SO...I'm stuck at work the other night without reliable Internet for 10 hours, so I watch the only thing I have on my harddrive, a fansub of the "Mazingkaiser-SKL" OVA. If you haven't seen this thing, it's insane, the offspring of Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagan and old-school heavy metal album covers, filtered (of course) through the insanity of Go Nagai. It's one of those things you WISH had gotten more than three episodes because there's so much more to see of this mad world (especially the very, very last post-credit scene). As I watched, I began to get inspirations for new robot girls, new takes on old stories, revelations of the origins of my old Mazinger-based K-Girls Zoe and Maisy...I couldn't wait to pick up my pad and paper and start designing them.

...and the first thing I draw is a girl based on "Panda-Z: The Robonimation."

*facepalm*

For those who don't know THAT, it was a series of 3-minute cartoons that are the offspring of Mazinger-Z and Hello Kitty. Cute, funny, and the exact OPPOSITE of anything involving Mazinkaiser-SKL. My muses, they are fickle and precocious...

Anyway, I suppose in the context of the "old canon," Panda here is...well, she's still kind of an enigma. Based as explicitly on Maisy's schematics as Red Geisha is on Zoe's, she was the mute plaything of an eccentric millionaire (lots o' those running around in anime, ain't there?) who, after his demise, was left his entire estate and fortune. Wandering his grounds alone, she happened to witness Mazinger Zoe in battle and, inspired and awed, she decided to follow in her idol's footsteps (Jet Scrander exhaust?) and take up crimefighting...however, possessing no weapon systems beyond her oft-malfunctioning Rocket Punch, she quickly ended up needing to be rescued by her idol. Zoe offered to take Panda in to live in the Nagai Mansion, but the younger mech politely refused, although she has secretly taken up the paying the bills for the Mazingirls' residence. Well, it's not like she has groceries or anything else really to do with all her money, after all...

And, yes, for the record, Maisy IS insanely jealous that her "cheap mime knock-off" got a functioning flight system before SHE did.