50 years on, 'Grendizer' still stirs Arab hearts

The Arab world’s connection to the cartoon series remains uniquely intimate. No other animated comic hero has achieved the same level of fame, resonance, and longevity.

AL MAJALLA/ AFP

Go Nagai with a 'Grendizer' poster

50 years on, 'Grendizer' still stirs Arab hearts

Shadi Alaa Aldin

last update on 23 Nov 2025

In October, Grendizer turned 50. Yet the spacefaring robot remains as youthful and unchanging as he was when his first episode aired on Japan’s Fuji TV on 5 October 1975. Today, as the world marks half a century since the birth of this animated legend, he continues to hold a special place in the hearts of millions, especially those from across the Arab world.

In July, Japan Expo Paris, the largest festival of Japanese culture in Europe, named Grendizer its ‘character of the year’ and created a sprawling exhibition called ‘Grendizer, Go! Fifty Years of Legend’. Spanning more than 300 square metres, the exhibition offered a sweeping visual chronicle of the character’s journey—from the early sketches of creator Go Nagai and original production materials from the 1970s to the height of Grendizer’s popularity across Europe and the Arab world.

Meanwhile, in Japan, a series of luxury limited-edition releases were unveiled, chief among them the ‘Tissot Grendizer: Fifty Years’ timepiece, announced in September. Only 1,975 units were produced—a symbolic nod to the anime’s debut year. The watch features a second hand shaped like Duke Fleed’s iconic Double Harken and is housed in a case modelled after the legendary Spazer craft, bearing Nagai’s signature.

Amid this global fanfare, Grendizer returned to the screen after more than four decades of silence. In July last year, Grendizer U premiered, a new production co-developed and marketed by Saudi Arabia’s Manga Productions. The new series preserves the spirit of the original narrative and its core characters while introducing a reimagined setting and updated animation that blends nostalgia with modernity. A companion series, Grendizer U: Origins, authored by Nagai himself, is slated for release in March next year and will explore the Grendizer universe with fresh eyes.

While the world celebrates Grendizer, the Arab world’s connection to the series remains uniquely intimate. No other animated show has achieved the same level of fame, resonance, and longevity. Grendizer became a vessel for symbolic narratives—of the Arab-Israeli conflict, of Arab identity, of the defence of the Arabic language, and of the universal struggles for freedom and justice.

Its original broadcast on Lebanon’s state television was a unifying cultural moment, one that continues to evoke a deep and abiding nostalgia. The show’s enduring relevance has prompted major Arab platforms, including Shahid, to reintroduce it to new audiences, many of whom had never encountered it before. In doing so, Grendizer has become a meeting point for generations, a shared cultural touchstone whose echoes still reverberate in the present.

Palestinian and Arab symbolism

Grendizer’s Arabic incarnation emerged in the late 1970s, at a time when Lebanon was engulfed in civil war and grappling with Israeli occupation. The Palestinian cause, in that moment, was not merely a political issue; it was a visceral, emotional, and cultural touchstone for many Lebanese and Arabs. Its presence extended beyond armed struggle, permeating fierce cultural battles over identity, language, and resistance.

In this charged atmosphere, the decision to dub Grendizer into Arabic was not incidental. It was a deliberate act of symbolic alignment with the Palestinian narrative, entrusted to a trio of Palestinian figures whose lives were steeped in activism and cultural production. Operating under the banner of the Union of Arab Artists, these men—Abdel Majid Abu Laban, the folk poet Abdullah Haddad, and the intellectual Subhi Abu Lughod—became known as ‘The Three Musketeers,’ or ‘The Three Palestinian Musketeers’.

Their choice of voice actors reflected the same symbolic intent. Chief among them was Jihad Al-Atrash, cast as Duke Fleed. Already known to Arab audiences for his dignified roles in historical dramas, Al-Atrash embodied the gravitas and moral clarity that the Arabic adaptation sought to project.

