Totsugeki! Human!! (partially found Japanese stage play TV series; 1972)

Title

Status: Partially Found

Totsugeki! Human!! (突撃! ヒューマン!!, Assault! Human!!) is a hero stage play TV series that aired on NTV from October 7 to December 30, 1972. There are 13 episodes.

Plot

Junichirō Iwaki, a highly respected college gymnastics coach, abruptly announces his resignation and sets out on a tour of elementary schools across Japan to train children's bodies and give them the strength to fight monsters and evil invader armies. Junichirō is actually an alien from a planet called "Human Planet," who has come to Earth in response to an unknown threat looming from outer space. As Junichirō predicted, the Flasher Army, led by King Flasher, began its invasion of the earth, and Junichirō went around the country training children, and in return, the children transformed Junichirō into a Human with a device called Human-Sign, which was used to make Junichirō into a Human, In return, the children use the Human-Sign device to transform Junichirō into a "Human No. 1" and fight against the monsters of the Flasher Army. Rumiko Hoshikawa, a reporter for "The Kaiju Newspaper," Yasubei Hirai, a photographer, and Junichirō's younger brother, "Human No. 2" Junijirō, also help in the fight.

Overview

This series was created to compete with the immensely popular Kamen Rider at the time. One of the characteristics of this work is that it is a "recording of a stage play," a style quite different from other tokusatsu series. Since fire and water could not be used because the film was shot on stage, illusion techniques and stage sets such as lighting and smoke were used rather than tokusatsu-like staging.

The flow of each episode each time is, "a monster and his army, led by the King Flasher, attack the Junichirō's gymnastics class on stage and use stage illusions to abduct or harm the children and Junichirō's friends. Junichirō tries to stop them and fights back against the army, but is pinned down by the monsters or King Flasher's attack. At this point Junichirō calls on the audience to use the Human-Sign to transform into Human No. 1. As the audience spins the Human-Sign and calls out for it, Junichirō strikes a pose to transform, the stage goes dark, and in the darkness, a wire affixed from the back of the audience to the top of the stage allows the "doll with pulley" to slide down to the stage in the spotlight. After the flash, Human No. 1 is on stage when the lights come back on, and after a struggle with the monster and his army, he defeats the flasher army with a special move."

Because this series was a novel "recording of a stage play" hero show, it was difficult for viewers familiar with tokusatsu hero shows to accept it, and this work was cancelled in season 1. Also, this series has never been released as home media. It has been noted that the series was only re-aired once after the main broadcast, and that the videotape was recorded and then overwritten for another show after the re-airing, so that the master tape was in effect lost. The video about Human that is available online is an opening video to the show and a recording of a stage show at an event, unrelated to the recording of the show, that took place in 1974 at a leisure facility in Sendai city. The footage was shot by an ordinary family living in Sendai, and was included in a DVD titled "Nostalgic Sendai-Miyagi Images: Showa-era Scenes" released by Sendai Television on December 23, 2010. The opening video was obviously recorded. HAL Tokyo, who posted this video, may be in possession of other recordings of the episode, but none have been posted other than this video.

Episode

#	Episode Title	English Translation	Recording Date	Air Date
1	ヒューマンて何だ	What is Human?	September 23, 1972	October 7, 1972
2	怪獣シビレッタ3千匹！	3,000 Kaiju Sibiretta!	September 30, 1972	October 14, 1972
3	血を吸う！怪獣ドラゴンダ	Bloodsucking! Kaiju Dragonda	October 7, 1972	October 21, 1972
4	空飛ぶ怪獣ブランカー！	Flying Monster Blanker!	October 14, 1972	October 28, 1972
5	殺せ!! 怪獣レッドロック	Kill it!! Kaiju Red Rock	October 21, 1972	Norvember 4, 1972
6	怪人ゲジルの死!!	Death of the monster Gezir!!	October 28, 1972	Norvember 11, 1972
7	怪人メガヘルツ テレビ局を爆破!!	Monster Megahertz Blows Up TV Station!!	Norvember 4, 1972	Norvember 18, 1972
8	魔の少年フラッシャー!!	Demon boy Flasher!!	Norvember 11, 1972	Norvember 25, 1972
9	キングフラッシャーの最期	The End of King Flasher	Norvember 18, 1972	December 2, 1972
10	英雄ヒューマンの最期!!	The End of Hero Human!!	Norvember 25, 1972	December 9, 1972
11	帰ってきたヒューマン！	The Return of Human!	December 2, 1972	December 16, 1972
12	ヒューマン兄弟大活躍！	The Human brothers are very active!	December 9, 1972	December 23, 1972
13	さようならヒューマン	Good Bye, Human	December 16, 1972	December 30, 1972

Gallery

Video

Recorded opening video of the show.

Event footage of the stage show on the DVD recording.

Image

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  Rumiko Hoshikawa

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  Human-Sign attached to children's magazine.

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  Children book

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  Feature article in the August issue of Spaceship (宇宙船) magazine, June 1987.

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Trivia

• Totsugeki! Human!! was serialized in manga form in children's magazines from 1972 to 1973. the final episode, which appeared in the February 1973 issue of "Shōgaku 2-nensei" (小学二年生), was only two pages long, with Human No. 2 killing King Flasher on page 1. In the second page, No.2 ends the story by telling the dead No.1 (unlike the original, he was not resurrected) that he has avenged his death. Because of its rapid development, this manga page has become more famous on the Internet than the original TV series.

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External Links

• Totsugeki! Human!! - Ja.wikipedia.org