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Gigantor the Collection Volume 1
Inspired by the success of Astroboy, Fred Ladd decided to bring
another character from Japan to Western markets with the powerful robot
called Gigantor! This was a time in the 60's when
anime wasn’t even a word in Western vocabulary and these audiences
were only familiar with their style of cartoons.
That’s probably why Gigantor became such a hit in the west from its fast paced animation
(thanks to Mitsuteru Yokoyama) to its almost adult focused stories which
kept enough kid friendliness in it to make it for children. Even though
each of the episodes involved Gigantor defeating some deadly threat, his
master was 12-year old Jimmy Sparks and together they were an inseparable
pair.
The
series itself was set in the year 2000 and although Gigantor was created
by Jimmy's father as a weapon, it was reprogrammed to be a peacemaker.
As Jimmy and his robot travelled around the world, stopping a variety of
villainous threats, the stories were bigger than life and at times a
little too violent for people of this era.
Nonetheless, it was quite popular, not just because of the action but
because of Gigantor's arch-nemeses like The Spider and other interesting
characters who always pitted good versus evil. Of course, you can't go
pass the amazing theme song of Gigantor that even after all these years
is still stuck in the mind of those who watched this entertaining
cartoon series that broke the Western mould.
However, what makes this series work so well is
the animation that is bigger and better than anything the west could do at the
time, even though it’s in glorious black and white but ironically, it
still holds up well today.
Bring on volume two!
Volume
One includes the following episodes: "Battle at the Bottom of the
World!" "Sting of the Spider!" "Return of the Spider!" "Spider's
Revenge!" "The Secret Valley!" "The Diamond Smugglers!" "Dangerous
Doctor Diamond!" "Force of Terror!" "World in Danger!" "Badge of
Danger!" "The Smoke Robots!" "The Freezer Ray!" "The Magic Multiplier!"
"The Submarine Base!" "Treasure Mountain!" "The Mystery Missile!" "The
Giant Cobra!" "The Great Hunt!" "The Deadly Web!" "The Atomic Flame!"
"The Incredible Speed Machine!" "The Monster Magnet!" "Target: Jupiter!"
"Trap at 20 Fathoms!" and "Monsters from the Deep!" |
