The Origin of Fantaman

The Origin of Fantaman (黄金バット Ōgon Batto or Golden Bat)

Golden Bat ( or Fantaman ) was originally based on the homonymous japanese superhero, introduced in a novel, called Ōgon Batto, written by Ichiro Suzuki and illustrated by Takero Nagamatsu in 1930.
The character debuted in the so called kamishibai, a traveling theater, in which generally a narrator told about a story, showing a sequence of pictures.
It was sufficiently popular to survive to the kamishibai decline, after the Second World War. Then it was transformed in a manga and later in an anime. The first manga was still curated by Nagamatsu himself in 1947.

Kamishibai artist at the Kiyomizu-dera, executing the characteristic Fantaman laugh.
Most likely Ōgon Batto has been the very first superhero in the world, the testimony of his birth is painted on the old papers of kamishibai

From the novel, two live actions have been released also : the former in 1950, the latter in 1966.

The heritage of Nagamatsu was taken by Koji Kata, who, with the collaboration of the illustrator Daiji Kazumine, produced a new series of manga, published by Daitosha between 1964 and 1965. From the manga a lucky animated series has been derived and produced by TCJ in 1967, under the direction of Nobuhide Morikawa.

Curiosity, in Korea a superhero, having same name, laugh and powers of Golden Bat, appeared with an animated series … Who reminds us ? ...