi nowadays), which is quite infamous for producing Chargeman Ken. It tries to imitate robot aesthetics from Gundam and Mazinger. Knack especially asked Nagai if they could make Govarian’s head like Mazinger’s to make it more recognisable. Yet, the show failed to grasp its audience and was stopped only after 26 episodes. It gained a new life in South Korea.

Groizer X (1976) (36 episodes), animated by Knack, but this one was directed by Hiroshi Taisenji. Its OP (Fly! Groizer X) is sung by the late Kou Ikeda, famous for singing Fly! Gundam, opening to the first Mobile Suit Gundam anime series from 1979. Again, it wasn’t popular in Japan, but had a new life in Brazil under the title O Pirata do Espaço ("The Space Pirate"), but also in other parts of Latin America (El Justiciero) and Italy. 

X Bomber (1980) (25 episodes), produced by Jin Productions (Kimio Ikeda who initiated the project) and Cosmo Productions. It’s particularly unique for being a puppet animation, influenced by both Star Wars and Gerry Anderson. I suggest looking up the X Bomber documentary (available on BakaBT) to know more about its fascinating production. Like Govarian and Groizer X, it was a failure in its own home country. However, it did get a brand new life in the United Kingdom under the title Star Fleet, which also received a single by Brian May and friends, under the title of Star Fleet Project. From what I can gather, it also aired in France under the title of Bomber X which is just X Bomber reversed. There’s a particular story about the studio caught fire and lost all of the puppets used in this show as a consequence. A great shame.

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Psycho Armor Govarian by Ryukow Masseau

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ゴーバリアン by Kuronekokōbō (黒猫工房)

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A history of Robot Girls Z

2009-2013

Initially, Toei back in 2009 started a project called Robot Girls, aiming at turning their original 70s anime robots into cute little girls. They created a site, posted a few 4 koma about them on it, animated a short, but nothing major. After all, we’re speaking of Gaiking, Gackeen, Danguard and Baratack, mecha anime that don’t have the name Go Nagai attached to them (Except for Gaiking or originally, but that’s another story of rights that I don’t want to get into). Suffice to say, the project went nowhere given the properties involved. 

2014

Then of course in 2014, they relaunched it as Robot Girls Z, with brand new anime shorts but now the main focus is on Nagai’s Mazinger trio consisting of Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and Grendizer, as well as other Go Nagai / Dynamic Pro properties like Getter Robo and Koutetsu Jeeg. An online niconico gacha video game called Robot Girls Z Online was also launched about a month later. The game consisted of Robot Girls Z from the Mazinger series that wasn’t initially included in the anime like Tauros D7. The manga also had new girls like Count Brocken etc. In addition, Toei seeked out Japanese mascots and memes like Imaichi Moe, Miyari, Pixiv-tan to be included in 3 Bluray exclusive shorts. 

2015-2016

The success of Robot Girls Z shorts and its online game caused Toei to create additional shorts under the title of Robot Girls Z Plus, but with Gaiking LOD and even more Go Nagai / Dynamic Pro characters like Getter Robo G, Getter Robo Go, Emperor of Darkness, Boss Borot etc. The list of robot girls kept growing as Toei decided to branch out and seek out robots that weren’t only created by them, but also robots that were co-produced with Sunrise, such as Combattler V, Voltes V, Daimos. There were also new Dynamic Pro characters like Dino Getter. Anyway, the game was still including plenty of girls regularly. At this point, I stopped playing it entirely due to its repetitiveness, being a gacha game and all.

2017 

This year, they announced they included robots in their game they had no part in like Ginguiser, Machine Blaster, Blocker Gundan, and Dai Apolon (Nippon Animation mecha). At least with Dino Getter, even if they didn’t create the manga, it was still a Dynamic Pro product and they have mended their ties with Go Nagai. And finally, we are now getting 3 new Go Nagai properties to come with a new bonus short exclusive to this new Bluray. What’s different? Well, for once, Govarian (Govari-san), Groizer X (Guro-chan) and X-Bomber (Big Dai as X-san) weren’t created by Toei. Basically, Nagai parted ways with Toei after the Gaiking rights fiasco, and went on to collaborate with Knack (Chargeman Ken’s infamous studio), with the exception of Bomber X, a puppet animation show which was by Cosmo Productions and Jin Productions and God Mazinger by TMS, which still doesn’t have a robot girl YET so I’m hoping Toei gets to them as well.

Okay, so why am I excited?

Well, I stopped playing Robot Girls Z Online for a long time, BUT I’m really confident that the Robot Girls Z project is way more than just for dirty otaku money. It’s a celebration of an era of robot anime from the 70s to the 80s. They could have stuck to properties they owned, but Toei went out of their way to revive the early days of giant robot anime.

And there’s a point I forgot to mention, also this year, Robot Girls Z actually made it to Super Robot Wars. So why couldn’t Govarian and Groizer be part of it as well? Maybe they were too obscure? Perhaps, but it seems that the issue of rights shouldn’t be much of a problem now.

So what does this all mean?

This means that we’re now open to new Dynamic Pro robots like Mazinkaiser and Shin Getter Robo being included in Toei’s growing list of robot girls.

What I ultimately want is a new Robot Girls Z anime, but this time as a TV series, rather than just a bunch of shorts. 

That’s all I can say about Robot Girls Z. Initially, I called this post “A brief history of Robot Girls Z”, but obviously, “brief” couldn’t be part of it. 

Now that I have updated you on what Robot Girls Z is, and where it’s heading, next time I post something about it, you might just understand.

[fandompost]

RetroCrush Adds Go Nagai's 'Psycho Armor Govarian' Anime Opening & Closing Streaming

RetroCrush Adds Go Nagai's 'Psycho Armor Govarian' Anime Opening & Closing Streaming

Earth’s only hope against an alien invasion is a group of psychic teens and their giant suits of armor.

Check out the full article by Chris Beveridge on The Fandom Post!

[fandompost]

RetroCrush Adds Go Nagai's 'Psycho Armor Govarian' Anime Streaming

RetroCrush Adds Go Nagai's 'Psycho Armor Govarian' Anime Streaming

Earth’s only hope against an alien invasion is a group of psychic teens and their giant suits of armor.

Check out the full article by Chris Beveridge on The Fandom Post!