Tetsujin 28-go

Tetsujin 28-gō (Japanese: 鉄人28号 Hepburn: Tetsujin Nijūhachi-gō, lit. “Iron Man No. 28”) is a 1956 manga written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who also created Giant Robo. The series centred on the adventures of a young boy named Shotaro Kaneda, who controlled a giant robot named Tetsujin 28, built by his late father. The manga was later adapted into four anime television series, a Japanese television drama and two films, one live action and one animated. Released in 1963, the first series was among the first Japanese anime series to feature a giant robot. It was later released in America as Gigantor. A live-action movie with heavy use of CGI was produced in Japan in 2005. Mecha were popularized by Japanese anime and manga, and the first humanoid giant robot is Tetsujin 28-Go; who was controlled externally via remote control by an operator. The first occurrence of mecha being piloted by a user from within a cockpit was introduced much later in the manga and anime series Mazinger Z by Go Nagai, first published in 1972.

In the final phase of the Pacific War, the Imperial Japanese Army were developing a gigantic robot "Tetsujin 28-go" as the secret weapon to fight against the Allies. However, Japan had surrendered before they can complete its construction. After the war, Dr. Kaneda, the developer of Tetsujin 28-go passed his robot to his son Shotaro Kaneda.