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demonstration against diplomatic normalization between Korea and Japan
It is still almost same, but the mid-1970s was the time that we could not thoughtlessly like Japan. Japan was a bad country next to North Korea, and the sediment for the diplomatic normalization that was decided with ignoring the public opinion did not completely sink. Anything Japan did was always an object of the criticism , and nobody could frankly say that Japan was good.
However, in this time there were “Japanese products” that we were relatively generous to. It was exactly the TV animation. Because Korea could not make contents for children directly, Korea could not but depend on the import works. Japanese comics got more popularity naturally, because the contents of the Japan in the same Asia area suited our emotion better than Western contents.
Mazinger Z
It was Mazinger Z and Soedor that attracted children most in them. Soedor who got on the head of a huge robot, and “Mazinger Z” he navigated both captured the hearts of all children, and the afternoon of Saturday became the time when children waited for that most. It is because of Mazinger Z[zed] that we still pronounce alphabet Z as “jet”.
However, Mazinger was a Japanese robot. We could not cover the fact that Mazinger was the Japanese robot only by changing the name of the chief character into a Korean style. Korean children noticed the fact that Mazinger was the Japanese comic immediately, too. Our heartburn began. We could not come to like Mazinger sincerely while thinking Mazinger was good, because it was the time when we could not like Japanese things. It was “Robot Taekwon V” that appeared then.
Robot Taekwon V
Dr. Kim, a Korean scientist made Robot Taekwon V that could do the taekwondo. It was a kind of cultural liberated area for children. Because it was a Korean robot unlike Mazinger, they did not mind liking it plenty either. As soon as Taekwon V appeared, it replaced Mazinger and the theme song of Taekwon V became the famous music next to the national anthem. However, Taekwon V had one problem. That is it resembled Mazinger Z excessively.
Robot Taekwon V and Mazinger Z
There are still many opinions whether this design is plagiarism or not. But there were few robots that we could refer besides Mazinger Z in those days. In addition, Taekwon V would have to resemble Mazinger for the commercial success of the movie. Therefore, I want to use a word “imitation” rather than “plagiarism” personally up to this point. But the problem was from the next.
As soon as Taekwon V gained big success, the robot animations and the characters who imitated Japanese animations began to appear from next to the next. Typical ones are “Iron man 007” and “Golden wing 123”. To plagiarise Japanese animations for Korean theater started at this time in earnest.
Iron man 007
The design of “Iron man 007” is the figure that mixed “Divine Demon-Dragon Gaiking” and “Grendizer” of Japanese comics. It is uglier that the pilots of this robot are 5 eagle brothers, the chief characters of Japanese comics. “Golden wing 123” is the plagiarism of the Japanese comics, “Neo-Human Casshern” and “Magne Robo Gakeen”.
Golden wing 123 and Magne Robo Gakeen
In this way, the Korean animation put much energy for plagiarism than creation, but nevertheless gained big success. Then the plagiarism worsened more and more.
Space captain one eye, space black knight and Char
“Space captain one eye” was the character who mixed “Captain Hurlock” and “Captain Future”. And “Space black knight” took the shameful setting that the real face of the chief character using the mask same as villain Char in “Suit Gundam” was a pilot Amuro in Gundam.
Korean had begun to freely copy the successful robots of Japan sice the 1980s. The typical is “Space gundam V”. This comic drew an airplane same as Valkyrie fighter of “The Super Dimension Fortress Macross” and used it as the robot character who came from the space. It is funny that the robot that came from the outside world had similar appearance to a fighter of the earth, and it is really shameful that even the name of the robot was Gundam. However, nobody asked about responsibility for this. People began to believe that “the plagiarism about the things children watch is permitted”.
The black history of the Korean animation that does not make even minimum change of the Japanese robots
After all, the wound that went rotten completely exploded. In the winter, 1985, the animation titled “Video ranger 007” for theater was release. This was magnificently publicized as the domestic animation, but it was really Japanese animation and was dubbed in Korean. The audience was excited at the completeness that they had never witnessed so far, but the director was arrested soon.
Video ranger 007 － Plagiarism of “Video Warrior Laserion”
Thereafter we had not watched a good domestic robot animation. Video rental shops have increased and we can watch Japanese TV animations immediately, and the domestic animation market have declined.
The Japanese robot animations evolved from Mazinger to Gundam and from Gundam to Evangelion and they are loved by all humankind, but we still repeat only Taekwon V. It is necessary for us to just think why slightly seriously.
The robot which awfully gave us joy was plagiarism whether it was what they aimed at. It is the first button put by mistake. There is always Taekwon V in the origin if you chase the plagiarism of all robot animations. We don’t have the original for only us, because after Taekwon V we repeated many plagiarisms and evolved.
Now in 2014, the Korean representative robot animation is still Robot Taekwon V made in 1976. It is the 38th Taekwon V. If the first button was put by mistake, we must remove all buttons.