Retro anime fans in North America, get ready to Pilder On for some oldschool Go Nagai anime fun!
Today, ANN reveals that Discotek Media has licensed the North American distribution DVD rights to the T.V. series Mazinger Z (1972), which is the first anime based on Go Nagia's Mazinger Z manga, the first Japanese sci-fi work to feature a piloted giant robot with super powered weaponry. Though not yet stated on whether any Englsih audio tracks wil be included in the DVDs in addition to the Japanese audio-with-English subtitltes option, the first DVD set for this series by Discotek is planned for release by end of 2013, and get ready as this release will include episodes never included in the U.S.-produced Tranzor Z dub of this classic, and I'm sure of you long-time fans of Mazinger Z in North America were around in the 1980s to watch it. Here's hoping that sequel T.V. series Great Mazinger (1974) and UFO Robot Grendizer (1975) get the R1 DVD releases later on so as to allow North American otaku (including today's audiences) the chance to officially experience the entire original Mazinger anime saga in front of their eyes.
In addition, ANN indicates that Discotek Media also licensed the R1 DVD rights to Cutey Honey (1973), also based on a classic 1970s manga by Nagai himself. The manga itself not only redefined the magical girls genre for manga by being the first to feature a magical girl as a transforming superheroine (thus predating Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon), but was also the first Japanese magical girl story for male audiences. The entire anime series will be collected in one R1 DVD set for a 2013 release. If you have seen its sequel New Cutey Honey on R1 DVD from ADV Films, you'll be to see you'll be given the chance to see the preceding story at last.
For those of you not familiar with either the Mazinger or Cutey Honey franchises, get ready to saddle up to experience some anime history as you are about be given a chance to officially access such important works in the medium's history on DVD.
10:15 PM Canada EST
