What classic Toku hero is this?

[Forever Knight]

http://www.thai-toku.com/cgi-bin/Y1Gold/tcsyabb/index.pl?board=general&action=display&num=1131665237

Looks like some retro Ultraman or somethin'.

 

[ForeverRed]

Ah yes. That's Spectreman and no it's not retro.

 

[Shoichi]

Spectreman goes way back before the word 'retro' came to being man..hahaa

 

[August]

SPECTREMAN (Supekutoruman) was produced in 1971 by P-Productions and aired on the Fuji Television Network. For some basic information, please check out http://www.japanhero.com/tokusatsu reviews/spectreman.htm

 

[scikaiju]

See a falsh like a flame, faster than a plane, mystery is in the name Spectreman......



sorry couldn't resist

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

Spectreman was one of the better Ultra clones out there - it had it's own innovations. Firstly, there was a regular bad guy (Dr. Gori) creating monsters. Secondly, Spectreman could only transform when he was given permission to by his boss, the living planet Nebula 71. Once, he was denied persmission! Another time, because of thick smog, he couldn't contact Nebula, so he had to ride an airplane then go above the smog then leap out to transform...

Johji (George) was certainly a likeable character.

 

[Forever Knight]

^ Thanks for the info. :jam:

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

also, as you might see from the thai toku posts, the show's name was originally named "Uchu Enjin Gori" (space apeman gori) - after the bad guy!
later it was "Uchu Enjin Gori tai Spectreman" then only for the third arc, simply "spectreman"

Also they don't have a high tech science patrol for the 1st 2/3 of the series, but had a "Pollution Research and Control Squad". So instead of gaudy outfits, you had guys in suits investigating weird pollution phenomenon. Dr. Gori uses pollution to create his monsters. (show has an obvious environmental theme)

The beginning of each ep in the English dub would say "The planet... Earth. The city... Tokyo. Like all cities on the face of this planet, Tokyo is losing the battle against mankind's greatest enemies: waste and pollution... (forgot the rest)"

 

[ryuuseipro]

also, as you might see from the thai toku posts, the show's name was originally named "Uchu Enjin Gori" (space apeman gori) - after the bad guy!
later it was "Uchu Enjin Gori tai Spectreman" then only for the third arc, simply "spectreman"

Also they don't have a high tech science patrol for the 1st 2/3 of the series, but had a "Pollution Research and Control Squad". So instead of gaudy outfits, you had guys in suits investigating weird pollution phenomenon. Dr. Gori uses pollution to create his monsters. (show has an obvious environmental theme)

The beginning of each ep in the English dub would say "The planet... Earth. The city... Tokyo. Like all cities on the face of this planet, Tokyo is losing the battle against mankind's greatest enemies: waste and pollution... (forgot the rest)"

Word for word, it's:

"The planet: Earth. The city: Tokyo. Like all cities on the face of this planet, Tokyo is losing the battle against mankind's deadliest enemies: Waste and pollution. Despite the efforts of local and world government, the air, the sea and the land may soon lose their ability to support life of any kind. Who will help? Spectreman!"

BTW, this is one of my favorite shows!

I always thought it was so unusual that the villain (Gori) gets top billing in a superhero series (until Episode 39, anyway)! Seems Gori came way before Invader ZIM in that regard (though there weren't any real superheroes there)!

 

[Kouji Kabuto]

are you sure it was "all other cities"? I could've sworn it was "all cities".

Oh well.