God Mars

Six God Combination God Mars
	Intertitle from the second opening credits
六神合体ゴッドマーズ; (Roku Shin Gattai Goddo Māzu)
Genre	Mecha, Drama
Manga
Mars
Written by	Mitsuteru Yokoyama
Published by	Akita Shoten
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Champion
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	1976 – 1977
Volumes	1
Anime television series
Directed by	Tetsuo Imazawa
Produced by	Tōru Horikoshi; Shigeru Akagawa; Atsushi Shimizu; Yasuji Takahashi
Written by	Keisuke Fujikawa
Music by	Kei Wakakusa
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Licensed by	NA: Discotek Media;
Original network	NNS (Nippon TV)
Original run	October 2, 1981 – December 24, 1982
Episodes	64
Anime film
God Mars: The Movie
Directed by	Tetsuo Imazawa
Produced by	Shigeru Akagawa
Written by	Keisuke Fujikawa
Music by	Kei Wakakusa
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Licensed by	NA: Discotek Media;
Released	December 18, 1982
Runtime	97 minutes
Original video animation
God Mars: The Untold Legend
Directed by	Masakatsu Iijima
Produced by	Tadahito Matsumoto
Written by	Keisuke Fujikawa
Music by	Reijirō Koroku
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Licensed by	NA: Discotek Media;
Released	June 5, 1988
Runtime	55 minutes
Original video animation
Mars
Directed by	Junji Nishimura
Produced by	Takao Asaga
Written by	Masashi Sogo
Music by	Kaoru Wada
Studio	Bee Media
Released	June 10, 1994 — August 8, 1994
Runtime	30 minutes (each)
Episodes	2

Six God Combination God Mars (六神合体ゴッドマーズ, Roku Shin Gattai Goddo Māzu), commonly known in English as God Mars, is a 1980s 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 special presentations. Other loosely translated names are "Hexademon Symbiote God Mars", "Six God Union God Mars", and "Six Gods United As One Being".

This television mecha-genre anime is loosely based on the 1976 Mars (マーズ, Māzu) manga from Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. God Mars is named as such to represent the mythological Roman god of war.

Plot

In 1999, humanity begins to advance beyond the known Solar System. The small planet Gishin, led by Emperor Zul, who aims to conquer the galaxy, runs into conflict with Earth which he targets for elimination and to do this, he sends a male baby named 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 renamed Takeru. 17 years later after arrival, Takeru matures with a love for humanity and refuses to detonate the bomb as ordered by his sender, Zul. However, if Takeru was to die, the bomb within Gaia would explode destroying Earth.

Takeru possesses psychic powers (ESP) and also pilots the series' title super robot with mentality. He decides to join the Earth defense forces and becomes a member of the Crasher Squad (an elite space-defense force) where he and the friends he makes in his life on Earth take a last stand against his true home world Gishin's attack. The relationship of Takeru with his brother Marg, which as fate would have it, pits them against each other in the war.

Unknown to the Gishin, five other mecha were created in secrecy alongside and then sent with Gaia by Takeru's father...

Sphinx
Uranus
Titan
Shin
Ra

...to safeguard his boy. Whenever Earth is in danger, Takeru is able to summon the five other secretly created units to combine with Gaia to assemble the title Six-God Combination God Mars. The five other robots are Sphinx, Uranus, Titan, Shin and Ra.

Cast

Name	Kanji/katakana	Romanization	Actor(s)
Mars/Takeru Myojin	マーズ／明神タケル	Māzu/Myōjin Takeru	Yū Mizushima
Kenji Asuka	飛鳥ケンジ	Asuka Kenji	Hiroya Ishimaru
Naoto Ijuin	伊集院ナオト	Ijūin Naoto	Hirotaka Suzuoki (anime) Gô Shinomiya (Super Robot Wars)
Mika Hyuga	日向ミカ	Hyuga Mika	Youko Kawanami
Akira Kiso	木曽アキラ	Kiso Akira	Yoku Shioya
Namida Akashi	明石ナミダ	Akashi Namida	Eiko Yamada
Shigeru Otsuka	大塚長官	Ōtsuka Shigeru	Kōsei Tomita
Dr. Myojin (Note: This character's first name is unknown, which means he is known only with his family name)	明神博士	Myōjin Hakase	Takeshi Aono
Shizuka Myojin	明神静子	Myōjin Shizuka	Toshiko Maeda
Marg	マーグ	Māgu	Yūji Mitsuya
Rose	ロゼ	Rozu	Rumiko Ukai
Flore	フローレ	Forōre	Yoshiko Sakakibara
Gasshu	ガッシュ	Gasshu	Akio Nojima Special replacement for episodes 43 to 44: Kazuyuki Sogabe
Emperor Zuul	ズール皇帝	Zūru Kōtei	Gorō Naya
Leader Gyron	ギロン総統	Giron Sōtō	Osamu Kobayashi
Rui	ルイ	Rui	Kumiko Takizawa

Staff

Original author and creator: Mitsuteru Yokoyama
Series director: Tetsuo Imazawa
Producer: Atsushi Shimizu, Shigeru Akagawa, Toru Horikoshi, Yasuji Takahashi
Character design: Hideyuki Motohashi
Animation director: Hideyuki Motohashi
Music: Kei Wakakusa
Mecha design: Hajime Kamegaki
Background art: Tsutomu Ishigaki
Narration: Eiji Kanie

Media

Film

A compilation theatrical feature was released in 1982 called God Mars: The Movie.

Original video animation

Later in 1988 (6 years after the television series' final airing in 1982), an 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's robot Zeron receive redesigns although the OVA mostly focuses on an alternate telling of Marg's life on Gishin up until the events of the series' 19th television episode.

Video games

God Mars would go on to make guest appearances in games like entries of the Super Robot Wars series. In Destiny and 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 with a special game-over screen only in 'Z2: Hakai-hen for when this happens.

Home media

Discotek Media announced its license to the series and its post-television presentations at Otakon 2018 on August 12 and the entire series was released on a SDBD 2-disc set on December 18 - throughout the included discs combined, it contained the series, the movie and the OVA.^[1]

Reception

God Mars came out very early in the super robot animation era of the 1980s, having been created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama and did very well in airing. In 1982 it won the Anime Grand Prix.

References

^ "God Mars complete series and movie on SDBD Blu Ray!". Facebook. October 23, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.

Ishizuki, Saburo. Alt, Matt. Duban, Robert. Brisko Tim [2005] (2005). Super #1 Robot: Japanese Robot Toys 1972-1982. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC. ISBN 0-8118-4607-5
Clements, Jonatha. McCarthy Helen. [2006] (2006). The Anime Encyclopedia: Revised & Expanded Edition. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 978-1-933330-10-5

External links

TMS Godmars Library Archived 2018-12-06 at the Wayback Machine (in Japanese)
God Mars (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

[1] "God Mars complete series and movie on SDBD Blu Ray!". Facebook. October 23, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2018.

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