Literature / Tadao Nagahama: Robot Romance Animation Chronicle Infobook

The robots of Tadao Nagahama^note Clockwise, from the top: Daltanious, Daimos, Combattler V and Voltes V

Tadao Nagahama: Robot Romance Animation Chronicle Infobook is a 2003 278-page book published by Tadao Nagahama and Yoichi Iwasa. It reveals the details and extra material regarding the four Super Robot Genre shows Nagahama created — Combattler V, Voltes V and Daimos) and Future Robot Daltanious. The first three of these are known as the Robot Romance Trilogy.

It also contains posters, pin-ups and various other relevant topics to the anime.

Note: Please put tropes here that apply to the book specifically, not tropes that belong to the Robot Romance Trilogy as a whole.

See also Roman Robo Anime Climax Selection.

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Tadao Nagahama Robot Romance Animation Chronicle Infobook has examples of:

• Affectionate Nickname: Osamu Ichikawa nicknames Shōzō Iizuka "Aki-chan".
• All There in the Manual:
  • Kenichi is good at handling computers.
  • Mitsuyo Go was a very kind-hearted woman.
  • Emperor Zambajil◊ grew up with cold gazes from those around him due to being the son of a concubine. He was also jealous of Gohl ever since they were children because he was a handsome and clever boy.
• Fanboy: A few of the staff of the anime were fans of Super Sentai and discussed it with one another.
• Girly Girl And Tomboy: One page◊ depicts the main female characters of Tadao Nagahama's mecha anime - the tomboyish Nana Izumi, and the girly Sanae Shiratori, Chizuru Nanbara and Princess Erika. Megumi Oka is somewhere in the middle.
• Humongous Mecha: Four of them, in fact — Combattler V, Voltes V, Daimos, Daltanious.
• Primary-Color Champion: Played straight and subverted. Combattler V and Voltes V both consist of red, white and blue, but Daimos is red, white and green and Daltanious is red, white and black, inverting Red and Black and Evil All Over.
• Retcon: The book states that Prince Gohl's mother bribed the doctor not to tell anyone about her son's hornless mutation. However, in the anime, the doctor himself was seen trying to prevent Oral from killing Gohl and there was no mention of bribery.

Tadao Nagahama Robot Romance Animation Chronicle Infobook discusses the following tropes:

• Ambiguous Time Period: The state of the Boazanian Empire is dissected in one excerpt:
  In the Boazanian Empire, science remains abnormally advanced despite the social system remaining the same as the old Middle Ages. Anyone who was not a nobleman was a slave, and the sign of that nobility is a pair of horns on their head. Those without horns live in a completely different society, like worker bees and prisoners. They are bought and sold, and it is natural for parents and children to be separated. Those who risk escaping are chained up and spend their lives working.
• Author Appeal: Akihiro Kanayama states that when he draws women, he likes to focus on their hands and their necks. He gives Raiza from Daimos as an example.
• Children Are Special: Director commentary states that the reason the main cast of Daltanious are children is because, similar to how the theme of Voltes was father-son love and the theme of Daimos was love between a man and a woman, the theme of Daltanious was meant to be the vitality of children and how their innocence and curiosity shapes the world.
• Combining Mecha: Believe it or not, in the first draft of Combattler V, the robot was meant to be made up of nine mechas - this was slimmed down to six, then five, which is what you see in the show. The image depicted in the book also shows that it had wing-like structures on each side of it's head.
• Didn't Think This Through: Tadao Nagahama admits that when he came up with the idea of five machines merging into a giant robot, he didn't realize how hard the unprecedented concept would be. Thus, Popy, the toy company that sponsored his Super Robot Genre shows, devised the idea of the vehicles.
• Fish out of Water: Yuji Hosoi (the mangaka who would serialize the Voltes V manga in Televi-Kun) is called this because prior to the incident, he had never written his own manga before - though he did train under Shotaro Ishinomori.
• Kid-Appeal Character: The book reveals that the cast of Combattler V (particularly Hyoma) were made to be this.
• Lighter and Softer: Discussed. The anime staff felt that Voltes V and Daimos's themes were too difficult for children to emphathize with, so their next work, Daltanious, was written to be more kid-friendly and softer.
• Like a Son to Me: Page 213: Akihiro Kanayama mentions he was a student of Osamu Tezuka when he worked at Mushi Productions, and states that Tezuka was like a father to him.
• Little Bit Beastly: Heinel had a tail in concept art.
  Commentary: However, strangely, there was a long, thick tail extending from his behind. I wonder what the faces would be like if I showed them to current Heinel fans.
• Merchandise-Driven: The aim of the anime were to sell toys. Of these four, Combattler V was the one most popular amongst kids - Nagahama observed that the robot being made of five different toys meant that kids could play it with their friends.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the interview section with Takeyuki Suzuki, he mentions that he was inspired by the romance subplot in Daimos to make romance a central focus of Choujin Sentai Jetman.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: One section of the book discusses the manga adaptations of the anime. Yuji Hosoi was initially the writer for most of them, but after he retired due to illness, he was replaced by another writer using the psudedonym Aoi Mori. However, readers could tell from the art style that Aoi Mori was actually Morihiko Ishigawa (a mangaka best known for providing the illustrations to the Japanese editions of Sherlock Holmes), and word quickly spread around.
• Pretty Boy: Tadao Nagahama calls Heinel and Richter "beautiful boys". He reveals he requested Akihiro Kanayama to draw a special illustration of both of them, calling it "precious".
• Punny Name: In the first draft of Combattler V, one of the proposed names for the robot was "Magnes V", a pun on the word "magnet".
• Real Men Wear Pink: Mitsuko Horie mentions that despite creating many Super Robot Genre shows, Tadao Nagahama seems more inclined towards the Shōjo genre (page 233).
• Robeast: One section of the book is dedicated to dissecting and exploring each robeast that appears in all four series.
• Shout-Out: Page 68 gives us some briefing on Garuda's generals.
  The Three Generals are modeled after the monster sculptures at Notre Dame Cathedral, Girua is a lion, Narua is a goat, and Mia is an impala. In the anime, Girua also had horns.
• Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes: Tadao Nagahama and Akihiro Kanayama at one point reminscience how Heinel and Richter were deliberately made pretty for fanservice appeal.
• War Is Hell: Nagahama was critical of war, and felt like Super Robot Genre shows glorified it too much. In one except, he states:
  This is the highest and greatest proposition for any artist, is to imprint the two words "anti-war" deeply into the viewer's consciousness. However, the genre of giant robot animation is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

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