無敵超人ザンボット３

MUTEKI CHOUJIN ZAMBOT 3

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
23
RELEASE
March 25, 1978
LENGTH
25 min

DESCRIPTION

There once existed a planet named Beal, until it was wiped out by the mysterious entity known as Gaizok. The few remaining survivors escaped to Earth and split into three families, named Jin, Kamie, and Kamikita respectively. While attempting to start a new life, the collectively known "Jin Family" prepared for the inevitable Gaizok invasion on Earth and its giant mechanical beasts known as "Mecha Boosts". In order to defend their new home, they have built three vehicles which when combined form the mighty Zambot 3. The Jin Family must not only defend against Gaizok attacks, but also harsh criticisms from the very people they protect, who blame the Jin Family for the invasion in the first place.

(Source: AniDB)

CAST

Kappei Jin
Nobuyo Ooyama
Keiko Kamikita
Yoshiko Matsuo
Uchuuta Kamie
Katsuji Mori
Shingo Kouzuki
Toshio Furukawa
Killer The Butcher
Akira Shimada
Chiyonishiki
Baretta
Toshio Furukawa
Gizzar
Ichirou Nagai

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

REVIEWS

Kuropiko
75/100
Muteki Choujin Zambot 3 has the inklings of amazing interesting concepts, but stumbles in its execution
Please note, this review contains untagged spoilers for Muteki Choujin Zambot 3. I could tag spoilers, but this review would end up just being a big "Click To See Spoilers" box if I did that. If you want a spoiler free take on this series, I will say that it's an interesting insight into war and its effects on people caught up in the middle of it. It's 23 episodes long, and while some of those 23 episodes are repetitive, it manages to maintain a charming consistency alongside a very interesting narrative and enjoyable cast. Now, on with the actual review.

When I finished Zambot 3 just a week ago, I was utterly baffled. While I had completely expected the typical Tomino ending (albeit with one caveat I will talk about later), the confrontation with the main antagonist left me feeling wanting. There were a lot of conclusions reached that felt very phoned in, both compared to what came before and as conclusions to other ideas that had been built up by the anime. It certainly made me think about other ideas I hadn't thought of at the time, and maybe I just missed these on my initial watch, but I'm more inclined to believe there were production issues of some variety (especially given the prior content of the series and the odd episode count (you rarely see 23 episode anime even today)).

Zambot 3 is most certainly a bridge between the super robot anime of Getter Robo or Mazinger and the eventual real robot anime of Mobile Suit Gundam and Ideon. It's this connective tissue, delving into the more "real" concepts, things like the horrors of war and the collateral damage of it, while also maintaining an air of the super robot era, and even somewhat dissecting it. You can read Getter Robo and see all this death and destruction, but the heroes just keep on going forward most of the time (I'll be fair, I have yet to read Go and Arc at the time of this review). Obviously, I'm not saying Zambot 3 did this first, there was almost certainly a manga or anime that capitalized on these ideas before it, but it still acts as connective tissue in this way to Tomino's later anime.

It manages to weave a story of humanity's innate distrust of the supernatural and the odd- yeah, Butcher and his crew are evil and destroying cities, but isn't that the fault of the Jin family? They're the aliens, why should we trust them? The first two thirds of the show showcase this really well, nobody ever stops to thank the heroes, whether it be for the amount of damage they help cause or for misplaced blame. As the series goes on, even the main character, Kappei (albeit briefly), becomes disillusioned with their battle, seeing it as a just the root cause of all this destruction and death he is receiving the blame for. This public resentment also feels like it's tied into a theme regarding the public resentment of soldiers, as seen during the American-Vietnam war, though I don't know how deeply Japan feels about this concept, so it could be projection on my part.

But, as I alluded to earlier on, a lot of other ideas feel half-baked to say the least. In other Tomino anime, things like child soldiers and abandonment of moral compasses to continue fighting are ideas given a lot of gravity. Hell, his next two major anime, Ideon and Gundam (yeah, I'm shafting Daitarn 3 here), have a focus on both ideas, in particular the idea of child soldiers, so it's weird to look back on Zambot 3 retrospectively and see the same ideas brought up and used almost haphazardly. There's no real meat to the crew of the Zambot 3 all being children (though I'd love to read what anyone has to say on the subject), they just are.

