There are a number of us reading this in our middle age who may remember a compilation of mecha anime known collectively as "Force Five" back in the early 1980s. At least in my neck of the woods, the show came on the heel of "Gatchaman"（ガッチャマン...known as "Battle of the Planets"）and "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...aka "Star Blazers"）and perhaps just before the arrival of "Robotech" and "Voltron". Despite the not-so-great dubbing and the fact that none of the five series in "Force Five" seemed to show the final episodes, it was still pretty good to me because when it comes down to it, dang it all, it was Japanimation! And Japanimation was cool! My favourite entries for "Force Five" were "Starvengers"（originally known as "Getter Robo G"...ゲッターロボG）and "Gaiking"（ガイキング）.
Of course, when there have been so many mecha anime programs over the decades, some folks in the industry decided that it was time to take a poke at the genre. And so my anime buddy introduced me to a series called "Robot Girls Z" which premiered last year. Based on the works of manga artist Go Nagai（永井豪）who pioneered all those robot series with "Mazinger Z" and the ecchi genre, "Robot Girls Z" provides some hearty parody of the former and a bit of the latter. However, instead of manly young men jumping into the cockpit heads, the myriad characters are almost all moe girls sporting robot outfits. In fact, there are so many famous female seiyuu popping up and going full ham in the show that I wonder if the show is a mix of "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (yep, I'm definitely showing my age with that reference) and a crazed social club for the ladies. My friend and I have often remarked "SHE'S in this show?!" whenever a new character pops up.
As for the opening theme "Robot Girls Z", I could only imagine that this was created by musicians specializing in old 70s mecha anime after a few bottles of shochu. Written by Robot Girls Kenkyu Ongaku-bu（ロボットガールズ研究所音楽部...Robot Girls Research Music Department）and composed by ARM (IOSYS), it's not quite at earworm level for me but I really like the opening twangy guitar which sounds as if it had been inspired by Duane Eddy before the music and the singers take off. Speaking of the singers, Kikai♡Shoujotai（きかい♡少女隊...Machine♡Girls Squad）consists of the three starring seiyuu of Mariko Honda, Inori Minase and Kazusa Aranami （本多真梨子、水瀬いのり、荒浪和沙）and featured seiyuu Maaya Uchida and Minami Tsuda（内田真礼、津田美波）as they sing, yell, chant, hoot and generally have fun at the mike (that must have been some primo shochu being passed around in the recording room...or karaoke booth).
I couldn't find a full recording of it, but the ending theme for "Robot Girls Z", "Team Z no Chikara"（チームZのチカラ...The Power of Team Z）makes for pretty fun listening, too. Honda, Minase and Aranami as Robot Girls Team Z just have some happy-go-lucky times finishing off another deranged episode. Shuichiro Fukuhiro（福廣秀一朗）wrote and composed the plucky song, and considering that the composer and arranger has created jingles for McDonalds and Tokyo Disney Sea, I'm not surprised at the catchiness of it all.
Just had to finish everything here with the original opening from "Getter Robo G" with legendary Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）providing the vocals.
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