Casshan


Casshan, also known in Japan as Neo-Human Casshern, is an anime series created by Tatsunoko Productions founder Tatsuo Yoshida in 1973.
The Casshern franchise also includes a 1993 original video animation titled ', and a 2004 live-action adaptation titled Casshern. In October 2008, a reboot of the franchise Casshern Sins premiered. In anticipation of the upcoming series, a DVD box set of the original series, Neo-Human Casshern Complete DVD-Box "All Episodes of Casshern", was released in Japan on September 24, 2008. Casshern also appears in Tatsunoko Fight and ' as a playable character. At Anime Expo 2013, Sentai Filmworks announced that they had signed a deal with Tatsunoko to release some of their catalog, with Casshan being confirmed as one of the characters involved. Sentai Filmworks released the series on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States on March 4, 2014.

Plot

Tetsuya Azuma, also known as Casshern, is an android with a human consciousness, also known as a neoroider. Tetsuya turned himself into an android to hunt down and destroy the robots that have taken over the world.
His biological father, Dr. Kotaro Azuma, was the inventor of the automatons that were originally intended to serve humankind. However, the first android, BK-1, was struck by lightning and went out of control. Despite great efforts to stop it, BK-1 used its great strength to escape from the castle. After some time, it renamed itself Buraiking Boss. The Buraiking Boss then built a robot army against mankind. The robots mutinied en masse when they logically concluded that the good of the Earth's ecosystem required the destruction of the human race.
Casshern and his robotic dog, Friender, join forces with a beautiful girl named Luna Kozuki to battle the robots led by the Buraiking Boss. Friender can transform itself into a tank or a jet aircraft and actively helps Casshern fight the robot army. Casshern has great strength and agility, but he is not armed, except for a pair of strange pistols, which are used more like rockets than weapons. While the robots are huge and robust machines, almost all of them have an antenna on top of their heads; ripping it off usually causes them to explode, so they are relatively vulnerable. Casshern can usually destroy the robots with his bare hands, dispatching a great number in any given battle.
However, Casshern also has some weak points. His body must be re-charged with solar energy and cannot sustain very long battles without risking low battery power. Luna started out as being totally harmless, until her father built an electromagnetic pistol, which was easily capable of destroying the robots.

Characters

;Casshern
;Luna Kozuki
;Midori Azuma
;Kotaro Azuma
;Friender
;Buraiking Boss
;Barashin
;Arkborn
;Sagrey

Episodes

  1. "An Immortal Challenger"
  2. "Stake Victory on the Moonlight"
  3. "Find Tomorrow in the Ruins"
  4. "Channel Anger into the MF Gun"
  5. "Don't Blow Out the Flame of Battle"
  6. "Raging Wind Friender"
  7. "An Oath to the Hero Kikero"
  8. "The Roar of the Wild Beast Robot"
  9. "Concerto in the Flames of War"
  10. "Stake Life in the Desert of Death"
  11. "Statue of the Demon"
  12. "The Iron Train of Evil"
  13. "Android 5, the Robot of Betrayal"
  14. "The Town That Doesn’t Need Casshan"
  15. "Puppy Runs for Vengeance"
  16. "Swanee's Wings of Love"
  17. "The Robot Lullaby"
  18. "Giant Elephant VS. Andro Force"
  19. "The Clown Robot of Terror"
  20. "Casshan Gets the Death Penalty"
  21. "Robot Hijack"
  22. "Runaway Robot, Romeo"
  23. "Great Escape from the Robot Factory"
  24. "Bounder Robot's Challenge"
  25. "Immortal Casshan"
  26. "Casshan's Secrets"
  27. "The Missing MF Gun"
  28. "The Calvary of Anger"
  29. "High-Heat Robot Neotaros"
  30. "The Premiere Robot Terminators"
  31. "The City That Creates Newly-Made Men"
  32. "The Electric Punch of Tears"
  33. "Swanee in Danger"!
  34. "Casshan VS. Robot Ace"
  35. "The Greatest Showdown on Earth"

    Title romanization

was the first to adapt the character's name in the for the American market, providing the title, "Casshan." Japan most commonly uses "Casshern" as the romanization and is thus used in the official romanized title of the film adaptation and the American release of Casshern Sins although, the name Casshan is still used for marketing. Both the Japanese and English versions of the official Tatsunoko website use Casshan for the romanized title of the original 1973 series. Advertising for Tatsunoko's Infini-T Force contains the Casshan name in several instances. Italian versions of the series romanize the name as "Kyashan," resembling the literal pronunciation of the Japanese title.

Legacy

In Vanquish, developed by PlatinumGames, the art style is based on Casshern. In one of the boss fights the main character drills through a robot by spinning in place at high speed, similarly to Casshern. Concerning the game's development, director Shinji Mikami is quoted as saying:
"I was inspired by Casshern, so I wanted to make a game like that. If I went ahead and made the exact game I wanted, it probably would have been like Casshern, where you punch and kick the entire way through. But obviously if it were a game with only punching and kicking, I already did that with God Hand. So, I'm done with that, something else now. So this time he wanted to make a game where you defeat robots with guns. So now, you're going at it with guns, but he wanted to make sure the feeling of speed is still there, that was really important to him, so that's why he introduced the element of the sliding boost."
In addition, the protagonist of Vanquish has a facemask that periodically comes off to show his human side, much like Casshern himself. According to one of the game's character modelers, Yoshifumi Hattori, a support robotic companion dog was designed to fight along with the main character, including transforming into ability-enhancing armor. Although this dog was successfully modeled, it was cut from the finalized version of the game, along with another female android partner character. Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4 is also dressed like Casshern.