Kamen Raidâ

As with Urutoraman: Kûsô tokusatsu shirîzu (1966), this series, created by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori, gave birth to another popular type of modern Japanese superhero: The "Henshin" (Japanese for "transformation") Hero. These are normal-sized superheroes who transform into a cyborg, android or mutant by performing a "henshin pose," and usually fight their enemies with martial arts, minimal weaponry and a finishing attack (usually a flying kick). The Sentai Series (starting with Ishinomori's Himitsu sentai Gorenjâ (1975)), Metal Heroes (starting with X-OR (1982)) and hundreds of other contemporary Japanese superheroes were an offshoot of this historically-important genre.

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