Ishinomori Week: Robot Detective

Ishinomori Week 2012 continues with the series it was supposed to end on last year!

I already spoke a little about the state of Tokusatsu in 1973 back when covering Inazuman, but for a refresher: the "first wave" of Toei Henshin Hero shows was coming to a close, with Kamen Rider ending and Kamen Rider V3 beginning, and Chôjin Barom-1, Henshin Ninja Arashi and Jinzô-Ningen Kikaider all making way for Kikaider 01, Robot Detective, and Inazuman.

The former two of that lot make up a kind of '73 Trinity with V3, and there's a lot of publicity photos of them hanging out around with their respective vehicles. Everyone knows who V3 is, and I think I wrote more than is humanly possible about Kikaider 01 last year, so let's take a look at the third member of that trio...

Robot Detective, or Robotto Keiji, premiered in April 1973, though the comic version debuted roughly 3 months earlier. Like The Skull Man, it ran in Weekly Shônen Magazine, and like previous series covered on IW, Ishinomori's was not the only Robot Detective comic out there, though it was the first; all subsequent comic versions started up after the series was already running.

Right off the bat, I have no problem saying Ishinomori's Robot Detective is my hands-down favorite comic of his after the various Kamen Rider works and Cyborg 009, and it's one of my absolute favorite Tokusatsu series as well. Robot Detective is quite simply, somethin' else. Its concept and story are deceptively simple. There's a robot, and he fights crime. That is how it appears to be at first glance, but there's a fair bit more than that going on under the surface.

Both the TV series and comic share the same overall plot and spirit, but they're very different animals when you start to seriously compare them. I don't think I could say I like one more than the other, but this is one of those times where I think the comic version more than stands head-to-head with the TV material. The TV show is bright and colorful, over-the-top, and so much fun it should be illegal.

The comic on the other hand is how Robot Detective might be if it were a gritty crime novel, which is fitting, as that's how Ishinomori thought of it (his chance to do the kind of stories the TV show couldn't get away with.) It's got elements of film noir, police procedural stories and even slasher films. It's more cerebral and talky, while the TV version's more about fun and escapism, but both are equally fascinating and entertaining. And in the end, both are fundamentally about robots kicking each other's metal asses all over Tokyo.

Before I go further, I should point out that this series is (or was) in the process of being subbed, so chances are there's proportionally more people out there watching this than, say, Henshin Ninja Arashi at the moment. So once again, spoiler warning! I won't be getting into the big revelations until later on, but I will get into them. Be advised from here on out.

As you've probably gathered through all these Ishinomori Week reviews, as well as whatever knowledge you have of his other characters (the Riders, Cyborg 009, etc) our main man had a habit of making his heroes anything but human. Cyborgs, Androids, Mutants, Robots, Transforming Ninjas, etc. In fact, humans-in-suits-type characters like Zubat or the Goranger team are in the minority. In the case of Robot Detective's protagonist, known only as K (earlier versions being known as "K2" and "J" or Joe"), we've once again got a robot/android as with the Kikaider brothers. However, the handling is quite different.

They touch on some similar themes, but the way the robots are characterized in this series, both onscreen and on the page, is really unique. In Robot Detective, robots are at once both bound to their original purpose, and yet independent, almost human-like in their attitudes, mannerisms, etc. Whereas Kikaider tossed around ideas like the Conscience Circuit, Gill's controlling flute and inabilities to tell right from wrong, here the lines are more strictly defined. Robots working for the bad guys are by their very nature evil, and our titular robotic lawman is unquestionably on the side of good. All follow the will of their creators, and yet are also able to question, reason, disagree and even emote like humans.

For K, things become a little more complex in the comic version, though of everyone covered so far, I'd say his TV and manga incarnations are the closest in personality. On the page or onscreen he's always charming, affable and sympathetic. While Hayate and Jiro, in the comics anyway, could be aloof and hard to read at times, we're always 100% with K, even when the story focuses on the mystery of his origin. We see the world through his eyes, basically.

One other important thing they share in common, and one of the aspects that makes Robot Detective stand out, is that K has no human counterpart. For Jiro, Kikaider was essentially a super-powered alter-ego, a mask in the way that the Riders are (though the twist being for Kikaider, and arguably for Kamen Rider, that the "mask" is also their "true" face.)

