Mach Baron
By Jeffrey Couto

>>Many thanks go out to August Ragone from Henshin! Online for information on the show and character names. For more info and news on classic tokusatsu programs make sure to stop by Henshin! Online.

Introduction

I remember watching Mach Baron when I was growing in Puerto Rico, back then a compilation of episodes from the series was dubbed into Spanish and released under the title Mazinger-Z Robot of the Stars. Why did they release a Mach Baron movie with the name of "Mazinger-Z" when this program has no real connection to Go Nagai's super robot? (although its worth mentioning that the influence of Go Nagai's super robots is definitively there)

Back in the early 1980's Mazinger-Z, Great Mazinger, Jeeg, Gakeen, Gaiking etc were huge in Latin America, in fact most of the local TV programming for children was made up of several different Japanese shows including such rarities as Gordian and Dorvac. As these shows became ever more popular many production companies started to shop around for films that they could play in the local cinemas, which brings us to the subject of this review, Mach Baron. The movie which seems to have been dubbed in Spain played locally in several theaters to the approval of many young super robot fans.

Even when I was very young I knew that this movie had no relation to Mazinger-Z but it would not be till many years later that I would come to discover its Japanese roots.

The Story

While on a vacation cruise with his parents Yu Arashida witnessed the death of his parents when a gigantic robot attacked his ship ultimately destroying it along with everyone on board, Yu was the only survivor. Flash forward several years into the future and Yu is now a grown up man being trained by his grandfather to pilot Earth's ultimate defender, Mach Baron, a giant red robot designed by his late father and constructed by his Grandfather.

After his grandfather is assassinated by an evil organization whose goal is to conquer the world Yu becomes Mach Baron's pilot and along with the members of KSS (Kokusai Kagaku Kyojo Tai) will fight to defend the Earth from falling into the hands of these evildoers and their giant robot machines.

My Opinion

Mach Baron's setup is typical of productions from this era: bad guys appear with new evil robot of the week which at first always beats the KSS team, but is ultimately defeated by the good guys after they figure out some weakness in the robot's weapons/strategy based on their previous encounter. However when one looks at everything else in that makes up this program it immediately rises above many other tokusatsu shows. The special effects, the miniature work, the robot costumes and the rocking soundtrack  really make this a memorable hero show!

I have to commend the folks who put together the enemy robot costumes for this show as they are outstanding (some more than others). As I watched various episodes of Mach Baron I started to look forward to the introduction of the next enemy robot that would take on the KSS. The fights between these machines of evil and out heroes are really spectacular featuring huge explosions and a lot of great miniature work.

One of the few problems that I had with this program was the way in which Mach Baron's weapons were put to use, for example,  whenever a weapon that's stored in the head is called into use the head of the robot starts to spin around for several seconds before it can fire its attack. This happens every time our hero calls out one of Mach Baron's weapons. There are some other silly business that I won't get into it (like the henchmen who wear football player costumes), but suffice to say that they don't take too much away from the show.

I highly recommend Mach Baron to fans of old school tokusatsu and to new fans who want to see what all the fuzz about these old shows is. I think that this shows is very underrated amongst fans of the tokusatsu genre so if your are a collector looking for something new to watch make sure to add this gem to your collection.

Jeffrey Couto