Directors: Katsuyoshi Yatabe & Tetsuo Imazawa
First aired: 1981
Contains spoilers
Shin Tetsujin 28 was a 1980s anime based on the manga Tetsujin 28-go and adapted for the States as The New Adventures of Gigantor. It follows the adventures of Shotaro Kaneda (Eiko Hisamura) who controls a giant robot.
Shotaro is part of the ICPO (essentially Interpol) and the robot can be summoned to where he is but he needs to control it by remote control otherwise, so it needs to be in eyeline. Why a child is left with this responsibility… well, probably best not asking. The anime is very much aimed at kids, with the child protagonist. However, it does not shy away from death.
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| standing over victim |
This episode starts with a castle and a car driving through a forested area. Something over the windshield distracts the driver and he stops. He sees red eyes in the night and then bats start swooping towards him and he gets back into the car, but the bats attack the vehicle as he drives and he crashes. He crawls from the wreck and is swamped by bats, which bite him – his skin pales. Dracula stands above him, laughing and vowing death to the ICPO.
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| Inspector Otsuka & Shotaro |
Shotaro is briefed by Inspector Otsuka (Kousei Tomita) about the death, which occurred in Lancashire, England, and was not the first agent of the ICPO to be killed by what appears to be bat bites. He and Shotaro, along with Tetsujin, are to go to England to investigate. On arrival they meet ICPO agent Kengamu who tells them that an eye witness has recognised Dracula. When they protest that Dracula isn’t real Kengamu admits that they unearthed Dracula’s grave in an investigation some three years before – when we see the scene, bats escape the opened coffin – but had somehow forgotten about that.
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| bat attack |
Shotaro, Otsuka and Kengamu go out to investigate but are soon besieged by bats and call on Tetsujin. Now what use a giant robot is in that situation, I’ll come back to. Before we go there, I will say that Kengamu is killed by one of the bats and so, as mentioned, this does not shy away from death (indeed Shotaro and Otsuka find a cave whose walls are lined with the corpses of victims). What I don’t intend to go into is exactly what Dracula’s grudge is nor his vampiric credentials.
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| Tetsujin attacks robot mummy |
What I will say is that, whilst Tetsujin looks a tad silly trying to swat bats his presence is not wasted. At one point he is attacked by what could only be described as a large kaiju – what that was doing in a lake in England is anyone’s guess. Also, Dracula has a giant robot mummy at his command (well he would, wouldn’t he) and they also fight… As for the episode, well ultimately it is fluff (but fluff coming from the part of the series where they added in a horror derived element – the following episode had zombies in Rio at the centre of it). The animation looks aged, but on the other hand that gives it a retro feel. If you like 80s anime, and you can get over the conceits, it is a way to pass just under half an hour. 4 out of 10 for the episode.
The episode's imdb page is here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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