K has no human form, though he does go through a transition when entering battle, but I'll get to that. In a way this makes the whole "I'm a robot, I don't understand humans" aspect different from how Kikaider handled it. Jiro often struggled with what he was, being a man who was secretly a machine; K is much more accepting of it, but he still needs to figure out his place in the world, what his purpose really is and how to deal with the things he feels. In the comic, Asimov's Three Laws get brought up again, but rather than forming a philosophical plot point, they're more a part of K's ingrained character. He's a robot, and a detective, so he follows the law. Why can't all robots just do the same?

Robot Detective is a story that plays its cards very close to the chest for much of the series, which is something I really like. It's a while before we find out where K comes from; all we know at the beginning is he's apparently a fully-certified detective and is working with the Tokyo MPD as their new forensics expert/investigator. One of the obvious major themes of Robot Detective is the conflict between technology and humanity, though it's not necessarily in the fact that there's evil robots runnin' amok. Rather, it's in things like forensics and serious CSI-style antics butting heads with the rougher, old-school methodology of people like the story's #2 star, Detective Shiba.

Shiba is a veteran of 25 years and one of the best inspectors around, and he immediately takes a disliking to K. In the comic he's partnered up with K from practically the first page, whilst on TV we're introduced to him and his younger partner Shinjô, who'll become sort of the mediator between grumpy Shiba and the all-too-polite K (Shinjô does appear later in the comic, though he plays a smaller role and is generally pricklier than his on-screen counterpart.) Shiba's pretty much the same though, which works since he's such a great character. He's a mean old grouch in the beginning, but over time he softens and begrudgingly comes to respect, and even like, K. But that's still a ways off.

Shiba's got two daughters, who appear in both the TV series and comic, acting as moral compasses for the old man and friends to K. There's some other characters specific to the comic version that I'll get to, and on TV the other major main faces are Jigokumimi (Sharp Ears, an informant) and, for two episodes anyway, Shinjô's older brother Keitarô, a former detective who's now a lawyer. And who likes to enter high-rise apartments through the window. I should probably explain this.

Detective Shinjô is played by Chiba Jirô, aka Taki Kazuya of Kamen Rider fame. As mentioned, his role on the show is much bigger than the comic version's, and he gets some great action sequences (including a painful-looking one in episode 11 where he gets dragged along the street by a motorcycle!) You may recall that he is the younger brother of a much more famous Chiba, and it is he who plays Keitarô. Yep, Sonny's in the house! It's a small role, barely more than a walk-on cameo, but it's pretty cool. The Robot Detective movie, which is really a compilation/clip show of the first 12 episodes, even goes out of its way to mention this fact. This won't be the only time Sonny Chiba is in something involving Ishinomori, but that's a story for another time.

Alright, so Shiba gets teamed up with K, and from there, the game is afoot. On TV, things kick off with a two-parter that establishes the characters and introduces the primary antagonists of the series, concluding with a pretty wicked dual between K and the telescopic Tenaga-Man. This is followed by a case-of-the-week format, but episodes often bleed over into each other, and two-parters are plentiful. For all the action there's still some good detective work interspersed with character moments for our leads. The comic plays it a little more slow, but let's stick with the TV version for now.

The enemy in Robot Detective is the Bad Crime Syndicate, and if you liked Dark's modus operandi in Jinzô-Ningen Kikaider, you'll love these guys. Bad is all about the Benjamins (well, the Fukuzawas) and while world domination is in the long-term game plan, they're much more interested in letting others do the work for them and turning a profit. Thus they operate as a rental agency, loaning out killer robots to criminals for use, provided they get a cut.

Bad dispatches its Evil Salesmen (hey, these guys don't mince words) to convince, coerce or sometimes flat-out force lower criminals into signing their contracts. Penalties are severe; attempting to screw over Bad often ends in death. One aspect to the group that I find particularly unique is that just drawing their skull-like symbol summons an agent to the scene. I guess Bad Operators are standing by 24/7, always ready to make a sale.

