Gaiking

Demon Dragon of the Heavens Gaiking (大空魔竜ガイキング) was a Super Robot mecha anime series produced by Toei Animation, credited as an original idea by Akio Sugino. However, in reality the original idea was of Go Nagai. Toei deliberately took Nagai out of the credits in order to avoid the payment of royalties. Because of that, Nagai sued Toei and stopped further collaborations with Toei for a long time. The legal battle lasted more than 10 years. Nagai himself confirmed that he was the creator of Gaiking in the Comicon 2007 in Naples, Italy.

It ran from April 1976 through January 1977 and consisted of 44 26-minute episodes. Gaiking was notable for being one of the few super robot series to take place in real places outside of Japan, and for being the first Super Robot series to have a mobile carrier for the chief robots. In the USA, Gaiking was part of Mattel's popular Shogun Warriors import toy line of the late 1970s and Jim Terry's Force Five anthology series. In 2005, a sequel titled "Gaiking Legend of Daiku-Maryu" was produced. On March 28, 2010, a Live-Action Movie based on the series, simply entitled, Gaiking, was announced at the 2010 Tokyo Animation Fair. In international production will be helmed by American filmmakers, Jules Urbach and Matthew Gratzner. Gaiking is being prepped for a 2012 world-wide release.

Plot
The story chronicled the battle between the crew of the semi-transformable carrier Daikū Maryū (also called the Kargosaur in the US version) and the Super Robot Gaiking invented by Dr. Daimonji (Prof. Hightech in the English language version of the show) against an invading race of aliens called the Dark Horror Army from the planet Zela whose home planet is facing destruction by a black hole as their population starts to mutate (the fact that their bearded ruler now wears his face on upside-down is considered only a minor mutation). Notable aspects of the series include the dinosaur-based designs of the Daikū Maryū and its support machines and the use of part of the carrier to form the main robot. The robot Gaiking was piloted by former baseball star named Sanshiro Tsuwabuki (Sanshiro's name was changed to Aries Astronopolis for the English version with the carrier being called the "Great Space Dragon", a literal translation of "Daikū Maryū". Likewise, for the Latin America version the main character was called Brando Drummond and the carrier "Gran Dragon del Espacio") who was drafted for the job because his latent psychic powers made him the only one capable of doing so, all other similarly empowered candidates having been assassinated by alien agents with he himself having been injured in an attack that ended his sports career. Gaiking is most easily distinguished from other mecha by its skull-shaped golden torso formed from the head of the Daikū Maryū and its golden horns.

The leader of the alien villains was named Prince Darius, and all of their ships and mecha were fish-shaped, which most likely inspired the Darius series of video games.

Gaiking
A mysterious mecha with a Daikū Maryū's head on its chest. The unit was piloted by a baseball star named Sanshiro Tsuwabuki, know as Aries Astronopolous in USA. It is launched when the Head of Daikū Maryū while Daikū Maryū launches Parts 1 (Arms and Chest) and 2 (Torso, Legs and Feet), combining it to form the mecha. The unit has a powerful feature called "Face Open", which utilizes Gaiking's hidden weapons. However, this machine's origin and why it is made remains a mystery.

Daikū Maryū
A gigantic Dragon-shaped robot (known as Space Dragon in the Force Five dubs) that protects the earth from the invaders from Planet Zala. It houses a lot of weapons and the needed Weapon Parts for Gaiking.

Nesser
A miniature robot located inside the Daikū Maryū that looks like a Plesiosaur (called Dynatar in the Force Five Dubs). It is used for aquatic reconnaissance missions. It could fire lasers or fire from its eyes.

Skylar
A miniature robot located inside Daikū Maryū, which resembles a Pterodactyl. This is used as an aerial scout, and is armed with missiles.

Bazolar
A miniature scout robot located inside Daikū Maryū, which resembles a Triceratops. (Called Rhinotar in the Force Five dubs) It was used for scout missions on land. Very fast on land, it used lasers for attack.

Cast

 * Sanshirō Tsuwabuki (石蕗三四郎) Akira Kamiya
 * Doctor Daimonji (大文字博士) Hidekatsu Shibata
 * Fan Li Kan Tokumaru
 * Gen Sakon (左近元) Shunji Yamada(Keaton Yamada)
 * Bunta Hayami (速水文太) Kenichi Ogata
 * Peter Richardson Makio Inoue
 * Midori Fujiyama (藤山みどり) Mami Koyama
 * Yamagakake (山ヶ岳) Osamu Kato
 * Hachirō (八郎) Noriko Tsukase
 * Guest
 * Erica Noriko Ohara

Production notes
Gaiking was Toei Animation's first super robot series not based on an existing manga (the company's previous super robot anime Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, etc. were based on manga series by manga artist and writer Go Nagai). It was shown in English internationally as part of Jim Terry's Force Five lineup, and was also broadcast in Latin America as "El Gladiador" as part of a 4 anime mecha show called El Festival de los Robots (with the other 3 being "Starzinger", "Magne Robo Gakeen" and "Kotetsu Jeeg", known as "El Galactico", "Supermagnetron" and "El Vengador" respectively). The first 26 episodes of Daikū Maryū Gaiking were aired also in Italy, on local networks, under the name Gaiking during the Japanese super robot craze of the early 80s (In the late 90s the whole series was released in Italy in dubbed DVD boxes). One episode from Jim Terry's Force Five Gaiking series would be redubbed as an episode of Robo Formers.

Game appearances
The original Gaiking first appeared in New Super Robot Wars for the PlayStation and later in Super Robot Wars Alpha 2 and Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, both for the PlayStation 2.