




Some of my favorite anime series come from the 1960s. Domestically made cartoons on Japanese television were still a new phenomenon, and the way they were still working out how to put together weekly animation on a limited budget made for some very unique shows.
The character of Ogon Bat is generally considered to be the first Japanese superhero, created by Takeo Nagamatsu in 1931 for the “kamishibai” paper theater. If you’ve never heard of kamishibai, there’s a very helpful review of this book on the Let’s Anime site, you can read that review here.
Get the episodes from Nyaa or Mega.
Thanks to Hailey for providing the source material, doing a lot of the encoding work and sponsoring the translations for episodes 2 and 3. Thanks to Garrett for help in setting up the encoding workflow, and encoding some of the early episodes. Thanks to Kingmenu for allowing me to use their script for episode 1, translated by my long-time collaborator Tetris no Miko. And thanks to Nightrocket for sponsoring the translation of episode 4.



And don’t forget about the groovy Golden Bat live action movie, subtitled as a joint production between TSHS and Love & Care. Filmed in widescreen Toeiscope, this low-budget gem manages to cram approximately 2.4 metric tons of fun into a 73 minute bag. It even stars Sonny Chiba, years before he became known as a cinematic badass with movies like the Street Fighter series.
Brazilian version
Lord Ago = Zero
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Thank you for more Ogon Bat goodness! I had the chance to see a kamishibai performance of Ogon Bat at the International Manga Museum when I visited Kyoto a few years ago. Would have probably ignored/missed it had I not watched (and loved) the movie you subbed a few months prior.
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Nothing better than a badass 1960’s Robot!
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Thanks, Nanto! Do you have any plans to translate Sukeban Deka III?
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You’re welcome!
There’s actually another group that has been planning to tackle Sukeban Deka III for a while, but has been busy with some other really cool shows. If and when the SDIII project comes to fruition, I might be involved in some capacity.
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That’s so good to hear… Very very good! Thanks again!
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Thanx for these sixties gems.
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Greetings:
Thank you for providing subtitles for the first 4 episodes of Golden Bat. Are there any plans to subtitle the rest of the series?
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Not sure when, but yes, I am definitely planning on subtitling more episodes when I have time.
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