The front of Gekiman! Volume 1
Gekiman! (激マン!) is an autobiography manga by Go Nagai published in Nihon Bugeisha's Weekly Manga Goraku starting in 2010. It is known for providing the back stories behind some of Nagai's best known series as well as a few hiatuses between chapters for periods of time due to Nagai being overworked from the process.
Announcement of Gekiman! Mazinger Z Chapter
Summary[]
Gekiman! depicts a fictional story about Go Nagai in the form of the character Geki Nagai and his career as a manga artist. It goes into details about how social conditions at the time affected the success of the artist's manga as well as going through on the business and personal side of the manga industry. Aside from Geki, real-life figures like Ken Ishikawa appear in full name.
Devilman Chapter[]
From June 4, 2010-September 2012, this arc described the process of creating Devilman from behind the scenes including how the state of Soviet Russia influenced some scenes but had to be changed, as well as how some scenes were rejected for being too graphic at the time. This arc of the series has been collected into 6 volumes.
Mazinger Z Chapter[]
On July 4, 2014, a new arc describing the Mazinger Z manga was released to celebrate Weekly Manga Goraku's 50th anniversary.[1] Geki Nagai is given a new and more lighthearted personality and design similar to Koji Kabuto in this chapter to fit in with the difference of chapters as he joins the ranks of popular manga artists. Some art changes came into Mazinger story such as Aphrodite A, Dr. Hell, Baron Ashura, and the Gamia Q sporting completely different design. The manga also tells about the difficult process that involved the start of the anime series which included the use of sponsors with the initial sponsor becoming bankrupt and the new one (Popy) kicking off the merchandising that began the Jumbo Machinder and later the Chogokin collections. Eventually while working parallel with his Devilman manga, Geki ran into more trouble the following year with Cutey Honey and Dororon Enma-kun's releases. Feeling overworked, Geki had decided to cut his Mazinger Z manga in Shonen Jump short after the end of Harenchi Gakuen deciding to spend most of his time on the TV Magazine manga, much to the frustration of his editor.
The retelling of the original manga also fills a few plot holes while introducing new content. In the original manga, Dr. Hell and Juzo Kabuto's relationship was only implied whereas the retelling revealed it after Koji and Sayaka were captured by Baron Ashura. Inspector Ankokuji also infiltrates the Saluud during this time instead of Boss like in the original manga.
The manga's end on July 29, 2016 however is only the end of part 1 of the Mazinger Z chapter implying a return to the Mazinger franchise on a later date. The finale revealed an original story of a robot corps composed of mechs that resembled Z led by a leader named Kaiser. However with the Cutey Honey chapter's announcements, nothing is known after this until the release of the next chapter. Go Nagai planned to restart the next phase of Mazinger Z in 2018.[2]
Cutey Honey Chapter[]
In an announcement telling of the end of Part 1 of the Mazinger Z Chapter, the same one told of a chapter about Cutey Honey coming in the future. This version uses a female version of Geki named Kageki Nagai, sporting a design and personality similar to Honey Kisaragi. The editing team have also become female. The retelling of the manga makes use of the franchise's retcon where the villainous group Panther Claw are a supernatural terror group as well as new elements like the staff of Honey's school having ties to Honey's father.
Z & Great Chapter[]
The next phase of the Mazinger chapter was revealed to start on January 12, 2018 under the title Z & Great Chapter, referring to Mazinger Z and its sequel Great Mazinger.[3] However it is not a direct sequel to the Mazinger Chapter as focus had shifted from a slightly older audience to a more child-like audience with Mazinger's move to TV Magazine including a new direction for the manga and a form of Geki resembling Tetsuya Tsurugi. Some minor changes include the development of the Mazinger Army and Boss bribing the Three Scientists with racy pictures of the school music teacher to build him Boss Borot. The series ended with the debut of Archduke Gorgon with the Great Mazinger itself never appearing. The series also goes through Nagai and his colleague's careers including Ken Ishikawa departure and return to Dynamic Productions leading to the partnership that created Getter Robo, spin-offs authored by a few partners, and the multiple serializations Nagai had at the time such as Violence Jack, Cutey Honey, and Dororon Enma-kun. The manga had ended completing the Mazinger Z Chapter saga of Gekiman on April 4, 2018.[4]