RMWC Reviews: Shin Super Robot Sunday: Astroganger

The first full-color animated giant robot anime debuted on October 4, 1972: Astroganger, from an up and coming studio founded by former employees of Toei Animation and Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production called Knack Productions.

Astrongager is notable for not being based on an existing manga (unlike Testujin 28-go), and follows the adventures of Kantaro Hoshi, a young boy who comes into possession of the eponymous giant sentient robot made of “living metal”: Astroganger (or Ganga for short). It turns out his deceased mother, Maya, was an alien scientist who fled her planet's destruction by the evil alien race known as the Blasters. She and her husband, Dr. Hoshi, built the robot to protect against the Blasters should they ever make Earth their next target.

Naturally, the Blasters make Earth their target, and Kantaro learns the secret of his heritage and teams up with the robot to defend his planet.

Astroganger himself is a 40 meter (131 ft) tall blue and red robot with a flesh-colored, expressive face. With no onboard weapons, he fights spaceships and enemy robots in hand-to-hand combat and can fly (similar to Tetsujin 28). Unlike Tetsujin, Ganga can talk, think, and feel pain. When the robot is summoned, Kantaro merges with the badge/gem on Ganga's chest, enhancing the robot with human reflexes and intelligence.

The show would see international releases in Korea, Italy (as Astroganga), Spain (as Astro Gungar), and in the Middle East (as Jongar), where it seems have been quite popular.

(This is a fan tribute remake of the show's opening)

The show ran for a modest 26 episodes, but was immediately overshadowed by the show we'll look at next time, and largely became forgotten, aside from a few curiosities.

In 2017, an animated .gif of Ganga running toward an enemy turned into meme. Also in 2017, a deluxe (read: expensive) Soul of Chogokin style figure was released in Medicom's Carbotix line.

Weird memes and expensive collectibles aside, the most surprising Astroganger news is the most recent. On April 10 of 2020 (nine days before this post was written in an amazing bit of coincidental timing), Discotek Media announced that Astroganger would see a release of the entire series on a Standard Definition Blu Ray with English subtitles on June 30, 2020.

Knack Productions would go on to a long history in anime, working with many major figures in the industry, including other super robot shows. However the studio earned a reputation for lower quality work, especially with Chargeman Ken!, a non-super robot show about alien invasions being fended off by a child hero with notoriously low budget animation.