is the title and protagonist of a
manga and
tokusatsu
is a Japanese term for live action film or television drama that makes heavy use of practical special effects. ''Tokusatsu'' entertainment mainly refers to science fiction, war, fantasy, or horror media featuring such technology but is som ...
TV series created by
Osamu Tezuka. The TV series, produced by
P Productions,
Norway Productions and
Krantz Films, was aired on
Fuji TV
JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...
from July 4, 1966, to June 26, 1967, lasting a total of 52 episodes. It is the first
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...
tokusatsu TV series in Japan, beating
Tsuburaya Productions
is a Japanese special effects studio founded in 1963 by special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya and was run by his family, until October 2007, when the family sold the company to advertising agency TYO Inc. The studio is best known for producin ...
' ''
Ultraman
''Ultraman'', also known as the , is the collective name for all media produced by Tsuburaya Productions featuring Ultraman, his many brethren, and the myriad monsters. Debuting with ''Ultra Q'' and then ''Ultraman'' in 1966, the series is one ...
'' to the air by six days. The show later aired in the US, dubbed in English, as ''The Space Giants''.
Digital Manga
Digital Manga is a California-based publishing company that licenses and releases Japanese manga, anime, and related merchandise in the English language.
Digital Manga also owns and operates eManga, a digital publishing site for manga and l ...
crowdfunded the manga, and it is currently available for digital purchase on their
Emanga site.
Basic plot
The alien invader Goa plots to conquer Earth. He first warns the Murakami family (father Atsushi, mother Tomoko, and son Mamoru) of their invasion, and demonstrates his powers by transporting them to a prehistoric jungle and destroying a Giant Dinosaur (in reality,
Agon, the title monster of a
Godzilla
is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film '' Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films prod ...
-like TV series) before their very eyes. But they will not agree to surrender to Goa, so hope comes in the form of Magma, an armored, golden giant with long hair and antennae. He and his human-sized wife Mol, both of whom were created by the wizard Earth (who indeed lives deep beneath the Earth), are sent to defend our world against Goa. They befriend Atsushi and Mamoru; the latter has touched Magma emotionally, as he wanted to have a child with his wife Mol, so Earth creates a duplicate of Mamoru, whom he names Gam, and who wears a white helmet, with built-in antennae, on his head. Earth gives Mamoru a whistle, with which he can call Gam (when blown once), Mol (when blown twice) and Magma (when blown thrice) in times of crisis. So when Goa unleashes his various
daikaiju, chances are that Magma, Mol, and/or Gam will fly to the rescue.
Ambassador Magma
Ambassador Magma, despite his robot-like appearance, is not a true robot, but actually a living giant forged from gold. In fact, true to his original manga appearance, in the series pilot opening, Tetsuya Uozumi, the actor who played Magma, actually wore gold
make-up on his face. But such difficulties as Uozomi's own face turning beet-red, drowning out the gold makeup, quickly arose. The solution proved to be an easy one; in all the show's subsequent episodes, Uozumi wore a golden human-like mask.
Magma, just like his human-sized wife Mol and son Gam, transforms into a giant rocketship. Indeed, he is considered one of the earliest transforming mecha, even before the
anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
super robot
Mecha anime and manga, known in Japan as and , are anime and manga that feature robots (mecha) in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; "super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where robots are ...
, ''
Brave Raideen
is a super robot anime series. Produced by Tohokushinsha, Asahi News Agency and Soeisha (later renamed as Sunrise), it aired on Nihon Educational Television (now TV Asahi) from 4 April 1975 to 26 March 1976, with a total of 50 episodes. Th ...
,'' which set the standard for the genre.
He also shoots rockets out of a panel located in his chest, and (as do Mol and Gam) shoots electrical bolts from his antennae.
US localization (''The Space Giants'')
''The Space Giants'' is the English title of this series. The show is most notable for its humanoid
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...
heroes who responded to crises by transforming into
rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
s to combat a wide variety of
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
-like space monsters, and faceless,
ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.Kawakami, pp. 2 ...
-like villains called ''Lugo'' men (人間モドキ ''ningen-modoki'' literally ''mock-human'') whose corpses melted into oozing blob-like slime whenever they were killed.
The main conflict of the story involved an evil space villain named
Rodak who continually tried to conquer Earth by sending a new dinosaur-like monster from deep space to attack Japan. The stories were generally resolved in two to four episodes, much like the
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,'' and a new monster would be found by Rodak to begin another two- to four-part struggle. Rodak's efforts were opposed by an ancient white-bearded wizard named Methusan (sometimes called Methuselah or Mathusem), aided by a trio of
forms.
The human interest in the story was a family of three: a boy named Mikko, his mother Tomoko, and his journalist father Ito Mura. The family became involved in the story due to the villain Rodak's desire to publish news of his presence to world media. The Mura family found themselves continually caught in the crossfire of monster attacks and harried by the Lugo men and Rodak's spies. A major sub-plot in the series developed when Mikko's mother was kidnapped by the ''Lugo'' men and held in uncertain conditions for a number of episodes.
In the first episodes, the robot team were a duo consisting of a gold robot aptly named Goldar and his companion, a silver-clad humanoid female named Silvar. It was implied that they had been created by the wizard Methusan. Early in the series, the wizard Methusan completed the team to mirror the Mura family by creating a humanoid rocket-boy named Gam, in the image of Mikko Mura, complete with his trademark red-and-white sweater vest. All members of the robot team were capable of transforming into rockets identified respectively by gold, silver, and red-and-white color schemes. Each had bulb-tipped
. Goldar and Silvar were capable of firing
from their chest cavities, but Silvar was only shown doing this once. A regularly featured plot device was Mikko's ability to summon the robots by blowing a special high-frequency whistle: once to summon Gam, twice to summon Silvar and three times to summon Goldar.
The show first aired in Japan on July 4, 1966, and its international title was ''Space Avenger'' (one episode was dubbed for international markets). Originally intending to title it ''Monsters from Outer Space,'' the entire series was dubbed into English by Bernard H. Schulman's Lakeside Television Company and syndicated to a limited number of US television stations in early September 1970 (such as WSNS-TV Channel 44 in Chicago and WTAF-TV Channel 29 in Philadelphia), under the title ''The Space Giants.'' The show was not distributed widely to US television stations until the late 1970s, when it became a staple of fledgling
afternoon programming. 52 episodes were made, each running 25 minutes. It was known in Spanish as ''Monstruos del Espacio'' and in some English-speaking countries as ''Space Avenger.''
As of late January and early February 2017, Bernard Schulman still owned the North American television and home video distribution rights to ''The Space Giants,'' under his Lakeside Television banner. At that time, rumors continued to circulate that the series would be issued in Blu-ray and Digital HD format for the 50th Anniversary in 2016, exclusively produced and distributed through AnimeImages and Lakeside Television Company in a joint partnership for production and distribution.
Ambassador Magma makes a cameo appearance in the 2004 ''
*Magma – Goldar
*Mol – Silvar
*Goa – Rodak
*Atsushi Murakami – Ito "Tom" Mura
*Tomoko Murakami – Tomoko Mura
*Mamoru Murakami – Mikko Mura
*Earth – Methusan
*Atsuya Sekita – Kita
*Modoki Men – ''Lugo'' Men
remake was produced in 1993. This series served as a retelling of the original series. The OVA was produced by
publisher FBN (Fantasy Book Novels) Publications produced a comic book adaptation (written and drawn by
and artist Richard Lynn) of the first four episodes of ''Ambassador Magma''. In 1994, Gabriele did another ''Space Giants'' comic book one-shot published by
.