The decision to dub Grendizer into Arabic was not incidental; it was a deliberate act of symbolic alignment with the Palestinian narrative

The series' structure itself echoed the Palestinian experience. Duke Fleed is a refugee who loses his homeland to the invading Vega forces. He wanders through space until he reaches Earth, a planet that offers him shelter and, eventually, belonging. At first, Earth is merely a refuge, a place to escape the void. But the familial embrace of Dr Amon (voiced by Ghanem Al-Dajani), who adopts him as a son and offers him a home, transforms Earth from a shelter into a sanctuary.

The distinction between shelter and home is profound. A shelter offers protection; a home bestows identity, rootedness, and emotional safety. It is this transformation that compels Daisuke to defend the land that has become his own. He is the refugee-turned-fighter, a symbolic embodiment of the Palestinian fedayeen.

Moreover, Daisuke's life on Earth is not confined to battle. He works the land, lives among farmers, and embraces the ethic of labour. This agricultural setting evokes the image of the Palestinian peasant, rooted in soil, sustained by it and defined through it. The symbolism is clear: resistance is not only fought with machines, but cultivated through presence, permanence, and care.

This thematic layering extends to the series' portrayal of agriculture and land. The farm is not just a backdrop; it is a site of reciprocal exchange between human and earth. The land is tilled, nurtured, and defended; in return, it offers sustenance, identity, and belonging. These symbolic clusters form a central axis in Grendizer's narrative, repeatedly evoked through scenes of pastoral calm and rural life.

From its opening theme, the Arabic version of Grendizer asserts its linguistic and cultural distinctiveness. The anthem, composed by Mowaffaq Sheikh Al-Ard, performed by Lebanese singer Sami Clark, and recorded under the supervision of Ziad Rahbani, is a rousing call to arms written in eloquent classical Arabic. Its melodic simplicity made it easy to memorise and sing, and its enduring popularity was evident in Clark's concerts, where audiences continued to request it until his passing in 2022. The song became a sonic emblem—timeless, resonant, and woven into the fabric of Arab popular culture.

The lyrics are steeped in the language of resistance—calls for peace through struggle, and denunciations of invasion and tyranny. The series itself is replete with slogans drawn from the lexicon of popular uprisings, phrases once scrawled on walls, chanted in rallies, and printed in pamphlets: 'Curse the invaders', 'Woe to the wicked', 'Down with the aggressors'.

Grendizer's Arabic adaptation employed formal classical Arabic to articulate a narrative of defiance and dignity. It rejected subservient portrayals of the Arab world and infused its dialogue with spiritual expressions that transcended sectarian boundaries. These phrases invoked divine support and moral clarity, offering a metaphysical dimension to the struggle for freedom.

All these elements were not accidental. As Al-Atrash has affirmed in numerous interviews, the Palestinian cause was not a subtext but rather a foundational intention. The Arabic version of Grendizer was crafted with purpose, and its linguistic grandeur was part of that vision.

Technology with a conscience

Grendizer was never a blind, brutal, or omnipotent machine. In stark contrast to the Vega Empire—an entity defined by its cold, totalising technological domination—Grendizer embodied a different vision of power. Vega's empire viewed human existence not as life to be cherished, but as a reservoir of resources to be conquered and consumed. Its technology served the machinery of occupation and enslavement. Planets, in their eyes, held no intrinsic life, only exploitable wealth. Populations were not communities; they were potential slaves.

This devaluation of life gave rise to an ideology of unrestrained violence. For Vega's adherents, conquest justified all means. Even their own soldiers were treated as expendable, hurled into invasions with no regard for survival. Civilian massacres and the destruction of hospitals and institutions were not aberrations, but expressions of a war doctrine devoid of moral restraint.

Grendizer, by contrast, offered a vision of technology governed by conscience. It moved within a human dimension, as if endowed with a heart, a soul, and a moral compass. The fusion between Duke Fleed and his robot deepened into a near-mystical unity, transforming the machine into an extension of ethical will. It was not a weapon of domination, but a vessel of resistance.

Grendizer emerged in an era when technology had not yet acquired the opacity and dominance it holds today. It was still legible, graspable, open to understanding and control. Grendizer was not an inscrutable interface or a black box of algorithms. It belonged to a world where machines could be known, where the relationship between human and tool was not alienating or coercive, but intimate and reciprocal.

