NAIDA AND RUBINA: WHAT'S BEHIND THE MASK - 3
By Gerdha & Joe7
(first article: here; previous article: here)

GRENDIZER'S MANGA BY GOSAKU OTA

Usually, it is said that the scriptwriters' inspiration for Naida's story was taken from Grendizer's manga by Gosaku Ota.

In fact, in that manga not only Naida appears, but, with reference to the topic of the brains implanted in the Vega monsters, there are also three of them that recover their memory, remembering that they were Fleedians people, and rebelling themselves against the Vega Ship.

Since it is believed that Ota wrote the manga before the animated series, it is thought that his ideas were then used in the anime, but not in-depth, because unsuitable for an audience of children. I do not agree. Ota developed his ideas on what he thought Grendizer should have been, taking some episodes as inspiration, but real minds behind episode 25 were Go Nagai and Toshio Katsuta. In fact, in Grendizer Roman Album ¹ Nagai and Katsuta explicitly state that ep25 was their idea, and they had a certain purpose in accomplishing that particular episode. Mashima, the official script writer, has probably only developed their ideas. The Roman Album was also published on December 30 in 1978, 22 months after the end of the anime broadcast in Japan, and it is the only document available so far, where Ufo Robot Grendizer author and producer gave joint interviews at the time. It can therefore be assumed that its content is the most reliable source of information. It could be anyway said that Ota had developed in his manga some themes already present in the anime, but just lightly mentioned. Maybe, Ota could have talked to Nagai and Katsuta, deciding to show in the manga what they told him about what was really present "between the lines" of the anime. An example of this "completeness" of Ota could be the kiss scene between Duke and Naida, a scene included in manga and absent in anime.

Even if it was the case (and, anyway, there is no written evidence of it), this hypothesis contrasts with the Roman Album, where Gosaku Ota is not credited in any way as someone sharing the authorship for Grendizer's anime. Among other things, regarding the kiss scene, Ota has simply explicitly drawn in the manga what appears in episode 25 for 17/100 of a second. The kiss exists in episode 25, Ota never needed to imagine it.

Furthermore, the Gosaku Ota manga is not mentioned in the Mazinger Bible ².

In fact, the Mazinger Bible talks about Goldrake's manga by Nagai and Okazaki, but doesn't say a word about Ota's work. There is only a small image of the robot Raaga, or Rahga in the Italian version, which appears in Ota's manga, but there is nothing about Ota's manga in the text. See the related page below: if anyone knows Japanese, they may realize it.

Click to enlarge

This is surprising: considering the Japanese social rules, such an exclusion means that Nagai and Dynamic have not appreciated Ota's work and have preferred to "forget it". So, Ota manga is unreliable as a reference to the interpretation of the anime. It should be noted that, on this same page, at the bottom right, a page of Imamichi's manga appears, in which the monster Giru Giru speaks to Duke Fleed. But this manga was published in 1976, at the same time as the episode of Naida was broadcast, and it also has an ironic-comic trait.

Summarising, Gosaku Ota wrote only his own "Grendizer" story, meaning that he has included in his work some characters of Grendizer anime, with different personalities, but called in the same way, acting in a story of his invention. And, considering what he did, I don't think he ever cared for some kind of coherence with the anime.

It is not true that Naida does not "fit well" in Grendizer's history: she is one of its main keys to understand the story.
_______________________________________

¹ Roman Album: The "Roman Albums" are a collection of special monographic books, published by the Japanese publisher Tokuma Shoten. They are a real compendium for the treated series, and they contain almost unique information and details for fans. Generally, a Roman Album contains: story synthesis, episodes synthesis, drawings and preparatory sketches, theme song, color and black and white illustrations, character analysis, merchandising and other curiosities on the series, interviews with authors (from Encirobot)

² The Mazinger Bible, published in Japan in 2002 by the publisher Futabasha, consists of a voluminous tome of 505 pages produced by Go Nagai's Dynamic Production studio. The book offers, through cards, interviews, insights and images, a real excursus through the Mazinger saga, from the first piece of 1972 to the most recent evolutions, not forgetting the most curious and less known details.

(to be continued here)

HERE ALL THE ENGLISH LINKS ABOUT GRENDIZER

Edited by joe 7 - 13/2/2020, 18:51