top of page

Denjin Zaborger

電 (Den) 人 (Jin) are respectively the kanji for electricity and person. I've usually seen this as "Electroid" in English, but for some reason the subtitled release of the 2011 movie converts this to "Karate-Robo" for the English title, I'm assuming for marketing reasons?
Denjin Zaborger TV Series Key Visual
Denjin Zaborger is a fun and in some ways extremely unique old Tokusatsu franchise with some good bits of content. You can find a few episodes of the original show with fan made English subs if you look for them, and the two manga which are both short (because one was cancelled, but not due to poor quality) and a very entertaining movie from that's a remake, celebration and loving parody of the series all rolled up into one and I personally enjoyed every one of them and think it's worth checking out. To give a quick overview of the series: it's a 1974 tokusatsu show from P Productions (who also did the tokusatsu shows for Osamu Tezuka's Ambassador Magma, as well as their Lion-maru series and Spectorman among others). It got a two manga adaptations in the same year which was unfortunately the one made for TV magazine one was cancelled due to the 1973 Oil Crisis. Both are worth reading, Toshio Narui's manga despite being only 4 chapters long includes a lot of great art detailing Zaborger and other Machines in the series. In contrast Ushio Souji and Kazumine Daiji's 12 chapter manga covers a lot more of the series and is a good condensed version of the TV show.
What sets this show apart from its peers in my opinion is that Zaborger himself isn't the main character but part of a duo, the other half of which is the central protagonist of the series: Daimon Yutaka. a karate expert and member of Japan's secret police force and is brought into conflict with the evil organization Sigma after they kill his genius scientist father, and later the more sinister Dinosaur Army. Zaborger is a super combat robot made of Daimonium that his father invented who transforms into a motorcycle, is equipped with various smaller espionage and reconnaissance machines and an array of signature weapons like his chain punch and rapid destruction gun. 
Zaborger TV Magazine manga
Zaborger Manga Cover
Zaborger is controlled through commands Daimon issues through his helmet, but more specifically through Daimon's feelings and emotions via an electrical circuit life support system implanted in his chest by his father, and notably the main source of power for Zaborger is the righteous anger he feels in his heart against the evil Sigma. The series as a whole features interesting fights with a tag team structure where Daimon will engage in martial arts battles against Sigma's goons, assassins, and commanders while Zaborger fights their dangerous robot weapons most of which are humanoid like him. In a weird way this feels a lot like Kamen rider but closer to the structure of Ultraman, except if the SSSP and Ultraman's battles happened a bit more in tandem than they usually do. Zaborger being tied to Daimon's emotions sets up a great narrative device where instead of directly transforming into or controlling a more powerful being he has to sort of negotiate with one that's representative of and responsive to his own mental state. There's a lot of fun fights and stand out characters. Daimon is very fun to follow and Zaborger gives an neat view into deeper parts of his character, there's great villains like Lady Borg and Dr. Akunomiya and supporting cast members like Detective Nitta and Ken Matsue. One great thing about every version of the story is that it's extremely bizarre and bombastic in a way that's easy to buy into and the characters, events, and fights are crazy in a way that entertaining that doesn't break immersion.
Denjin Zaborger Movie Poster
Karate-Robo Zaborger Movie Poster
I'm hopeful that more of the original show will eventually be made available to English fans, but for the time being there's a lot of content accessible for an older and more obscure Tokusatsu show.

Comments


FOLLOW ME

SUBSCRIBE

Thanks for subscribing!

  • about-joanna-purosto-469027_edited
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
bottom of page