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God Mars and the Legacy of BL Fan Shipping

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There are two success stories to tell about the 1981 giant robot anime Six God Combination God Mars. The first is about a combining giant robot that was better as a toy than as an animated figure in motion: toy sales were strong enough to extend the series beyond its first year, but the awkward stiffness of the titular God Mars itself is something of a running gag (as seen in the YouTube comments here). The second, and I think the one that should get more attention among English-speaking anime fans, is about the tremendous influence of God Mars on Japan’s female anime fandom and doujinshi scene. In a time when pairing same-sex characters from your favorite series was not yet the full-on cottage industry it is today, God Mars was a cornerstone title alongside Captain Tsubasa.

I personally came to know about God Mars twenty years ago, although knowledge about the two aspects of the series came at different times. It was a collection of giant robot anime openings around 2001 that introduced me to the show and its impressive-looking mecha, but it was actually 2004’s Genshiken Official Data Book (of all things) that first brought to my attention God Mars’s popularity with women. Years later at Otakon 2010, voice actor Mitsuya Yuji mentioned among his most popular roles a character from God Mars named Marg. Now, I have the entire series on physical media thanks to Discotek (with 25 episodes up for free on TMS’s Youtube channel), and I’ve finally come to understand what made God Mars one of the granddaddies of fandom pairing in Japan.

Simply put, it’s Marg. Once you know about him, it becomes crystal clear why a female fandom around God Mars developed.

Marg is not the main character. That honor goes to Myoujin Takeru, a guy with psychic powers who discovers that he is actually an alien named Mars sent from the planet Gishin to destroy Earth. However, Takeru manages to defy the evil Emperor Zul and use the very weapon originally meant to eliminate Earth to instead form God Mars and beat back the Gishin Empire. Along the way, he discovers many truths about his original home world, including that he has a long lost brother—Marg—in Zul’s clutches. The dramas that emerge from their familial relationship include attempts to reunite, the pain of separation, and even the crossing of swords due to various plot contrivances. 

Marg is ridiculously beautiful both inside and out. He has lush locks of long green hair, and eyes that can express the deepest kindness but also the most fervent passion. His voice is gentle yet powerful, and his forlorn communications with Takeru express a longing and desire to see Takeru—unless he’s being brainwashed into being the enemy, of course, at which point his anger is spine-tingling. Whenever Marg shows up, he becomes the most captivating figure on screen.

Given that we’re talking about shipping and coupling, it’s not entirely accurate to pin it all on Marg. The popularity of a series among female fans traditionally hinges on the relationships between characters rather than singular personalities, and Takeru himself is no slouch. Not only does he look like a more handsome version of many a 70s robot protagonist, but he is perhaps the angstiest hero ever to grace a giant robot anime. Sure, Shinji from Evangelion is traumatized and depressed, and Heero Yuy from Gundam W is dark and brooding, but they don’t angst the way Takeru does. Naturally, more often than not, that anguish has something to do with Marg. And yes, they’re brothers by blood. Whether that was an additional awakening for fans in 1981, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Even before God Mars, there were plenty of good-looking and charismatic secondary characters in mecha anime. Between directors Tomino Yoshiyuki and Nagahama Tadao, they all but cornered the market: Prince Sharkin (Reideen), Garuda (Combattler V), Prince Heinel (Voltes V), Richter (Daimos), and both Char Aznable and Garma Zabi (Gundam). The key difference between these major rivals and Marg is that the latter is so many things in one. He’s an adversary at some times, but at other times he’s basically a damsel in distress.

There is something I need to make clear: Unlike so many later anime, which could be constructed from head to toe with a female audience in mind (or at least pay regular lip service to that side of fandom), God Mars is still built on the foundation of a toy-shilling kids’ anime. It is 65 episodes long, and not every episode is exactly compelling. There’s an unsurprising inconsistency in terms of the show’s quality with respect to storytelling and animation quality. In addition to the notorious stiffness of God Mars the robot, the anime is rife with fights between characters with psychic powers that revolve around dramatic poses in still shots in lieu of actual movement—a style of action scene the book Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga mocks for its laziness. And dashing canon hopes of brotherly love, the series pairs Takeru with a female character, albeit one with a connection to Marg. In other words, back in 1981, fujoshi had to walk uphill both ways to get their BL shipping fix. 

Even so, a girls’ fandom emerged out of God Mars, and plenty of evidence exists that the creators became aware of this audience eventually. The TV series keeps finding ways to bring him back in different forms. A 1982 movie recap of the first 26 or so episodes reduces the screen time of other supporting characters in favor of more Marg, and the poster advertising the film even features him prominently (see above). A later OVA released in 1988—well after God Mars’s heyday—centers around Marg entirely. A look at God Mars merchandise reveals both official and unofficial works where Marg takes up a lot of real estate.

