Still showing right now is Mazinger Z: Infinity. Check out my Mazinger Z: Infinity review which was directed by Junji Shimizu and featuring the voices of Shotaro Morikubo, Ai Kayano, Sumire Uesaka and more.

For this Mazinger Z: Infinity review, let me go ahead and post SPOILERS

This movie’s based on the work of Go Nagai and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Mazinger Z franchise. But was it good? Would it be worth the ticket price?

Mazinger Z: Infinity Review – The Good

First off, as a fan, let me just say that I’m happy that they made this movie. Regardless of how it turned out, its still a Mazinger Z movie that runs for a full length time. We rarely get that these days so it merits something.

The visuals are great from beautiful Mt. Fuji to naval battles to a transformed Japan. Everything has… hope.

I don’t know about you guys but I loved the way they did Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and even Mazinger Infinity. Infinity alone really did look massive even if there were bits that felt like it was CGI.

They had fan-service. Hey, fanservice is fanservice. Hate it or love it, it’s going to be there. The good thing about it is that they didn’t dwell on it that much. I felt my heart sink when Lisa made an appearance in the nude and there were teenagers watching the movie a few seats away from me and I was like “Oh god”.

All the elements from the Mazinger Z TV series that we all loved are here in the movie. Oodles of mecha-on-mecha violence is there. They didn’t even forget the “bloodshed” that made Mazinger one of the animated series that was banned in the Marcos Regime (together with Voltes V and Daimos).

Mazinger Z: Infinity Review – The Bad

The dubbing here sure needs a bit of enthusiasm. There were some moments that should have been intense but wasn’t. There were some scenes (especially Boss’ scenes) that should have been funny but was half-assed in delivery. It felt like those old dubs from RPN-9. It could have worked decades ago but with how animes are done these days, it falls flat. Also, no disrespect to the dubbers from RPN ha, they did a good job before but with the defunct Hero TV, we saw how great dubbing could be and how it helps anime and movies like this.

I wasn’t expecting a “fresh story” but I didn’t expect the film to follow the same structure of other time-traversing relatives I’ve seen in other Japanese stuff like the Kamen Rider Drive movie, Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future. So there, get a clue from this bullet point. Wasn’t happy.

I understand that they wanted to do a tight story with character development while at the same time hitting the action notes. Alas, most of the movie were character exposition and dialogues. Shame, I’m sure they could have found a way to do character development while giving us amazing fights.

I feel sad for Great Mazinger and it’s team. Could have done more things with them but no dice.

The movie also nerfed the Mazinger Infinity mech to the point that it was annoying to watch the finale. And in those moments where it wasn’t annoying, it felt like a HUGE disconnect to watch. How they ended the fight also lacks a certain “ommph”.

Mazinger Z: Infinity Review – Verdict

I did this Mazinger Z: Infinity review with lowered expectations and I’m not that hurt. I suggest you do the same thing when you watch the movie. It’s still a fun movie to see because you get to see Mazinger Z kick thousands of mechakaiju ass but its not that satisfying. Should you make a conscious effort to see the movie? No not really. But if you are a fan, buying a ticket and see the metallic hero melt robots and throw around his rocket punch is worth your ticket.

For now though, I’m giving the score of 7 in this Mazinger Z: Infinity review

7/10