Mirâman

This show was honestly a sluggish one to get through. I might be objectively wrong here, but I really think that this show took an incredibly long time to figure out what it wanted to be. The first 20 episodes are weird and all over the place and they don't seem very unified at all. The next 15 or so feel a lot like the OG Ultraman, which is nicer, but then the last 10-15 or so finally embrace what it wanted to be from the start. They focus on human emotions and splice in horror and action while keeping you interested with the dialogue and the characters. So the last bit of this show is actually really great, but the first 70% sadly, was not.

This story focuses on a young man named Kyotaro Kagami, he finds out that his long lost father is his an alien from another galaxy, and his mother is a human.

Kyotaro's father failed to stop the evil force called the Invaders, and now with the charm Kyotaro's father gave to him. He can transform into the giant space hero Mirrorman!

First the monster designs, the early designs are really creative and out there, like they look like they were made by aliens, but the later monster designs don't hit me that good anymore, like some are really generic, look similar, obviously repurposed. But there are a couple of exceptions.

I just realized that the first half of this show is better than the second half, but there are some things that the second half do better than the first half. Like pacing, as a young person with a low attention span, the pacing of the first half of episodes is a little hard for me. But of course it pulled me back in when the good fight scenes came in.

The fight scenes in this show are really good, tons of abilities from the monsters and Mirrorman, the fight choreography is well done too.

One consistent problem I hear about this show is that in the first half, a lot of monsters reappear, probably because they didn't have the budget to make a new monster every episode. But I don't think that this is a problem, because remember, the early monster designs in this show are really good.

The side characters are fine, once in a while they'll have a episode dedicated to the invaders using one of the SGM member's weaknesses against them, but other than that there isn't much to them. Kotaro is really cool though.

Though I like this show, it's not one of my favorites. It gets repetitive really quickly, like a lot of other Toku shows from the time.

But if you're okay with these small quirks, it's a pretty great time!

Pretty good show! 8/10.

Based on the manga by Super Jetter creator Fumio Hisamatsu, Mirrorman tells the story of Kyotaro Kagami, a photographer working for the daily press, who was born from a human woman and a superhuman from the second dimension and raised by benign scientist Dr. Mitarai. Eventually, Kyotaro learns that his father was killed by the malevolent "Invaders" and that he must prevent them from taking over the world! Kyotaro, having been given a pendant from his father's ghost, reluctantly agrees to fight the Invaders with the help of the S. G. M. (Science Guard Members) and so, a hero is born!

Mirrorman is undoubtedly one of the best show Tsuburaya has ever made.

The character development that Kyotaro gets is incredible! Going from whiny reluctant photographer to selfless and courageous hero!

The Invaders are truly menacing aliens. Unlike other Toku villains who cackle wickedly while making monsters and boast about their evil plans to the heroes constantly stealing the show, the Invaders operate in secret and have very little screen time. But i feel that's quite refreshing since the characters we're supposed to be rooting for get the most development.

The special effects are pretty good for 1971 standards and the monster designs are even better.

The eerie music by Toru Fuyuki compliments the show very well and personally i think it's one of his better scores.

All in all Mirrorman is a wonderful Tokusatsu program from Tsuburaya Productions the creators of Ultraman.

10/10.