The Golden Bat franchise potentially has a lot of Kamishibai stories to tell. Although not many of them have survived the tests of time, most of the ones that do survive at all have been reprints or (often partial) reconstructions in varying conditions. Frankly, the first consistently named characters of that franchise are Golden Bat and his most monstrous enemies, the magnificent bastard of a spiritual predecessor known as Black Bat (not to be confused with fellow US pulp heroes of the same name) and his more popular replacement, the legendary Doctor Nazō.
Ichiro Suzuki, who was possibly born in 1905 (or 1906) and who might have left the face of this world a few decades ago, was the franchise’s first known writer, even though Takeo Nagamatsu (1912-61) and Kōji Kata (1918-98) are generally considered to be its true spiritual creators, due to having been referenced more often than not in Japanese popular culture.
The Prince of Planet Gamma, first appearing at the same time as Golden Bat, has a surviving postwar remake which lasted for about 58 short volumes, not bad for something which is only partially found. One of The Prince of Planet Gamma’s notable post war makers was one of Toki Okamoto’s children, Sanpei Shirato’s fellow sibling, Tetsuji Okamoto.
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