Gigantor, Part 2

Thirty-five years before Brad Bird's 1999 animated film The Iron Giant mined the boy-and-his-robot theme, Mitsuteru Yokoyama's b&w Japanese anime import Gigantor wowed American kids with its tale set in the year 2000 of a gigantic robot (the title character) remote-controlled by a 12-year-old boy named Jimmy Sparks. "Bigger than big! Taller than tall! Quicker than quick! Stronger than strong! Ready to fight for right against wrong!" With these stirring--if semantically questionable--words, Gigantor would be wheeled out week after week to do battle against various evil professors (Lurks, Stinger), doctors (Nuts and Bolts), and other robots (Magnaman) and beasties (in Episode #36, "The Space Cats," trouble comes in the form of the Magnapussies), aided by the "team" of Sparks, Dr. Bob Brilliant (and his son Buttons), Dick Strong, and--for comic relief--Inspector Blooper. Collecting the second half of the show's 52-episode run, Gigantor, Part 2 boasts a new digital transfer from the original 16mm film, a commentary track on episodes 27-29 by American Gigantor director Fred Ladd (who singles these out as "perhaps the best" in the entire series), and a text article by anime historian Fred Patten. Certain to strike a nostalgic chord amongst baby boomers, this is recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)