Once in a while, along comes a movie where I abandon any objectivity and just dive head over heels because I have a personal investment in the source material. In short, I grew up watching Mazinger Z. This is going to be a very biased review. You can watch this without being familiar with the anime. If you’ve ever wanted to make an impossible dream come true, this film should work for you. MAZIN-GO!
Project Dreams: How To Build Mazinger Z’s Hangar was directed by Tsutomu Hanabusa and written by Makoto Ueda. Asegawa (Hiroaki Ogi) is the marketing director at Maeda Corporation, wants to start a new division that handles imagination projects for the sake of prestige. Their first project is none other than building the hangar of the iconic Mazinger Z. His first recruit, Doi (Mahiro Takasugi), reluctantly accepts to join an initially skeptical team but soon everyone finds their passion.
The project will require the assistance of engineers in every field, tunneling, building dams, platforms, hydraulics and most importantly, excitement! And although the other teams seems to disapprove at first, Asegawa’s team will soon find other people that have passion for the project and that passion seems to be contagious. What ends up happening is that the collaboration soon spreads to other people willing to help… Because EARTH IS IN DANGER…!
Ahem. Sorry, I think I let myself get carried away there.
We have to focus. There are challenges here. I found myself almost pitching in when dealing with the structural engineering problems. You don’t have to be a fan of the anime in question, but if you’ve ever been a fan of a similar IP you should be able to relate to the over-the-top brainstorming that takes place. There’s no time to lose.
Highly recommended for people who have ever been a fan of something imaginary. If you had a chance to make something tangible of something you’ve only dreamed, you would certainly give it your best try. How far they get, well… I’m going to let you find that out yourself. Personally, this movie fulfilled and exceeded my expectations. Fire up the Hover Pilder. Let’s fly.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 