Phantoma Phantaman: Warrior of Justice (partially found English dub of "Ōgon Bat" anime series; 1967)

"Ōgon Bat" title card.

Status: Partially Found

Ōgon Bat (黄金バット literally "Golden Bat") is a Japanese superhero franchise created in 1930, featuring an ominous yet heroic cackling golden skeleton man and his fight against the evil Dr. Erich Nazo.

Originally a Kamishibai (traveling local shows consisting on telling stories while scrolling illustrated prints), the series was eventually adapted into a manga, an anime series and eventually transformed into a feature movie distributed by Toei Japan.

It's notable for being one of the very first Japanese superheroes and for pre-dating both American comic book characters Superman and Batman (created in 1938 and 1939, respectively).

In 1967, an anime adaptation of Ōgon Bat was produced by Yomiuri TV, based directly on the manga adaptation. During the same year, the series was dubbed by the now defunct Tokyo-based dubbing company Frontier Enterprises and picked up by Nine Network in order to be localized for western audiences under the name Phantoma: Warrior of Justice. The dub was directed by Frontier Enterprises founder William Ross (who voiced Professor Yamatone aka Dr. Steel in the English dub of the show itself).

Broadcast

The series was originally scheduled to be aired for both American and Australian audiences^{[citation needed]} but for unknown reasons, the series was never released on American territories, Australia being the only country where the English localization was ever broadcast. The dub started air in April of 1968 in the mornings at 7:30, and continued airing until late 1972.

Availability

After the show's run in Australia, the English dub never had any reruns and the dub has no known form of home media releases, even in Australia, and thus most unlikely exists. Although there were some references of the dub online such as it’s name, for a long time, the English localization was believed to never have been produced, as no footage ever surfaced, until a clip (albeit poorly recorded from a cassette tape in the late 60’s) was uploaded in 2012 to YouTube, posted by user TVNostalgia who, according to himself, got the recording from a friend of his from Australia who in turn got it from someone who recorded it at the time, showing that in fact an English localization was made.

It is unknown why the show never aired in the U.S., but now that the existence of the clip was made public, there is hope that more footage will resurface eventually on the net. However, due to the age of the show itself alongside Frontier Enterprises gone defunct in 2000, it is unlikey that the English version itself will ever be officially re-released as Nine Network obviously sent the 16mm reels back to Japan or on the other hand, wiped the tapes. Specifically, there is no probability that any of the dub has been recorded during it's run (unless by a cassette tape) since VHS recording was 4 years away from when the show last aired.

However, the following Latin Spanish, Portuguese and Italian dubs appear to have been based off the English version itself as all of them use Americanized names for the characters originating from the English dub including similar titles, this may very well imply that additional copies of the English dub were sent to other countries that surprisingly increase the small chances that the English dub may be found one day. Speaking of that, it's currently rumoured that copies may have been sent to Mexico as that was the country the Latin Spanish dub originates from, which mainly took said inspiration off the English version.

The English dub might have also had some content and voice sounds reused in the following localizations hence the Italian dub reuses some audio from the Latin American dub.

Cast

• William Ross (founder and director of Frontier Enterprises) as Dr. Steel
• Burr Middleton as Phantaman, Dr. Zero, Gabby and the narrator
• Patricia Kobayashi as Maria
• Unknown as Terry
• Unknown as Gorgo
• Unknown as Dr. Death
• Cliff Harrington (possibly)

Gallery

The only clip available of "Phantoma Phantaman" on the internet.

See Also

• Golden Bat: The Phantom of the Skyscraper (lost tokusatsu film adaptation based on Kamishibai character; 1950)
• ‎The Golden Bat Is Here! (partially found tokusatsu comedy film; 1972)