As you can tell, I love these guys, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody at Capcom did too. With names like Spring-Man, Missile-Man and Chameleon-Man, you'd believe it too. In true Ishinomori style, they're fairly humanistic robots, capable of anger, smugness and glee. Ganriki-Man in episode 14 even smokes a cigar, and they often done very obvious disguises (i.e. a hat, sunglasses, and a cape) that somehow manage to fool people. Each one is based on a particular thing, usually a weapon or tool, but sometimes it's even just an idea. One of my favorites its Nanatsu-Man in episode 5, themed after a pawn shop, so he boasts numerous odd weapons and skills to aid in his mission (stealing the not-Crown Jewels.) His immediate successor, Kowashi-Man, is pretty much a Hammer That Walks Like A Man. Kowasu means "to break", by the way.

Robot Detective's use of henchmen is also pretty unique for the time. Rather than turning up for nearly every battle alongside their weekly bosses, the goonsquad only gets involved when Bad interests are directly threatened, such as when K breaks into (and then has to bust out of) their base in episodes 11~12. They're also smartly armed with armor-piercing anti-robot rounds, making them some of the deadlier henchmen this side of the Government Of Darkness legions. The organization is lead by the Bad Leader himself, a booming voice who often appears as a swirling vortex of light and keeps his true identity hidden.

Before I get too wrapped up in K's villains though, let's talk more about K himself. As you can see from the pictures, most of the time on TV he wears a red blazer, white pants, and that distinctive yellow cap. He also sports a trench coat in some episodes. That's when K is in a good mood. When he isn't, he gets angry. And you wouldn't like him when he gets angry!

K's eyes change from yellow to red, and he throws off his clothes, revealing his beefed-up battle mode self. As an aside, K's eye color is linked to his emotional state, becoming blue when he's saddened. But when he's mad, they're blazin' red, and K is a fighting machine.

The fights in Robot Detective are awesome. I don't know if it's the particular stunt team they used, or the suits were really padded inside, but these guys do stuff that almost hurts to watch. Robots are thrown onto hard concrete, knocked off of fences, thrown into walls. K himself has a fighting style that's very physical, with him often throwing himself at his enemies, drop-kicking them in a series of moves that had to have broken somebody's something-or-other. I keep bringing up episode 11 a lot, and that's because it's one of the series' best in my opinion, featuring the incredible Locker-Man.

Locker-Man is exactly what he looks like, and his main method of killing is to stuff people inside himself, disintegrating them! He also has retractable machine guns and the ability to disguise himself as a... well, guess. And if you're just hoping there's a scene where K punches him so silly he spins around, then picks him up and pile drives him into the ground head-first, you get your wish. As if that isn't crazy enough, the next episode has K fighting Spring-Man, who literally bounces off of everything in sight. I mentioned episodes tend to blend sometimes, as immediately after destroying Locker-Man, K gets an ambush drop-kick from Spring-Man!

K's primary killing move is the Robot Destruction Gun stored in his chest. You can't miss it, he uses it the opening credit sequence of every episode (which is in itself almost like a mini-movie.) Later on in the series he gets one of Tokusatsu's earliest temporary upgrade forms (predating even Stronger's), the "Blow-Up" mode, which does what its name implies: K turns red, and fires additional blasts and missiles from his head and chest. Eagle-eyed fans will note that Kikaider OO from the comics and anime had an ability very similar to this.

K's preferred method of transportation is the flying car Joker. It's not as elaborate as Inazuman or Zubat's cars, but it gets the job done, and I kinda like its simplicity. In addition to his weapons, K sports a number of other powers and abilities, including an infared setting for his eyes, an internal sonar, and a hand-mounted water-spraying canon that he uses to great effect in episode 17.

As for K's origins, they remain shrouded in mystery until later on in the series. All we know is that after each battle, he returns to the sea to summon a giant teleporting white robot known as Mother, who then recharges his energy. Despite an attempt by Bad to destroy Mother in episode 12, she survives, and continues to remain a mystery until the final leg of the series.

To go back to the comic for a bit, it follows the same basic premise of "K & Shiba solve crimes, encounter evil robots" though with a few notable differences:

-On TV, there's a big ongoing story in the background with smaller weekly plots tying it all together. In the comic, as usually the case, it's more of a continuous narrative. Crimes from early on in the story come back into play later, with a gruesome murder near the beginning that we don't learn the true culprit to until the end. As a result I think Robot Detective works best in trade form, since it lacks the more obvious chapter breaks of some of the other Ishinomori comics. It clocks in at just over 700 pages, and if you're interested in buying a hard copy, try to track down the 1990 release that compiles the whole comic in one big book.