The lyrics to Grendizer's theme song are steeped in the language of resistance—calls for peace through struggle and denunciations of invasion and tyranny

This intimacy allowed Grendizer to inhabit a space of warmth, imagination, and emotional resonance. It offered a vision of advanced military technology that was not menacing or abstract, but accessible and shared, anchored in a common moral language. It stood in direct opposition to Vega's model of technological tyranny. Grendizer's was a technology of resistance, aligned with freedom and expressive of it. That alignment made it a symbolic icon of struggle.

The series was deliberate in highlighting this humanised dimension. It linked the mechanical act of combat to the human voice. The decisive weapon was never deployed in silence. It responded to a cry—fierce, urgent, defiant. The weapon was not autonomous; it was summoned, named, and commanded. Duke Fleed would call out: "Screw Crusher Punch", "Space Thunder", "Shoulder Boomerangs." Each name gave the weapon presence; each cry imbued it with purpose. The machine obeyed the voice and, in doing so, became an extension of human agency.

This harmony between man and machine became one of Grendizer's defining traits. It created a receptive space in which viewers could project their hopes, dreams, and longing for safety, peace and justice. Grendizer was not a harbinger of a new, totalising form of servitude. It was a symbol of liberation.

Even within its technical construction, the series marked a turning point in the history of anime. It departed from the logic of pure entertainment and incoherent fantasy that had often characterised earlier works. Grendizer introduced a new standard: narratively cohesive, visually consistent, and rich in symbolic meaning. It was the product of a deliberate evolution, a refinement of previous experiments by its creators. The result was a work of striking clarity and resonance, one that forged a distinct visual identity embraced by cultures across the globe, each recognising in it echoes of their own struggles.

The Arab reception was especially broad and profound. In the West, only France matched this intensity, where the series aired under the name Goldorak. There, too, it struck a chord with a people still haunted by the memory of Nazi occupation and its traumas. Grendizer's message of resistance found fertile ground.

In this way, the series inaugurated a new era in animated storytelling—one that shaped the aesthetics and narrative architecture not only of future anime, but also of politically charged cinema. Its legacy can be traced in works like Persepolis, the acclaimed film by Iranian director Marjane Satrapi, which explores the upheavals of pre- and post-revolutionary Iran. Grendizer helped lay the groundwork for this kind of storytelling, proving that even animated heroes could carry the weight of history.

A timeless message

In our present moment, marked by the fragmentation of meaning and the fading of coherent narratives, nostalgia for Grendizer comes in many forms. Perhaps it is the heroic aura of a cartoon figure that grants a kind of immortality unavailable to human characters. The animated hero remains unchanged, untouched by time, preserving his glow and resisting the erosion that afflicts mortal protagonists. In doing so, he generates a stable constellation of meanings, a referential nostalgia in which the moment is always recoverable in its full radiance.

Yet the question of nostalgia resists easy answers. Over the past 50 years, life has accelerated at an unprecedented pace. The rupture with the era that birthed Grendizer cannot be measured solely by chronological distance. It is a rupture shaped by the emergence of entirely new modes of living—modes that once required decades to crystallise, but now arrive in rapid succession. This vertiginous tempo has rendered Grendizer's time not merely past, but historical in a way that feels almost mythic.

In the thought of British scholar Susan Stewart, nostalgia takes the form of a sorrow without a subject, a longing for a place that no longer exists, or perhaps never existed except in the imagination. What is retrieved, then, is not the past itself, but the desire for a past that has become unreachable. Nostalgia conjures a miniature world, complete and self-contained, turning history into a narrative of loss and yearning that revolves more around the present than the past.

Stewart's framework offers a lens through which to examine the Arab world's nostalgic attachment to Grendizer. It is a nostalgia born of memory, but also of the barrenness of the present, the collapse of grand narratives, and the silencing of collective stories. The era of Grendizer was saturated with dreams. Pan-Arab unity, nationalism, and the hope of victory were still alive. Life remained within reach, not yet outpaced by its own velocity. Time was not as fluid and elusive as it is today. Belief in change coursed through the consciousness of individuals and communities, imbuing their actions, struggles, and affiliations with meaning and purpose.

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