Steel Jeeg, also known as Kotetsu Jeeg or Koutetsu Jeeg, is a super robotanime series created by manga artists Go Nagai and Tatsuya Yasuda and produced by Toei Doga, directed by Masayuki Akihi. It was first broadcast on NET in Japan from October 5, 1975 to August 29, 1976, lasting for 46 episodes. Steel Jeeg also ran as a manga in several children's publications, with the original manga was first serialized in Kodansha's TV Magazine from August 1975 to June 1976. The series is the first installment in Takara's Magne-Robo Franchise, which later became its own series after the rights of the show were passed to Dynamic Productions. A sequel series called Kotetsushin Jeeg aired on the satellite networkWOWOW, beginning April 5, 2007.
Story
Hiroshi Shiba is a young car racer who is mortally wounded. His father Professor Shiba, a talented scientist and archaeologist, manages to restore him to life by means of a powerful relic from the ancient and mysterious Jamatai Kingdom, a bronze bell which is hidden inside Hiroshi's body and turns him unknowingly into a sort of cyborg. As the ruler of Jamatai, queen Himika, reawakens from her slumber in the underground, it is revealed that the bell is also key to the reconquest of the Earth surface. Her henchmen kill Prof. Shiba in vain pursue of the artifact, barely leaving the scientist time to upload his thought on a supercomputer at a specially built defense base. Anticipating the hidden menace, Professor Shiba has also prepared a giant fighting robot, Steel Jeeg, composed of interchangeable magnetic limbs and for which Hiroshi Shiba can become head and conscience. His mission is to defend modern Japan from the invaders, who also dispose of similar giant monsters and an army of minions. In such battles, Jeeg is also aided by a robot horse known as Panzeroid, and a fighting jet capable of shooting replacement components and specialized weapons for his body. The series follows Hiroshi's character development and the underground civilization's efforts and subsequent failures to return to power causing internal civil war.
Concept
Steel Jeeg is formed by combining the parts released by the Big Shooter jet, piloted by Prof. Shiba's young assistant, Miwa Uzuki. Hiroshi Shiba becomes the head of Steel Jeeg by bumping his fists together.
Opening theme: "Song of Kotetsu Jeeg", by Ichirou Mizuki with Columbia Yurikago-kai and Koorogi '73. A complete and original intro theme called "El Vengador" was composed and sung by musician Memo Aguirre for the Spanish dub of the series released in Latin America. Ending theme: "Theme of Hiroshi", by Ichirou Mizuki with Koorogi '73
Steel Jeeg was televised in many European countries, especially in Italy, where it is still widely popular and has a huge fanbase. In the 1980s, the series was shown in Latin America as a part of El Festival de los Robots a giant robot show fashioned in the style of Force Five, in which it was called El Vengador, along with Gaiking, Starzinger and Magne Robo Gakeen. The anime has never been released in the United States.
Sequel
On April 5, 2007 at 11:30 p.m. JST a sequel of Steel Jeeg called Koutetsushin Jeeg began airing on the satellite network WOWOW.
Other media
The Italian filmThey Call Me Jeeg is a tribute to Steel Jeeg, from which takes up some thematics. The plot concerns a lonely misanthropic crook named Enzo, who gets superhuman strength after being affected by radioactive waste in the Tiber waters; he gradually loses his disinterest towards people thanks to Alessia, a mentally handicapped girl who has mistaken him for Hiroshi Shiba, and gradually shifts from supercriminal to superhero in order to save her from a psycho gangster known as The Gipsy.