This further ties into the ending itself. Zambot 3 kind of just ends, in a typical Tomino fashion. What I mean is, everyone left on their ship dies, and the two copilots of the Zambot 3 perform a kamikaze attack so Kappei can confront the big bad. Even the dog dies, it's a really horrific ending. But, during the confrontation, a lot of new ideas are introduced. The main antagonist was in reality essentially an AI trying to eliminate all evil lifeforms, like the race the Jin family is a part of and humanity in general, despite allying itself with blatantly evil people like Killer the Butcher. Despite approving of tactics like human bombs. It's very odd to say the least, and while I like the ideas thrown around here, and while there seems to be set up, it still feels remarkably out of left field.

And as Kappei falls back to Earth, he thinks on what the AI said to him, he thinks about the evils of humanity and if he did the right thing, which is a very interesting concept. His final lines, "Did we do it? Did we fight well? What we did wasn't a waste, right?" really tug at your heartstrings and push these ideas further, but it feels like there was supposed to be more. I don't want to assert ideas, I don't want to sit here and say "This was cancelled and Tomino should redo it", because if it was cancelled, Tomino likely would've just made a film duology to give it his preferred ending. I'm just left confused and wanting more from this ending, while also having a lot to think about in the aftermath. It was a good ride, I highly recommend it, and I hope to see more discussion on it in the future. I hope if you read this whole review, you have actually seen the anime, because I just spoiled all of it. If you haven't, I still highly recommend it, just know that you spoiled it for yourself.

Also, this is a plea for more /m/ friends please. I promise I will watch more /m/anime.

Continue on AniList
cosmicturtle0
82/100
Tomino's first attempt at breaking the super robot genre. [spoilers]
Yoshiyuki Tomino is without a doubt most famous for the creation of Mobile Suit Gundam, the show that eschewed the often campy and commodified super robot genre in favour of a more mature, realistic look at what would happen when robots the size of buildings are used as tools of war. But two years prior to this, Tomino directed a little anime called Muteki Choujin Zambot 3 in which he takes his first swing at deconstructing the super robot. And despite the show's flaws, I have to say he did a really good job of it.

The series starts out like a lot of mecha shows did in the 70s: aliens attack, preteen boy falls into the cockpit of a giant robot, and miraculously saves the day (in Zambot, this is done through sleep training--the three pilots supposedly endured months of training in their sleep to turn them into ace pilots). Cue monster-of-the-week battles where the good guys always win and eventually become the heroes of the earth. For the first couple of episodes it seems as though this is what Zambot is. It sets itself up as a generic, kid-friendly show where the heroic Jin family takes down the evil Gaizok to save the world. But just as soon as Zambot turns down this path, it immediately throws it off-course, because while Kappei and his cousins Uchuta and Keiko do always save the day, it's never done without collateral damage. Often times, it's cities and towns and the lives in them. Many times, it's interpersonal relationships between the pilots and their friends. Whatever the case, the series never lets the Jin family--and by extension, the viewer--forget that battles involving giant robots and aliens are dangerous, destructive, and most importantly, horrifying.

There are many scenes throughout this show that emphasize civilians fleeing as a battle begins (a few minutes into the third episode, a woman screams to be let onto a bus that has just filled up and is about to leave the city--only for she and everyone on the bus to be frozen to death and disintegrated a second later). There are also a lot of scenes that emphasize the sheer scale of the battle, but not in an "oh-wow-robots-are-so-cool!" kind of way, but an "oh-shit-this-thing-could-crush-us-at-any-moment" kind of way. My favourite example of this is in episode 5, where the Zambot cuts off the wing of an enemy and it falls onto a ship below:

The angle of the shot tells you everything you need to know about Zambot's priorities. It's interested, at the end of the day, in the humans affected by these robots. Even when Zambot is fighting, it often feels like a backdrop to the human drama of the episode. While it does play into a lot of the conventions of the super robot genre (hot-blooded protagonist, named attacks, monster-of-the-week storytelling), it's also challenging this formula by giving us a lot of this from the perspective of the civilians on the ground. This is why after the wing falls on the boat, the show spends the next two minutes following Kouzuki as he is separated from his sister by the explosion of the ship and he and his mother are broken up by the resulting tsunami. And in a more direct reference to the formula, there is a moment in episode 19 where Butcher the Killer wants to send out a second monster to attack the Zambot and his assistant essentially tells him that they've already sent one out today. "I don't care," says Butcher. "Today is a bargain sale!" Meaning, forget the toys that this show is supposed to be selling--let's win.

