Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z Hen Finale Arranged Battle Scene – The production notes

You’ve watched the video, know you want to know how it was made? Well here are the production notes for the Stage 47 Arranged Battle Scene, On the Verge of Death! Dr. Hell’s Final Assault!

The Video

For those who haven’t seen the video yet, here it is:

The Battle

When I first heard that all the Mechanical Beasts ever made would show up, the idea of showcasing a real “Super Robot War” came to mind. I believe this stage is the last time you fight a massive battle on Earth, and with Mount Fuji in the backdrop no less, so I wanted to make it as epic of a fight as I could. The battle goes something like:

Initial defense against the Generals

Mazinger Z shows up and saves the day

ZEXIS versus the Mecha Beasts

ZEXIS versus Dr. Hell

The biggest challenge was choreographing the part against the mecha beasts. Initially I had planned to show off all their attacks, but I ran out of time, even though the them of Mazinkaiser runs for four or so minutes. It’s freakin’ hard trying to cram 30+ different units into that time! In fact, the video is actually missing ONE mecha beast. Props to anyone who can tell me which one it is.

The mecha beast battle is split into three distinct parts. Each verse has a mecha beast attack, followed by a ZEXIS counter. For the counterattacks I used three themes, being shooting, punching and sword attacks.

I also planned to have Shin Getter-1 in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find a way to fit in it’s attacks in a way I liked.

By the time I got to doing the scene for Brocken and Ashura, I had about 1 1/2 minutes of music left to deal with both of them. I really wanted to include Yoko in there but her attacks were too long. I also could not show off Ashura’s stabbing attack due to time restraints.

Fighting Dr. Hell was planned from finish to start. The battle would end with the 100 Rocket Punch attacks, and the theme was to use rocket punches from the various Super Robots. After some testing, I found only Dancouga Nova and Sol Gravion had ones brutal enough to make the cut. The Giga Drill was added last minute, I remember reading on GameFAQs somewhere that someone that particular combination, and I thought it would be a good way to finish.

For the main battle, I wanted to show Dr. Hell owning until Kouji figures out how to counter Gordon Fire. This was done by combining all the various cyclone/hurricane type attacks I could find. Shin Getter 2’s attack was done using a combination of it’s Drill Hurricane Attack and part of Shin Getter 3’s Change Attack. I wanted to repeat the process for Hell’s Cyclone Fire, but I ran out of time and couldn’t think of good counterattacks at the time.

Editing the video took about 20 hours over 2 weeks. Not bad, considering there’s 3 mini battles in the video by itself!

Special Effects

This video marked my transition from Camtasia Studio to Sony Vegas, which allowed me to do stuff like video crossfades. Even though I think crossfading can look really cheesy,it can allow you do things normally not possible. For example, I used a crossfade between Dr. Hell’s Gordon Fire and the various Rust Hurricane attacks to show them blowing away the fire. Mazinger Z’s Breast Fire showdown against the Energer Z was also done in the same way.

I also did a few things normally not possible. The missile throwbacks were done by changing Tetsujin-28 and Daiguard using cheats into the Mecha Beast missiles and then attacking the enemy.

Daiguard netting Count Brocken into the ground was actually done using 2 cuts. I recorded Daiguard attacking Count Brocken normally from the air, then a second take by “landing” him (again, using cheats), then netting him again. The two pieces of footage were then combined to make it look like the got pulled out of the air and slammed into the ground. Speaking of which, why can’t we have attacks like this in SRW, where you can ground an airborne enemy unit?

The scene where Kouji’s Rocket Punch and Photon Beam doing 10 damage to the King of Hell was done by casting Dr.Hell’s Invincible (once again, cheats).

The Music

Choosing the music was more challenging than I thought. I was asked to use Old Kaiser as a request, but unfortunately after some testing it didn’t quite have the feeling I wanted for the video (sorry demise). I scanned through the Shin Mazinger Z Hen OSTs for tracks, but unfortunately I didn’t find too many good tracks. Some tracks which were good but didn’t make the cut were “Clash! All out attack”, and “God Scrander”. The first track is from Gladiator, which has some really epic batte music and also adds to the frantic theme of the defense.

In the in end I went for music used in Mazinkaiser. Despite watching the series only once quite a number of years ago, I still remember a few tunes, which really says alot. One in particular is called “Fellow”, which is the theme music which plays when Mazinkaiser is first introduced (it’s also kinda based off Fire Wars). I used this for when Mazinger Z appears in the video.

The next one is “Theme of Mazinkaiser”. In the anime, this plays when Kouji fights Ashura in the final battle. It’s quite epic and has a heroic sound to it, so I used it for when ZEXIS are fighting the mecha beasts. Again, choreographing the battle to this piece was pretty challenging, because the song’s verses and chorus come and go so quickly, which is why certain parts seem rushed.

Finally the video ends with “The Guardian” from Shin Mazinger Z Hen. I actually wasn’t planning to use it originally. The plan was to use 魔神見参! from Mazinkaizer Ankoku Daishogun (the final battle music). In the end The Guardian swayed me because it has a stronger finish, and the added bonus of actually being from Shin Mazinger Z Hen.

I had considered using Tsuyuiko no Mono for about 5 seconds. Then I went, “Nope”.

Improvements

I’m so over making this particular video, I can’t really think of much at the moment. Like I said before, I would’ve included Shin Getter-1, a fight against Cyclone Fire, Yoko, and more Super Robot/Mecha Beast attacks if possible.

There you go, a long ass writeup for a long ass video. The next video will be the Assault on Tokyo Settlement II, though I can probably say now it won’t be quite as long or epic as this one was. Stay tuned for it in the coming weeks!