Venus A (TV)

Venus A (ビューナスA Byūnasu Ēsu) is a female giant robot that was created by Kenzo Kabuto as a partner for the Great Mazinger and is piloted by Jun Hono. It is much more powerful than Aphrodite A and Diana A, maybe even comparable to Minerva X.

Appearance
Venus A is colored white and red with a light purple front and its 'hair' is much straighter than its manga counterpart. The antenna are also pointed angular instead of straight. It features a human-like face with a skin tone similar to its pilot and large visible red lips.

Great Mazinger
In the Great Mazinger anime, the Venus A was created by Dr. Kabuto for Jun Hono. Despite it being stronger than its predecessors, Venus often took more damage in battle than the Great Mazinger in the same vein as Aprhodite and Diana A. Jun would use Venus in most battles to assist Tetsuya Tsurugi and Great Mazinger, including the battles against Great General of Darkness and Great Marshall of Hell.

Mazinger Z: Infinity
Venus A makes a brief appearance when Jun tries to board her to rescue Tetsuya. Although the original doesn't see any battle, the Venus piloted by the idol group Mazin Girls end up joining Boss Borot, Dr. Sewachi and Dr. Nossori against an army of Mechanical Beasts.

Queen Star
An aircraft used as the command center for the anime version of Venus A, it connects to Venus through the back of her head.

Venus Scrander
A jet-like attachment that attaches to the back of Venus A for flight.

Abilities and Weapons
Compared to its predecessors, Venus features greater strength and durability able to support the Great with its weapons and attacks.
 * Koshiryoku Missile:  A missile system that fires pairs of missiles from the chest area.
 * Koushiryoku Beam: A photon beam shot from Venus' eyes.
 * Finger Missiles: Similar to the Mazinger Z's one time attack, Venus A can release missiles from the tips of her fingers.
 * Thunder Break: While Venus is unable to use this attack on her own, in one instance, after Great Mazinger gathered enough electricity, Venus was able to redirect the lightning from the clouds to the enemy Warrior Beast.
 * X-Ray Laser: After having a X-Ray Emitter installed, Venus A was capable of firing the X-Ray Laser to see inside Warrior Beast Marigera.

Etymology
Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty, making her Aphrodite's Roman counterpart. Furthermore, in a similar way, Venus A was created to replaced Aphrodite A.

Trivia

 * Venus A was originally intended to be introduced in the Mazinger Z anime, fulfilling the role of it's manga counterpart as the replacement for Aphrodite A after its destruction and bearing a design being directly modeled after Sayaka's anime appearance. A remnant of this was seen in a TV Magazine art diagram from early 1974. For unknown reasons, Venus A was replaced with Diana A and eventually recycled as Jun's mecha in Great Mazinger, replacing it's white metal 'skin' with African toned ones to match Jun's racial origins.
 * Curiously, the manga design of Venus A had a crown shaped cockpit in the shape of Jun's helmet, which could imply that the two designs were accidentally swapped at some point in Great Mazi nger 's planning phase.