Anime has been popular around the world since Astro Boy. My first anime love was Starblazers and right behind it was Grendizer. In the US, Grendizer was marketed as part of Force Five and included Gaiking, Danguard Ace, Starvengers, Spaceketeers and of course Grendizer. These shows would alternate Monday to Friday.
So I have told this story to many folks, but when I joined CAF many years ago I saw another collector with a gallery. His name was Peter Venkman. As a die hard Ghostbusters fan, I loved it and loved the idea of having a gallery named after a character from pop culture. Looking around my office, I spotted a toy of the alien space pilot that controls the ginormous robot Grendizer. But what was his name? I was blanking out. So I looked it up. Duke Fleed?! Yup. Now you know!
For his Part, Go Nagai was a creative genius responsible for many anime and manga series. To have a drawing by his own hand of my favorite giant robot of all time goes beyond my wildest dreams. While undated, this art most likely is late 70s or early 80s.
For those wondering- Grendizer was known in some countries as Goldrake (ITALY) and others as Goldorak (FRANCE). Duke Fleed was better known in France as Actarus. I am sure I missed some others. Feel free to comment below.
you can see more about force five
here !
or more on Grendizer specifically
here !
for anyone that is curious, here is a link to the trailer on youtube.
click here to see the trailer!As always, thank you so much for checking out my gallery.