Years and years ago, Go Nagai, who was at the time dedicating himself completely to Devilman, was coming home from his studio and got himself caught in a traffic jam. At that moment he thought, "If my car had legs, I could avoid the others easily and get home pretty soon." From that idea came the early designs for what was to become Mazinger Z, but on those first designs, the name of the robot was Energer Z and even if its looks were quite similar, there still were some differences (as you can see on the first image) from what ended up being the final design. The most important one was the pilot -at the time called Susumu Kaze- who docked into Mazinger without a pilder. He did it using his own motorbike, running up a ramp located on the back of the robot. In the end, the ramp disappeared, the pilot name changed to Koji Kabuto and the motorbike gave way to the now famous pilder. Even so, the basic design for Energer Z was used on Sayaka's second robot, Diana A, obviously with a more feminine look. Energer Z itself was never used in any of the Mazinger series ever shown on the small screen...until some weeks ago.
In Shin Mazinger, Energer Z is the prototype of Mazinger created by Kenzo Kabuto (Koji's father) and piloted by Tetsuya Tsurugi (Great Mazinger's pilot in the old series). Both of them seem to have died in an incident at Bardos island in the past, but Energer Z appears in the present piloted by Kenzo himself and fights Mazinger, matching his power level. It seems that all the Z robots can achieve their maximum power level (although it would seem, by also putting themselves in danger) by means of the Koshiryoku Meltdown (Nuclear melting of the Photonic Energy?) as the color of their bodies changes to metallic scarlet.
It is this last Energer Z model that will go on sale as part of Bandai's collection Soul of Chogokin, in this case the GX-47. The official blog uploaded some pictures.
This version will go on sale today at 6300 yen.
Soul of Chogokin GX-47, Energer Z at Hobby Link Japan.
