Super Robot History: The First Super Robot

I can't seem to focus on one single topic, can I?

Before designating "the first super robot," it is important to establish a definition of "super robot."

In my mind, a "super robot" must have the following qualities:

1. The super robot must be much bigger than a human being, and preferably larger than a car or most other vehicles.
2. The super robot should possess vast strength and virtual invulnerability, to the point where it can swat around things that aren't super robots or giant enemy warships, doomsday weapons, monsters, etc. like poorly made toys.
3. The super robot is more or less (preferably more) humanoid, often looking something like a man in armor.
4. It is controlled by a human being (or, barring that, a single or small number of living or seemingly living operators).

This last distinction is important because there are lots of giant robots that don't qualify because they are independently intelligent, i.e., Transformers. (Transformers are like super robots, but I think the concept is a distinct genre. They have more in common with the original story upon which The Day The Earth Stood Still than with super robots, although this was almost certainly unintentional.) Thus, Brave Robots are sometimes true super robots and sometimes not-once again, genre blurring.

There is one more distinction that is necessary to consider for super robots: whether or not the controller must be a pilot or an operator (i.e., operating it remotely, like the modern combat/scout drones).

If it is not important that the controller is a pilot, then the first super robot is almost certainly Tetsujin 28 ("Iron Man Two Eight"), a robot so old that TV was still in black and white.

Gotta love that theme song. Anyway, this series was dubbed as Gigantor here in the United States:

Gotta love that theme song, too. It should be noted that, even though the series is blatantly aimed at children, this series recently earned a PGtv rating because Gigantor steps on people.

If piloting is a necessary requirement for a robot to become a super robot, then the first super robot was actually the prototype for nearly every super robot that came later, Mazinger Z (there is no easy way to translate this name, as it only means something by wordplay-"majin [mazin]" means a magical or demonic being).

That theme song is fun in a '70s/early '80s anime kind of way. Mazinger Z is relatively unknown in the States, but did see a series over here as Tranzor Z:

Yuck. Bad intro. You can see how Tranzor Z set the trend for super robots in the States, too, though, something I'll likely mention more later with respect to Voltron.

Mazinger was so popular when it came out that it may have spawned Japan's modern love of all things robotic/mechanical within the manga/anime context. It also established ideas that are dominant in super robot history:

1. Super robots have "attacks" that are projected from the robot's body in implausible ways.
2. Super robots are piloted rather than simply controlled.
3. The cockpit is in a separate, detachable section. (This particular idea's dominance was almost universal in the few years after Mazinger came out.)
4. The robot launches his fists as rocket-like weapons that strike enemies.

Mazinger also launched a host of sequels and semi-sequels, some as recently as this decade. Its influences are almost incalcuable, and in the post immediately preceding this one, you can see an influence more obvious than most.