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Published Date: October 11, 2009
By Nawara Fattahova, Staff writer

KUWAIT: About 40 fans of the legendary Japanese animation, Grendizer, gathered at the Japanese Embassy in Kuwait yesterday to meet Go Nagai, the Japanese Manga artist and creator of memorable robot animations such as Grendizer and Mazinger Z. The fans brought some of their collections of Grendizer’s figures, books, drawings and other items to the embassy in order to share their collections with each other and show them to Go Nagai.

During the two hour event, Go Nagai gave a lecture about Grendizer and Mazinger Z before one of the latest episodes of the Mazinger saga was screened. At the time, Grendizer was a new idea for an animation, where the main character was a robot.

It was the first time when the robot was controlled from inside. The main hero, Dayski, sat in the robot’s head and controlled it. I first came up with this idea when I got stuck in a traffic jam and thought about what it would be like if my car had four feet. That is where the idea came from before it was eventually realized and turned into the animation in the mid 1970s,” said Go Nagai during the event.

Nagai was not aware of the great number of Grendizer fans in the Middle East. “After I found out how many lovers of Grendizer there are in the Arab world, I decided that I would have to go on tour in some Arab countries. I visited Jordan, and after Kuwait I will also visit Egypt. I’m also satisfied with the Arabic version of Grendizer, as most of the names were not changed and were kept in Japanese,” he added.

Grendizer and Mazinger were meant to be shown as animated TV movies. “I’m not aware of all the translations in comics, as I created the series for TV. But, if I have a chance, I will translate it to a book in the future. I must admit that I didn’t face any objections against the animated TV series, but some small problems faced the comics,” noted Nagai.

Nagai is currently working on the second part of Mazinger for the new Mazinger saga.

I also think about continuing the Grendizer story, as many people insist on this. It is difficult to do the same cartoon again, but it was popular all over the world. It wasn’t screened in the USA, and this is the reason why there are no comics of it in English, but I have thought about releasing it there,” he said.

One of the most interesting and funny question fielded to Nagai concerned who the mother of ‘Hikaro’ was, who is one of the main female characters. “I will think now of this question, because I didn’t think of it when I created the serial,” replied Nagai, laughing.

After answering some questions from fans, Nagai enjoyed seeing a nice collection of Grendizer items that the fans brought with them. They also had the chance to take photos with him and receive his signature.

Today, fans are welcomed to attend a lecture and demonstration on Japanese animation, specifically Grendizer and Mazinger, at Cinescape Theater at the 360 Mall at 5 pm.