Iron Dai-Kaijū

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Iron Dai-Kaijū
Name
Japanese	鉄の大海獣 ラジコン大海獣
Rōmaji	Tetsu no Dai-Kaijū Rajikon Dai-Kaijū
Information
Type	Mech
User	Shūichi Yamada
First Appearance
Manga	Monster Raban (1958) Dai-Kaijū (1966)
Anime	Series 1 Episode 6 (1968)

The Iron Dai-Kaijū (鉄の大海獣, Tetsu no Dai-Kaijū) is a giant robot mimicking Dai-Kaijū, created by Shūichi Yamada to defeat Kitarō as a Dai-Kaijū.

It is also known as the Radio-Controlled Dai-Kaijū (ラジコン大海獣, Rajikon Dai Kaiju), Robot Dai-Kaijū (ロボット大海獣), occasionally referred to as the Mechanical Dai-Kaijū (機械の大海獣 Kikai no Dai Kaiju) or simply Mecha Dai-Kaijū (メカ大海獣 Meka Dai Kaiju).

Description

Both in the manga and the 1968 anime, the robot was described to be "identical to Dai-Kaijū" although physical similarities between the two are actually minor.

It can be controlled either through by radio-wave or by a pilot who rides on it.

In the manga, it has pupils which cannot be seen in the first anime. In the anime, it was more square and stocky shaped and had a much thinner "nostril" and jaw.

History

Manga/1968 Anime

After the first appearance of Dai-Kaijū (Kitarō) into an urban area, it was built by Shūichi Yamada as he negotiated to the minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (it's not clear whether or not Shūichi Yamada had his own team for this), spending a month and costed 50 million yen to build it.

In their first match, Iron Dai-Kaijū was at upper-hand mainly because Kitarō was not willing to fight and cause damages to surroundings. After it was shot by Dai-Kaijū's Hair Beam, it took some time to recover to cut off the hair. Dai-Kaijū then took Yamada's mother and sister to secure them on a small island, but Yamada took Dai-Kaijū's action as taking his family as a hostage.

As Yamada was cornered by the government's decision to nuke the island even involving Yamada's family in the process as "possibility of further damages by Dai-Kaijū to include numbers of causalities and severe destruction are not acceptable if caused by concerning lives of two women", and Yamada decided to finish Dai-Kaijū off and save his mother and sister by himself, riding on the robot and head to the island. This time, however, Kitarō overwhelmed and easily won as he decided to fight and took the opponent underwater, destroying the robot and saved Shūichi Yamada.

Features

Remote Piloting

Arms: It can be used as manipulators and hammers.

Claws: Its scissor-like claws are its main weapons and is the most notable feature of it. It was specially prepared against Dai-Kaijū's hair beam and can cut off hairs produced by the supernatural beam.

Fangs

Searchlights: It can emit searchlights from its eyes.

Underwater Mobility

Trivia

• It was likely a reused idea of Raban-17 in Kaijū Raban. Raban-17 was presumably inspired by a robot appeared in Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy while Tezuka's robot resembles the mechanical man appeared in 1921 Italian filmL'Uomo Meccanico. This is consistent to the fact that Mizuki mimicked artstyle and character designs of Tezuka in Monster Raban.
• On the contrary to Raban and Raban-17, Dai-Kaijū gained a breath weapon while Iron Dai-Kaijū lost one.
• Riku Sanjō revealed on an interview for Otona-Media that he was planning to include more of traditional episodes for 2007 anime and he mentioned that Iron Dai-Kaijū was one of those.
• Iron Dai-Kaijū predates other fictional mechanical kaijū characters such as Mechani-Kong and Mecha-Godzilla.