6.6 /10 1 Votes
Directed by Tetsuo Imazawa Directed by Tetsuo Imazawa Final episode date 24 December 1982 | 6.5/10 MyAnimeList Studio Tokyo Movie Shinsha Episodes 64 First episode date 2 October 1981 Written by Keisuke Fujikawa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Original run October 2, 1981 – December 24, 1982 Cast Similar The Big O, Mazinkaiser, Linebarrels of Iron, Tekkaman Blade, Gurren Lagann | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Six God Combination God Mars (六神合体ゴッドマーズ, Rokushin Gattai Goddomāzu) is a mecha anime television series that was popular during its broadcast between 1981 and 1982 in Japan, Hong Kong, and Italy. The series consists of 64 episodes and 2 movies. Other loosely translated names are "Hexademon Symbiote God Mars", "Six God Union God Mars", and "Six Gods United As One Being"; sometimes spelling the title mecha as "Godmars".
Contents
The anime show is loosely based on the 1976 Mars manga from Shōnen Champion magazine by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. God Mars is named as such to represent the mythological Roman God of war.
Plot
In the year 1999, humanity begins to advance beyond the known Solar System. The small planet Gishin, led by the Emperor Zul, who aims to conquer the galaxy, runs into conflict with Earth. He targets Earth for elimination and to do this, he sends a male baby called Mars to live among humanity. Accompanying the baby is a giant robot named Gaia, which utilizes a new power source strong enough to destroy an entire planet. As planned, Mars is expected to grow up, where he will activate the bomb within Gaia to fulfill the mission of destroying the Earth. However, when Mars arrives on Earth he is adopted into a Japanese family and given the name Takeru. Seventeen years later, Takeru grows up with a love for humanity and refuses to detonate the bomb as ordered by Zul. However, if Takeru was to die, the bomb within Gaia would explode destroying the earth.
Takeru possesses psychic powers (ESP). Takeru also can pilot the God Mars robot with his mind. Takeru decides to join the Earth defense forces and becomes a member of the Crasher Squad (an elite space-defense force), where he and his friends take a last stand against the Gishin's attack. The relationship of Takeru with his brother Marg, which as fate would have it, pitted the two against each other in the war.
Unknown to the Gishin, five other robots were created in secrecy alongside Gaia by Takeru's father and sent with Gaia to protect Takeru. Whenever Earth is in danger, Takeru is able to summon the five other robots to combine with Gaia to form the giant robot God Mars. The five other robots are Sphinx, Uranus, Titan, Shin and Ra.
Staff
Home release
The 64 episodes span 2 DVD collections.
God Mars: The Untold Legend
Later in 1988, a God Mars OVA was released under the title God Mars: The Untold Legend which focused on the life of Marg, Mars' twin brother. Gaia, God Mars, and the Gishin robot Zeron receive redesigns although the OVA mostly focuses on an alternate telling of Marg's life on Gishin up until the events of episode 19.
Film
A theatrical feature was to follow called God Mars: The Movie +.
Video games
God Mars would go on to make guest appearances in games like Super Robot Wars. In Super Robot Wars Destiny and Super Robot Wars Z2: Hakai-hen, the player gets a "Game Over" whenever God Mars is destroyed, due to the God Mars storyline for the first 25 episodes. In Hakai-hen, there is even a special game-over screen for when this happens.
Reaction
God Mars came out very early in the super-robot animation era of the 1980s, having been created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. The show did appear in the U.S., as an edited televised movie in 1982 called "Godmars".