is the title and protagonist of a

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

and

tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, ''tokusatsu'' mainly refers to science fiction film, science fiction, War fi ...

TV series created by

Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu'', – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and animator. Considered to be among the greatest and most influential cartoonists of all time, his prolific output, pioneering techniques an ...

. The TV series, produced by P Productions, aired on

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

from July 4, 1966, to June 26, 1967, lasting a total of 52 episodes. It is the first

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

tokusatsu TV series in Japan, beating

Tsuburaya Productions also abbreviated as is a Japanese special effects studio founded in 1963 by special effects director 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 b ...

' ''

Ultraman The , also known as ''Ultraman'', is a Japanese science fiction media franchise owned and produced by Tsuburaya Productions, which began with the television series '' Ultra Q'' in 1966. The franchise has expanded into many television shows, fi ...

'' to the air by six days. The show later aired in the US, dubbed in English by Krantz Films, 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 () is the Greek personification for a conflict, struggle or contest, describing a concept of the same name. This could be a contest in athletics, in chariot or horse racing, or in music or literature at a public festival in ancient Greece. i ...

, the title monster of a

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or ''kaiju'', that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films p ...

-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 of 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 Cosmetics are substances that are intended for application to the body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering appearance. They are mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources or created syn ...

on his face. But such difficulties as Uozomi's own face turning beet-red, drowning out the gold make-up, 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 rocket ship. Indeed, he is considered one of the earliest transforming mecha, even before the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

super robot Mecha, also known as giant robot or simply robot, is a genre of anime and manga that feature mecha in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; " super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where r ...

, ''

Brave Raideen , also known as "Brave Reideen" or "Heroic Raydeen", is a super robot anime series created by Tohokushinsha and Produced by Soeisha (later renamed as Sunrise). It aired on Nihon Educational Television (now TV Asahi) from 4 April 1975 to 26 ...

,'' 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.

English 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 Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

heroes who responded to crises by transforming into

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

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 Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

-like space monsters, and faceless,

ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...

-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

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

,'' 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

humanoid robot A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments and working alongside humans, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipeda ...

s who were all capable of transformations from

humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...

form into

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 antennae protruding from their heads, capable of discharging directed blasts of

gamma rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from high energy interactions like the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei or astronomical events like solar flares. It consists o ...

. Goldar and Silvar were capable of firing

missiles A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor. Historically, 'missile' referred to any projectile that is thrown, shot or propelled towards a target; this u ...

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 U.S. television stations in early September 1970 (such as

WSNS-TV WSNS-TV (channel 44) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group alongside NBC outlet WM ...

in Chicago and WTAF-TV in Philadelphia), under the title ''The Space Giants''. The show was not distributed widely to U.S. television stations until the late 1970s, when it became a staple of fledgling Superstation TBS 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 '' Astro Boy: Omega Factor'' game for the

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

, along with a number of other characters created by Osamu Tezuka.

English version name changes

*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

TV series cast

1993 OVA series

A 13-episode OVA

remake was produced in 1993. This series served as a retelling of the original series. The OVA was produced by

Bandai Visual was a Japanese anime, film production, and distribution company, established by Bandai and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings. They focused mainly in international distribution of anime properties in North America. Most of the anime and ...

Tezuka Productions is a Japanese animation studio founded by Osamu Tezuka in 1968. It is known for animating notable works such as ''Marvelous Melmo'', the Astro Boy (1980 TV series), 1980 and Astro Boy (2003 TV series), 2003 ''Astro Boy'' series, and ''Black Jack ...

and PLEX, and was directed by Hidehito Ueda.

Adaptations

In 1979, American

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

publisher FBN (Fantasy Book Novels) Publications produced a comic book adaptation (written and drawn by Angel Gabriele 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 Boneyard Press.Ragone, August and Johnson, Bob
"The ''Space Giants'' Series Guide: A Look Back at the Many Incarnations of Ambassador Magma," SciFi Japan (Aug. 27, 2007).
Accessed Apr. 17, 2009.

References

External links

Episode list and summarySeries summary with episode list
* {{Tezuka Productions 1965 manga 1966 Japanese television series debuts 1967 Japanese television series endings 1993 anime OVAs Fuji Television original programming Japanese drama television series Japanese television series with live action and animation Manga adapted into television series Mecha anime and manga Osamu Tezuka anime Osamu Tezuka manga Shōnen Gahōsha manga Shōnen manga Tezuka Productions Tokusatsu television series 1960s Japanese television series