| Manga great Go Nagai was 20 years old when he was discovered by another
master manga/anime creator - the late Shotaro Ishinomori who took notice
of Nagai's work and took him in as his assistant. Honing his skills under
Ishinomori, Nagai developed his own style, and in 1970 he launched his
own manga/anime outfit, Dynamic Productions. This marked the start of
a history, for within a couple of years, he turned out such popular and
highly influential titles as Getter Robo, Devilman, and Mazinger Z. Premiered
in 1972 on TV, Devilman is an animated superhero (or antihero) show that
blends awesome action elements with human drama, depicting such elemental
and contrasting aspects of human nature as love & hate, crime &
justice, isolation & mass hysteria, and of course the struggle between
good and evil in an unrelenting manner. His subsequent masterpiece Mazinger
Z paved the way for generations of mecha/robot animes to follow. |