The planning for this second Mazinger series began a year and a half before broadcast, in April 1973, while the original Mazinger Z was still airing.

Before settling on Great Mazinger, the production considered two earlier revamp concepts for the flagging ratings of Mazinger Z: 'Big Mazinger Z' (Koji piloting a new robot) and 'God Mazinger' (a new hero named Ryuya Shinryu with the Scramble Knights), both of which were scrapped once Mazinger Z's ratings recovered.

Great Mazinger achieved an average rating of 22.8%, slightly higher than Mazinger Z's 22.1% average, with its finale hitting a peak of 27.2%.

Despite good TV ratings, the show was not a merchandising success: sponsor Popy's character-based toy sales ranked Great Mazinger only 4th in 1974 and outside the top 5 in 1975, compared to Mazinger Z's number 1 spot.

Series head writer Keisuke Fujikawa later said he never felt the show surpassed Mazinger Z, explaining that unlike the earlier series' unrestrained destruction, Great Mazinger had to hold back on destruction, which sapped its energy.

In manga adaptations by Go Nagai and others, the title is written with a middle dot as 'Great★Mazinger' or 'Great・Mazinger', though this punctuation was officially dropped from tankobon titles released after the 2000s.

Starting with the episode broadcast simultaneously with the premieres of UFO Robot Grendizer and Steel Jeeg on October 5, 1975, Toei Doga reorganized its production staff, moving the Great Mazinger team to work on Steel Jeeg while the Getter Robo G staff took over Grendizer.

Go Nagai stated he named the protagonist Tetsuya Tsurugi by pairing a sword ('tsurugi') motif with the robot, following on from Koji Kabuto's armor ('kabuto') naming theme from the previous series.