-K doesn't remove his clothes when fighting as part of his schtick, though it does happen for other reasons (battle damage, when he goes underwater, etc.) He's usually able to destroy most enemies with simple martial arts, though he displays some heavier firepower later in the story.

-Bad is known as R.R.K.K., Robotto Rentaru Kabushiki Kaisha (Robot Rental Corporation) and it's a lot longer before we learn they're pulling the strings. The enemies K encounters are more subdued than those on TV, often appearing only as metal-faced trench-coat-guys, robot dogs, mysterious vehicles, or acting through human proxies. The closest the comic gets to a TV-style killer robot is the enigmatic serial killer robot, Jackal. As a result, it is a bit more of a mystery than the TV version, with K and crew. having to find out who they're up against before they can figure out how to fight them.

-Two important character names are different (a minor detail, but it's a notable one; more on them later.)

-The pacing's slower, with more time spent on K's internal struggles and conflicts with Shiba. There's a nice subplot later on where K meets a blind girl who doesn't judge him as everyone else does. Shiba also undergoes a more radical change than he did on TV, both as a character and physically! At one point in the comic, Shiba is gravely injured, so K is forced to bring him inside Mother, who is in fact a giant mobile base. While there, Shiba meets a mysterious woman, implied to be the operator of Mother and K's true creator. We'll get back to her in a bit, but first a funny thing I noticed:

As with many of the classic masters, Ishinomori wasn't above reusing a character design when he liked it. Just as Matsumoto has his wispy, doe-eyed blondes, Ishinomori loved getting further mileage out of the look of 009's Professor Gilmore and his gianourmous nose. In the original Rider manga, Ichimonji's dad has it, and Shiba has it in Robot Detective, though only by the end. When the story first starts, he's merely a stout guy with a slightly bigger schnoz than everyone else, but by the end he practically looks like an escapee from Fraggle Rock. So as the comic goes on, the character design visually evolves. Why? Who nose?

Alright, so as the series and comic both reach their end, the greater, underlying story starts to surface. The woman controlling Mother is Kirishima Reiko (Saori in the TV version), and the leader of Bad/R.R.K.K. is in fact her evil brother, Kirishima Ryuji (Jôji on TV.) The siblings have been at war with each other all along. In the TV series, Jôji developed a hatred of humanity due to the death of his scientist father, so he turned to a life of crime, setting up an organization that would not only inflict upon others the pain he had felt, but devour and rule over the criminal world that he blamed for his father's death. His sister Saori builds K and Mother to stop him, and a masterful chess game between the two ensues with everyone else as mere pieces.

This is honestly an really great twist. It suddenly makes the quirky little cops & robbers tale into something much grander, stretching back to a history we only get a glimpse at, with characters who've been around all along yet remained unknown to heroes and villains alike (as well as the audience.) There's a certain Rider series that reminded me a lot of this, which I'll get to at the end. Needless to say I love this development when it comes into play towards the end of the story in both TV and comic form, and it's an example of how Ishinomori wasn't just a great artist, but a great writer as well.

The comic expands on this development with the revelation that the Kirishima's parents were both robotics scientists and the ones who developed the original plans for Mother and K. Refusing to cooperate with the military during the Pacific War, they escaped near-death and became disenfranchised with humanity, a trait they passed on to their children. The parents eventually vanished 20 years ago (according to Reiko, "they died") leaving their offspring to pick up the pieces.

Ryuji harbors a deep hated of humanity, particularly for a gruesome injury that was inflicted on his sister (facial burns, she wears a rubber mask when she first appears.) He set up R.R.K.K. and got to work on taking revenge. While Reiko herself is now a withdrawn isolationist, almost Captain Nemo-ish in her distrust and disinterest in humanity, she still feels it's her moral obligation to stop her brother.

The comic also includes another revelation that's not in the TV version: K's artificial brain is based on Reiko's mother's, so he's not a true robot so much as a cyborg like Hakaider. This is in keeping with the themes of comics K's more internal struggles, though I think this is one area where I prefer the TV version, with K being a full-on robot who has that "more human than human" quality like Jiro did.

