This
wonderful series was born in 1971 and will start what the specialists call
the "2nd Monster Boom". The author of the series was Soji Ushio, P Pro's
headmaster who had already brought us the very cool Magma Taishi
which even preceded Ultraman a few months. Having failed with the
series Jaguar Man (1968) and Hyoh Man (1969) which stayed
at the state of pilot (but which undoubtedly would have been successful
!), P Pro had to find a new hero. This time, the idea came to have an Ultraman-like
hero which would fight monsters created by an evil apeman nemesis, the 
Dr
Gori. Actually, the character of Gori was thought and created before the
hero since the apeman appears in the pilot titled Chojin Elementman
while Spectreman wasn't probably called that way. He was even dressed differently
and I have difficulties imagining Spectreman could have looked like this
(see photo below). Fortunately, this pilot was judged interesting enough
to create an entire TV series which was called Space Apeman Gori
(Uchuu Enjin Gori) and the series premiered on January, 3rd on Fuji TV.
The series had the same time slot as a very popular anime about baseball
Kyoojin No Hoshi and after three months of broadcasting
,
Space Apeman Gori's audience rate was even superior to Kyoojin
No Hoshi's. From then on, the series became popular in spite of the
fierce rivals which were Toei's Kamen Rider and Tsuburaya's Mirrorman.
After 20 adventures, the huge mass of letters received from the spectators
pushed P Pro's buddies to change the title into Space Apeman Gori Vs
Spectreman. After episode 39 the series will finally be titled Spectreman,
the spectators wishing that the title of the series were the name of the
hero.
The show finally ends after 63 episodes on March, 25th being replaced by the no-less interesting program Kaiketsu Lion Maru.
Spectreman was successful because of numerous points. First of all, it had a giant superhero fighting monsters and this kind of program was just becoming popular at that time (Ultraman's huge success proves it). Sure P Pro is famous for its cheapest of the cheapest special effects, but hell, it did not matter a lot, the spirit was there. The particularity of the show was the fact that it reflected the traumatism of a whole nation. At that period of the Showa era (which started in 1926), Japan was in a prosperous economy period, having production rate with two digits but this production had a flaw, just like in the series : the flaw was pollution. Indeed, Spectreman reflects this worry in its background mostly in the first half of the series which was the best part. As a result, we see monsters born from every kind of pollution. Hedron (obviously cousin with Toho's
Hedoron
from Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster produced the same year), the sea
weeds from episode 32 and 33 along with the flying whale are the best examples
of sea pollution while episode 5 to 8 deal with smog and air pollution.
The series also reflected Japanese people's fear of earthquake and tsunami
as the impressive double episode with the Namazu-like monster show it.
After episode 35, the series gradually deteriorates where the pollution
spirit is more or less replaced by pure wild Science Fiction. From then
on, we see aliens from Kilaar, Satan, Genos, with their strange beasts
who are all pretexts to oppose Spectreman to a new monster each week. But
the stories are still fun, less than in the first part though. Another
point which made me love this series was the constant unintentional humour.
The character of Rah is probably the best example (his discover of
the Earth in episode 4 is legendary) along with some really funny monsters
(that purple hippo-like monster is too much), not to mention some really
archaic special effects. But all this helped to appreciate the series even
a little more : you sometimes watch the episode only to see Karas aping
(!) the gestures of his master ! At last, it is needless to say that the
show was very trendy and never left its 70-ish atmosphere.
Spectreman was definitely an attractive series which appealed not only to children with the concept of superhero-vs- monsters but also to adults thanks to its serious hidden aspect.