When I was going over my own prior history with God Mars, I omitted one thing: the game Super Robot Wars D for the Gameboy Advance. God Mars is one of the titles included, and in the game, you can manage to not only recruit Marg to your side but also have him pilot an alternate God Mars from that 1988 OVA in which he’s the star. Once together, Takeru and Marg can perform combination attacks like the “Double Final God Mars.” I can’t help but wonder if there were both kinds of God Mars fans working on this game, bringing together the hopes and dreams of those whose lives were changed in some part by God Mars and its two successes.

What if Bokurano were in SRW?

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Bokurano is a manga by Kitoh Mohiro, creator of Shadow Star: Narutaru. The centerpiece of Bokurano is a large robot called Zearth, and so one technically is able to call it a giant robot manga, though as you might expect from the man who created Narutaru there are some serious twists. When it was adapted into an anime by GONZO these twists were less severe, but still most of them were present.

As with any giant robot series though, there’s always the potential to have it included in the Super Robot Wars series of crossover video games. Only thing is that Bokurano’s plot makes it an EXTREMELY difficult series to fit into the general framework of SRW games, particularly because SRW games tend to have an overall uplifting message, which Bokurano only arguably does half the time.

But that’s where the following challenge lies: How do you fit Bokurano into SRW without detracting too much from either?

I think it should be obvious, but I’m going to warn you here and now that everything below this line is going to be MAJOR spoilers for MULTIPLE series. You have been warned. Check the tags to see if there’s a show you don’t want ruined for you.

There are two main issues to deal with in regards to Bokurano. First, is that the idea of one pilot dying per battle until all of them are gone. Second, is the fact that when the Zearth wins, another Earth in another dimension gets destroyed. I think you might already be able to see how this clashes with some of the themes common to SRW.

Let’s address the one-pilot-per-battle thing first. One possibility is that the Zearth will not be deployable against anything but Bokurano enemies, and that every time you use it the pilot changes (and the spell list and stats of the pilot accordingly) until you reach the last pilot. Another possibility is to have the Zearth ALWAYS deployable except whenever you reach a stage that’s Bokurano plot-based you lose the current pilot.

Of course, you don’t want to just lose all the pilots and then have the Zearth unusable, so there has to be a way to revive the pilots and in a way where they never die again and then you can use all of them. A few possibilities spring to mind.

There’s Steel Jeeg, which stars the IMMORTAL Cyborg, Shiba Hiroshi. Somehow getting the Bokurano kids to make their bodies not entirely natural may be a way of circumventing it.

Another possibility is having Shinji from Evangelion somehow find the lost souls of the Bokurano pilots and return them to their bodies and then maybe do some magic with AT Fields.

There’s also Murasame Kenji from the Giant Robo OVA who is revived whenever he dies. Granted Giant Robo is off-limits due to the death of Yokoyama and the subsequent licensing cost hike, but let’s ignore that.

The ending of Ideon meanwhile involves civilizations dying and the humans and Buff clan members having their souls “reborn.” If this could be localized into the Zearth then that’s also a potential revival method. Also keep in mind the parallels between Ideon and Zearth, in that both are extremely powerful robots that have destroyed entire planets,  are absolutely frightening monsters when you realize their true identities, and wipe out all life if either of them lose.

Now what about the whole killing billions of innocent lives per battle? How can this cycle end once and for all? In this regard, we need to deal with series that address the concept of alternate and parallel universes.

The main one I can think of is Change! Shin Getter Robo: Armageddon. In a scene from this OVA, Shin Getter Robo and Shin Dragon perform a Shine Spark, during which they discover that there are alternate Getter Robos in alternate dimensions all fighting the good fight. Well what if all of the Getters work together to simultaneously stop the horrible contest of Bokurano?

Those are more or less the more well-thought-out possibilities I’ve considered. Of course, there’s lots of potential for other crossover plot points. Here’s a couple.

Gaogaigar
The act of destroying the cockpit of an enemy robot in Bokurano bears some resemblance to when Gaogaigar was about to crush the Zonder core until Mamoru stops it and shows that it’s actually a transformed human being. Perhaps the healing power of Mamoru could do something about the other cockpits.

God Mars
In God Mars, the main character Takeru’s robot Gaia has a bomb inside of it where if the main character dies the bomb is detonated and the Earth is destroyed. So with this, even though you don’t have a sure solution on how to keep the Earth from disappearing in the even that Zearth loses, it will at least allow the Bokurano kids to have someone older to relate to. Also, a robot named GAIA and a robot named ZEARTH? Eh? Eh?

So what can you think of? Let me know!