Sunday, November 18, 2012

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Gigantor (1964)

Gigantor was part of the first wave of Japanese anime imported to the US in the mid-60's, but to some it isn't as fondly remembered as, say for example, Speed Racer.

That could be because two years after Gigantor arrived in the US, Hanna-Barbera created their own super robot-----Frankenstein, Jr., complete with the boy genius "sidekick". While Frankie fought far more campy villains, Gigantor's "rogues gallery" might as well have come from some of Toho's monster movies. There wouldn't have been much difference, don't you think?

Years later, Gigantor was given a second chance in America, and we'll take a look at that another time. Right now, let's take a trip back nearly 50 years with the series opener:



Rating: None. Never saw the show.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I saw one episode of Gigantor. It was recently on YT.

I think Frankenstein Jr. did it better. Frankie was somewhat sentient (unlike Gigantor) although he still apparently needed Buzz Conroy to dispatch the weaponry.

hobbyfan said...

Hmmmm, so Gigantor didn't talk. Predictable.

Apparently, here in the US, we want our heroes to be a little more on the chatty side.