Gigantor Vs. The Iron Giant: Cultural Contrast

Robots as a dramatic device are not new to cinema, dating back to Fritz Lang's 1926 classic Metropolis. Nor are giant robots particularly new; both Western and Japanese cinema were using gigantic humanoid machines as far back as the 1950s in movies, TV and animation. However, Japanese and Western animators view giant robots in a different cultural context, a difference that is perhaps best illustrated by looking at two vastly different approaches: the Japanese series Tetsujin 28-go (released in America as Gigantor) and the 1999 Warner Brothers feature film The Iron Giant.

On the surface, such a comparison may seem to be misleading. After all, Gigantor, originally made in the 1960s, is technically several generations behind The Iron Giant. Filmed in black and white with limited character motion, low resolution detail in backgrounds and foreground objects, and often unintentionally hilarious dubbing, Gigantor fares poorly on a visual level compared to the full color palettes, naturalistic movement, painstaking detail and breathtakingly rendered CGI effects of the 1999 film.

However, the cultural impact of Gigantor far exceeds any retrospective artistic judgments Western audiences might impart. As Patrick Drazen notes in his examination of anime, Anime Explosion!, the series defined an archetype that continues to be followed in anime to this day, a subgenre Drazen calls "a boy and his robot" films, which evolved into mecha. The template varies from series to series, but the basics of the genre involve a pilot or pilots controlling-remotely or while seated inside the mecha itself-a large humanoid machine, usually in the pursuit of violence and/or property damage. Gigantor himself is an exception to later portrayals; controlled by the son of its inventor, Gigantor intervenes for the good of Japan, and specifically for its controller and his friends, resorting to violence generally for defensive purposes only.

What is important in this regard, particularly in comparison with The Iron Giant, is the fact that in virtually all mecha stories from Gigantor onward, the powerful machine has no independent will of its own. The power is in the machine, but the motivator and the will behind the power remains in the pilot, and it is only together that the dramatic tension is resolved. Thus, the mecha is only a tool, deployed for the greater good of the nation, clan or other organization the pilot or pilots align themselves with in the story.

Contrast this approach with the plot of The Iron Giant. In the film, a young boy meets and befriends the eponymous giant, who has fallen to Earth and lost its memory due to a head injury. As the movie progresses, the giant robot exhibits signs of intelligence, personality and individuality, which the boy encourages through his actions and talks with the giant. As in the case of Gigantor, the robot is imbued with great power-in this case, destructive power. In an action sequence near the climax of the film, the robot discovers it is capable of transforming into a mobile weapon platform, and goes on the offensive after it appears that the boy has been killed by an overzealous U.S. military.

In the climax of the film, the robot, who the boy has successfully talked out of its weapon status, is encouraged to make a moral choice, and chooses not only to not be a weapon, but to sacrifice itself to prevent the nuclear destruction of a seaside town. Thus, the robot proves itself not only capable of choice, but courage.

In this, the Western conception of a giant robot turns out to have something that the vast majority of its Japanese counterparts do not: free will. It is this conception of giant robots-tools to be used versus independent entities that can be befriended or feared-that creates an interesting cultural insight into the animators of these two very different examples.

Works Consulted

Drazen, Patrick. Anime Explosion!: The What? Why? and Wow! of Japanese Animation. Stone Bridge Press: Albany, CA. 2002

The Iron Giant. Dir. Brad Bird. Perf. Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Vin Diesel, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald. Warner Bros., 1999.