Now, I'm not going to pretend like Zambot is perfect. There are a lot of issues, especially looking back on it 46 years later. The pacing is slow in certain parts, which makes it hard to binge. The animation for the most part is outdated and nothing special. The soundtrack is repetitive and in my opinion doesn't do the best job of highlighting the show's emotional moments (although the opening and ending are FIRE).

What will kind of make or break the series depending on how you look at them are the characters. Pretty much everyone outside of Kappei is a stock character from the 70s, and you could likely copy and paste them into any other mecha and they would fit just as well. But Kappei is an interesting one. He starts out as this incredibly annoying, arrogant, whiny little kid who is thrown headfirst into this battle to save the world, but treats it all as a game. He doesn't understand why civilians hate him and his family, and he doesn't understand why his friend Kouzuki has betrayed him after Kouzuki is separated from his family as a direct result of the Zambot's actions. But over the course of the series, after seeing the destruction the battles cause first-hand and losing his own friends and family, Kappei comes to realize his responsibility as a pilot of the Zambot and sees himself as more of a soldier who needs to protect the earth. I really liked Kappei's arc, and his being the main character, that really boosted the show for me, but I can understand how he would be too big of a turn-off for some. Kouzuki has the inverse character arc, where he begins blaming Kappei and the Jin family for everything before realizing that they are not responsible for the Gaizok attack and coming to understand that they're the only ones who can defeat the enemy. I like Kouzuki's character development, although there are some parts I wish were fleshed out a bit more.

The Gaizok are another interesting bunch and another example of this show beginning to blur the lines between super robot and real robot. Butcher the Killer and his minions are in every way the campy villains of a kid's anime. But for me, this plays into the show's favour. The contrast between these goofy villains throwing rock concerts and taking bubble baths on a giant alien mothership and the absolute destruction and despair that they are unleashing below is honestly really terrifying. Butcher the Killer isn't really that scary on his own, but when you see what he's capable of doing the humour of his scenes evokes more of a nervous laughter than anything with the thought that he could very well destroy the world. Once again, this is Tomino taking the standard super robot formula of the 70s and turning on its head.

Actually, I think that's the wrong way to phrase it. This show doesn't really turn the genre on its head, like Gundam did two years later. Rather, it just plays everything straight, without the overriding inclination for everything to work out.

Perhaps the most important part of the series is the end (where, by the way, the animation gets surprisingly amazing), which is where "Kill 'Em All" Tomino first got his nickname. While we're not even close to Ideon levels of despair, the last few episodes of Zambot feature the deaths of most of the main cast save for the mothers, children, and civilians. And even though these deaths are sort of gratuitous (Uchuta and Keiko ramming into the Bandok comes to mind--come on, Tomino, LEAVE ME A SHRED OF HAPPINESS), I think they do two really important things: first, they double down on the series' darker themes. If this is really the war we're led to believe it is, it makes sense that people die. That it all happens in the last two episodes might be a little convenient, but I still don't think the sense of despair was misplaced, and if anything it heightened the finale for me. But the second thing it does is leave Kappei as the only person able to answer the series' central question: are humans inherently selfish creatures that don't appreciate others, or are we inherently good and able to thank one another for being there for us?

At the end of the series, Kappei is the only participant of the final battle left alive. Keiko, Uchuta, Ichitaro, and their fathers and grandparents all gave their lives so that Kappei could defeat the Gaizok, save the earth, and live. And after the Gaizok is defeated (the true Gaizok, the supercomputer that was commanding Butcher), it asks Kappei why he fought if no one on earth is going to thank him for saving them. Kappei eventually falls back to earth and is surrounded by a crowd of people who rush out to him, calling out to him as a hero. But I personally don't think this is much of an answer to the Gaizok's question. Are the people cheering for Kappei out of appreciation and a new understanding (which was hinted at throughout the series by a few civilians who intended to change public opinion)? Or are they just cheering for him because they're finally safe?

I don't know the answer, and I don't know if Kappei does either. The earth is safe, but at what cost? The people are only seen cheering for him--do they care about the fallen Jin family? I think the last shot of him looking up into space, remembering and realizing what's happened, is really fitting. There is no definite answer, only a memory that he--and the viewer--has to carry.
_Shine, our star! Shine forever!_
Continue on AniList