A friend brought copies of this back from a stay in Japan. They were untranslated but easy to follow for the most part. A combination of live-action sentai and tokusatsu genres as the human resembling alien hero, who can transform into a sort of giant robot, is supported by a fighting team of humans granted special powers. The difference here is that the alien and the team are all high school students instead of adults, a theme still being repeated on Japanese television today.
It's all pretty standard but with higher production standards then other sentai shows of the time. The kids all learn kung-fu which is unusual on a Japanese show and are repeatedly called on to show their stuff. The action scenes in the episodes I saw were all of a high caliber and entertaining to watch. The inevitable giant monsters are ridiculous but well designed. The miniatures were very well shot with lots of depth and a concerted effort to simulate an appearance of giants battling. Megaroman resembles Ultraman but with a long white mane of hair that you would see in a Kabuki play. Every monster battle ended with Megaroman igniting his hair, swinging his head around and shooting a fireball out of the burning hair. The offending monster would then explode.
The show had an early attempt to use video to create certain effects such as flying. The effect would then be transfered back to film unlike today where the effect is done on video and stays there.
Probably will never see this again.
