I have spent most of my times avoiding watching Toei adaptions of the Mazinger series, I gave the Toei show a shot because of its cultural significance and curiosity (two things I am driven by for many reasons) and I absolutely loathed Toei Mazinger. Gone was the silly, fun, violent, and charming qualities of Go Nagai's manga with its rather simple yet effective exploration of themes of war was replaced a show that hardly can be classified as a show as much as it was total rubbish bin material. Not only was the animation cheap and sloppy even for the time it was done, the characters were butchered into very lame archetypes that had generated at the time (Kouji's Toei personality is heavily based off Hideki Go in Return of Ultraman for instance) and it irritated me to no end that Sayaka was being treated so terribly by the showrunners because, as history always shows: "when things go down, the women suffer the most" when it comes to the failings of hardly classified scripts that repeated the beats of each episode over and over again. It seemed that most media around this time loved doing this, as Return of Ultraman (the show that basically a lot of these things were initially following as a template) had regressed of sorts with how it treated women as well.
Look, I have seen a lot of my fair share of monster of the week shows but this is one of the worst and most boring examples of them and this going on for 92 episodes made me lose my patience. Why would I wanna continue something that wouldn't even keep my interest?
Fast forward to a year later, I have been watching mecha shows all of 2025 as a big project of mine to become well versed in the subject and to also enjoy the thrill of having something new that maybe only a few people knew about and as a fun way to keep me on my toes I decided to make a roulette out of it and lo and behold Toei Grendizer had rolled onto my doorsteps. My friends who had seen it or seen some of it had said that this show will start taking influence from its rivalling competition "Combattler V" about 29 episodes in to keep viewer interest and that intrigued me. I as a fan of Grendizer U and the Grendizer manga was curious to see how this could adapt this story into .... 74 episodes really? While I am not one to complain about length per say anymore (I have seen Kamen Rider (1971), Ultraman Cosmos (2001), and Goranger (1975) so length can't seem to be a total problem right?)), Toei's name attached to a long show makes me suspicious because it becomes a matter of "when does it just shut down and become autopilot aka sucking", thankfully the show seemed promising as it opened its doors to me as it not only felt better than the likes of Toei Mazzy and Toei Getter, but it also felt a bit more livelier than them. This is in no part thanks to Nagai clearly being in the room for this one compared to Toei Mazinger Z, and while it really is up to the people who put it to screen (the screenwriters) to make them work.
As a whole, Toei Grendizer is fine. While it isn't slop like Toei Mazinger nor is it a misfire so hard it angers me (Daltanious), Toei Grendizer is a show that will have highs and then big lows and then for most of its 74 episode run sit in comfortably in the middle in a way that is not offensive as much as it is kinda uncreative and boring. The big points of the show are when it does status quo changes such as make Hikaru a more central and active main by giving her a ship to fly into combat with and when Maria shows up near the three-quarters mark, where the show becomes livelier as a result because it is doing what most of Toei's library at the time wasn't for mecha: it made women do something and didn't treat them like trash. Granted, Maria does get a few jobbing episodes here and there and it can get quite boring because it means they got tired of putting Kouji (a character who characteristically should be jobbing) in the ringer. The animation can vary from really nice to straight up ugly, the frames and cels can also range from beautiful to just straight ugly as well so it at least is consistent about it. While Toei Grendizer will never compete with its rival show Combattler V in the slightest, Toei Grendizer being the easy popcorn show or background noise show while Combi does its very strong plot threads, character work, action, and drama is a good enough sacrifice especially what came before this. Duke Fleed is a good enough protagonist here, the show does seem to throw out his early characteristics for about 85% of the show until the finale where they just bring it all back for one last hurrah for some reason. I would def say in order of likability, the main cast is as follows:
As a whole, this show does the job well as being an easy sit down and while some episodes are straight rubbish and lame 70s shock value, the good episodes are pretty good and you'll be mostly sitting through the most serviceable mecha show of the 70s. Good for what it is, but if you are looking for a great show this might not be it and you should probably just go to Combattler, Voltes, and Daimos for that.
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