Steel Jeeg
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| Steel Jeeg | |
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| 鋼鉄ジーグ (Kotetsu Jeeg) |
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| Genre | Mecha |
| TV anime | |
| Directed by | Masayuki Akihi |
| Studio | Toei Animation |
| Network | TV Asahi |
| Original run | 5 October 1975 – 29 August 1976 |
| No. of episodes | 46 |
Steel Jeeg (鋼鉄ジーグ Kotetsu Jeeg) is an anime series created by manga artists Go Nagai and Tatsuya Yasuda, and produced by Toei Animation. It was first broadcast on Japanese TV in 1975. The series lasted for 46 episodes. Steel Jeeg also ran as a manga in several children's publications.
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[edit] Story
The story tells about Hiroshi Shiba, a car racer who is mortally wounded on a racing accident, but restored to life by his father, Professor Shiba, a talented scientist/archeologist, who is incidentally investigating the relics of the ancient Yamatai Kingdom. The professor discovers a tiny bronze bell with sorcerous powers, and shortly afterwards he is murdered by the henchmen of Queen Himika, the ruler of the Yamatai, who wants to seize the ancient bell and its power.
Hiroshi learns about his father's death, and his legacy: after the accident, Hiroshi was turned by his father into a cyborg, able to transform into the head of a giant robot, the Steel Jeeg, created by Prof. Shiba with the purpose of stopping the Yamatai invasion of modern Japan. The minions of Queen Himika have huge haniwa robots, called clay phantoms buried thousands of years under Japan's soil, and only Jeeg can destroy them and save the world. Therefore, Hiroshi must roughly try to live his double life as his career as a racer who takes care of his mother and sister and a hero who fight to save the world. After episode 29, the Yamatai invaders were replaced by the Ryoma Empire.
[edit] Concept
Steel Jeeg is formed by combining the parts released by the jet Big Shooter, piloted by Prof. Shiba's lovely assistant, Miwa Micchi Uzuki.
[edit] Production notes
Steel Jeeg was later broadcast on some European countries, and was quite successful, especially in Italy, where it still has a huge fanbase. In the 80's the series was shown in Latin America, where it was part of a giant robot show fashioned in the style of Force Five, called "El Festival de los Robots" which translate to "Festival of Robots". Steel Jeeg was called "El Vengador" along with four other anime shows including Gaiking, Starzinger and Magne Robo Gakeen. The names were translated in Spanish to "El Gladiador", "Starzinger", "El Galáctico", and "Supermagnetrón" respectively. Like many popular 70s super robot shows, Steel Jeeg has never been released in the US.
[edit] Staff
Series director: Masayuki Akihi
Episode Director: Kazuja Miyazaki, Masamune Ochiai, Masayuki Akihi, Yoshio Nitta, Yugo Serikawa
Music: Michiaki Watanabe
Original creator: Tatsuya Yasuda, Go Nagai
Character Design: Kazuo Nakamura
Singer: Ichiro Mizuki
[edit] Video games
Jeeg makes an appearance in 2nd Super Robot Wars Alpha and 3rd Super Robot Wars Alpha for the Playstation 2.
[edit] Merchandise
Jeeg himself made it into the Micronauts toyline because Takara manufactured the toys for this show, rather than Bandai. He became the basis for the "Magno" line along with the Pantheroid horse, but with different heads and color schemes.
[edit] Trivia
- The series made use of historical facts, as Yamatai was an actual state in Japan in the 3rd century A.D., ruled by a queen called Himiko. During that time, barrel-shaped terracotta cylinders topped by sculptures, were used as markers the borders of burial grounds, and were called haniwa, or "circles of clay".
