Yusei Kamen

Aired: 1966 - 1967

A TV anime produced by TCJ Doga Center (now Eiken). Based on the original work by Nobuo Nitta. Broadcast in 39 episodes on the Fuji TV network from June 3, 1966 to February 21, 1967. Set in the year 2001 against the backdrop of friendly relations between Earth and the allied planet Pinelon, the half-human, half-Pinelonian boy Peter (voiced by Yoshiko Fujita) acts secretly as the masked hero 'Yusei Kamen' to prevent a sudden outbreak of war in this near-future SF action work. With his father being the Pinelonian scientist Professor Socraton (voiced by Kazuo Harada) and his mother an Earthling, the work depicts Peter's torn struggle between two planets. Its rare-for-the-time serious SF setting and political themes woven into a children's show position it as a precursor to the realist SF anime lineage leading to Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam. One of the representative works of Eiken's founding era. (C)Eiken