Zone Fighter, known in Japan as Meteor Human Zone (流星人間ゾーン, Ryūsei Ningen Zōn), is a tokusatsu science fiction superhero television series. Produced by Toho Company Ltd., the show aired on Nippon Television from April 2 to September 24, 1973, with a total of 26 episodes. This was Toho's answer to not only the popular Ultra Series, but the Henshin Hero phenomenon started by shows like Kamen Rider and Android Kikaider. The previous year, Toho had just made their first successful superhero show, Rainbowman. The series was also notable for its guest appearances by Toho's own Godzilla, as well as two other Toho monsters, King Ghidorah and Gigan. Supplementary materials published by Toho have confirmed Zone Fighter to be part of the Showa era of the Godzilla series, taking place in between Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.
Zone Fighter | |
---|---|
Genre | Tokusatsu Kaiju Superhero Science fiction Kyodai Hero |
Developed by | Toho |
Written by | Koji Amemiya Jun Fukuda Juro Shimamoto Tomoyuki Tanaka Susumu Takeuchi Shozo Uehara |
Directed by | Ishirō Honda Jun Fukuda Kengo Furusawa Akiyasa Kikuchi Masao Minowa Kohei Oguri |
Opening theme | Ryusei Ningen Zone by Masato Shimon and Children's Lake Choir |
Ending theme | Ryusei Victory by Masato Shimon |
Country of origin | Japan |
No. of episodes | 26 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Tomoyuki Tanaka |
Running time | 22 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | Nippon Television |
Release | April 2 September 24, 1973 | –
The Sakimori/Zone family resembles a normal Japanese family, but they are an alien family that came to Earth after their home planet, Peaceland, was destroyed by the evil aliens called the Garogans. To stop the Garogan army's invasion on Earth, the Sakimori family's three children, Hikaru (the oldest son), Hotaru (the teenage sister) and Akira (the youngest son) transform into the superheroes Zone Fighter, Zone Angel, and Zone Junior. Their transformation code (associated with a "henshin" pose) is "Zone Fight Power".
The Garogas are a race of space aliens from the planet Garoga. They have red, black, blue and yellow bodies, along with the same colors for the eyes, faces and floppy antennae. They operate on a huge satellite in space.