To counterbalance that though, I think the comic has the better ending, though they're both pretty abrupt, which is the only area where I think Robot Detective really trips up. Its one of those stories that's more enjoyable for the ride than the destination; some of the TV episodes especially in the early-middle of the series are amazing, with 13 being one of my favorites for one scene alone. The rest of the episode is great of course, but there's one moment about halfway in where the villainous robot of the episode attempts to blow up an apartment to silence a witness. What comes next is almost like something out of a Pink Panther film, it's glorious.

Back to the endings though: later on the TV series, K gets his upgrade mode and a bunch of veteran Tokusatsu actors start appearing in cameos as Bad agents with a lot of inexplicable dark make-up. Things come to a head with the revelation of the Kirishima siblings' ongoing struggle, and in the finale, well, the title should say it all: Bad dies on Mars!! Yep, K goes into spaaaaaaaace for the finale. It's not a terrible ending, but merely just okay, and in a series with episodes that could qualify for "Greatest Episode Of Anything Ever", it's a bit of a letdown. There's still plenty of fun as K battles the final robot on a suspiciously blue-looking planet, and Bad is destroyed once and for all (also, it turns out Mother is a space ship.)

The comic on the other hand has a more down-to-earth finale. There's some intrigue involving Kaori (the blind girl from earlier) who shares a unique connection to Ryuji, whom K confronts in an awesome scene. Ryuji escapes that encounter, kidnapping Shiba's daughters and bringing them to his island fortress, which our heroes must infiltrate. K battles some torpedo-firing robot sharks, and ultimately Ryuji, piloting his own giant robot.

Things look grim until Mother shows up, with one final twist: the scarring on Reiko's face was in fact a childhood accident of Ryuji's doing all along. So his hatred of humanity, and much of his life's work, has been based on a lie. Reiko then decides to end the conflict once and for all, and Mother seizes Ryuji's robot as K, Shiba and his daughters flee the island. Mother self-destructs, and the final two-page spread shows the island exploding while K and the others look on, our hero mourning the loss of his creator.

And that's it! The TV show has a nice little coda but even then, it feels less like the end for K rather for Bad, and presumably the robotic lawman just goes back to work the next day as usual. The comic has a great ending though, almost Bondian in nature, and the twists just keep on coming, with not everybody going home happy or surviving. It feels a bit more true to the rest of the story; rather than going into orbit, K's final confrontation is with the criminal mastermind that had been dogging him all along, although even he is a tragic figure tied into K's own creator. Ultimately the story is about the battle between the Kirishima siblings, with K being the only thing of their legacy left standing at the end.

Despite the hasty finales though, Robot Detective is a fantastic story in both incarnations. On TV it's an action-packed blast of 70's Tokusatsu, with some great plots and unique ideas. It's part of the reason why I think that, ironically enough, special effects are't really all that important to Tokusatsu, because while Robot Detective's very toy-ish miniatures won't fool anybody, they're charming in their own way, fitting in with the madcap feel of the show. And there's something kinda awesome to me about how, when one of the villains fires an optical effect ray, everybody freezes in place. It's just a really fun show with a lot of heart, and some outrageous fight scenes.

In the comics, it's grim and bleak, but always purposefully so, and if you're a fan of the TV version you still get K solving crimes and kicking butt, though in rougher, tougher world. The comic hasn't been translated yet to my knowledge and I'd hold off on reading a raw version unless your Japanese is decent or you're feeling really brave, because it is dialogue-heavy.

It's as much a crime novel as it is a comic, with gorgeous artwork and some fairly gripping scenes. I'd love to see it get an animated adaptation some day. The closest K has gotten to that is a character in the second season of The Big O who is a big homage to Robot Detective; check out episode 19 (that series also boasts a bunch of other Tokusatsu references, right from the Ultra Seven-ish opening credits that's so reminiscent it could be actionable.)

Now I mentioned earlier that there's a Rider series that reminds me a lot of Robot Detective, and not surprisingly, it's Kamen Rider W. Even if you put aside the detective/crime-thriller themes or the use of the name "Joker", consider how W also had an underlying plot that didn't come into play until later on in the series, dealing with an inter-family conflict that used the other characters as pawns in a larger game. While it comes up earlier in W because we're conditioned to expect that sort of thing these days, I think the way both series almost distract us with the day-to-day adventures while there's something else boiling underneath is very clever.

Who knows? If they can get Gavan back in a Sentai movie, maybe there's hope for K's return yet, teaming up with Futo's finest for his latest case.

"GO!"