Uchu-Enban Daisenso (The Great Flying Saucer War)

On 26th July 1975, people attending the yearly cartoon festival organised by Toei could not suppose they were going to see a little revolution in anime history. The main attraction of the day was surely the new movie about Mazinger “Great Mazinger tai Getter Robot G - kuchu daigekitotsu“ and that “Uchu Enban Daisenso - The Great Flying Saucer War” was supposed to be only a supporter to increase the desire of the public to see Great Mazinger in action once again. Instead, the public and critics got impressed by that experimental support movie, that represented a big novelty and was considered more interesting than the new one about Mazinger: even if the concept of aliens living on Earth and piloting a robot (by a radio device) against alien invaders was at that time already been presented in the anime serie “Astroganga”, anyway it was the first time that a fugitive alien was shown as driving his own robot against other hostile aliens and loving his new life on Earth so much to renegade a possible comeback to his past life on another planet. So “Uchu Enban Daisenso” became immediately a little “cult movie” and Toei thought to launch the – previously unforeseen – production of an anime based on that story.

That’s how Ufo Robot Grendizer got created: as an adaptation of a 25 minutes not-ambitious cartoon. Now Uchu Enban Daisenso is considered as the pilot movie of Ufo Robot Grendizer, and actually it is for real to a certain extent. Particularly, what links deeply Uchu Enban Daisenso with Ufo Robot Grendizer is the characters presentation from a psychological perspective. The story in itself has not much in common with the anime as a matter of fact: for example, the usual fame that episode 72 is a pure reprise of the pilot movie is completely untrue. And for what the character and mecha designs are concerned, only a few elements of the pilot movie were kept alive in the anime. But the original spirit of the story (a fugitive alien living peacefully with family of farmer on Earth and forced to combat with a robot against alien invaders, the mutual big affection between the alien and the scientist who he considers as a true adoptive father, the lovestory between the alien and the daughter of the farm owner) was transferred intact from Uchu Enban Daisenso to Ufo Robot Grendizer, providing the latter with the fundamental basis upon which Go Nagai, Toshio Katsuta and the scriptwriting team created one of the most innovative and beautiful anime in history.

UFO ROBOT GRENDIZER

According to and to all effects of art. 29.1 of the Canadian Copyright Act (National Legislation – Canada - Chapter C-42), all documents, texts, videos, sounds and whatever other content of this website section are published with the exclusive purpose of critic and review and has only fandom characteristics with no whatsoever lucrative aim. It is not intended in any way to infringe owner’s copyrights, both referring to those cited in the disclaimer and those who could own copyrights on the published material and have not been cited in the disclaimer itself. It is consequentially forbidden to all subjects to use partially or completely the content of this website section for not legally allowed purposes and in violation of whoever copyrights owner.