#planet prince

[chernobog13]

These are supposed to be the same guy!

Planet Prince (top) was originally a 1958 television series from Senkosha, the same people who gave us Moonlight Mask, aka Gekko Kamen, the year before.

Planet Prince was created to cash in on the success that the studio Shintoho was having with their Super Giant (Starman) films. Planet Prince has a similar costume and power set (super-strength, flight and invulnerability) to Super Giant, and he helps out a lot of kids over the course of his 49 episodes.

Similar to what was done with Moonlight Mask, movie studio Toei brought Planet Prince (bottom) to the big screen in two films released a week apart in 1959. However, whereas the Moonlight Mask films had kept the same costume and concept as the TV series (albeit using different actors), darn near everything was changed about Planet Prince. Gone were the super-powers (replaced with a little laser wand), the costume was replaced, and he flew around in the space equivalent of a Toyota Corolla.

Most people are familiar with the Toei version of Planet Prince because the two films were edited together into a single feature, subbed in to English, and released in the States as Prince of Space (1965).

THEN THERE'S THIS GUY

Planet Prince 2021 (2021). A goofy re-imagining of the original television series from director Minoru Kawasaki.

How goofy is it? Well, I've yet to view the film, but based on the trailer below, I imagine it's pretty silly.

[jacobfredburt]

Space princes come in three flavors

Evil:

Gay:

And Japanese superhero:

[himitsusentaiblog]

Hello Hello, noticed that you know your stuff when it comes to Toku so I was hoping you could answer a tricky question. Can you name some old Toku heroes that seem distinguished from each other? (Excluding Sentai, Riders, and Metal Heroes.) (If you're curious why, feel free to PM me.) =v=''

Sure!  By old I assume you mean pre-1980s so I’ll limit myself to the era between the 1950s and 1970s.  Now, a lot of the older heroes are either missing episodes or most of the series is missing so I can only really mention them in passing.  The first actual TV Tokusatsu hero was Moonlight Mask/Gekko Kamen from 1958.

He rode a motorcycle, wore a mask, had a scarf and dispensed justice from the barrels of his twin six-shooters in a total of 131 episodes from February 24, 1958 to July 5, 1959. Sadly, a lot of the first few episodes are missing, which isn’t uncommon for TV series of this vintage.

Another TV hero from 1958 was Planet Prince.  

This series may be more well-known in the US for the theatrical movie version which changed up the main character’s costume to include a full mask and was released here as Prince of Space and featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

A lost series from this era features a character called Messenger of Allah, who looks somewhat similar to Moonlight Mask above though with a more “Arabian Knights” theme.

Skipping ahead a bit to 1967 we get Toei’s first color tokusatsu hero show, Masked Ninja Red Shadow/Kamen no Ninja Aka Kage.  This was a hero show with a difference, being set not in the modern day but in the late 16th Century. The heroes are Ninja with special powers who fight evil and monsters.

Entering the 1970s we have and explosion of unique tokusatsu heroes.  Sticking with the more Ninja-esque themes we get Toei’s Henshin Ninja Arashi:

and P Productions’ Kaiketsu Lion Maru.

At about this same time, Toei produced Shotaro Ishinomori’s android hero Kikaider. This was an interesting one with a lasting impact and introduced a conflicted hero built for evil but made good with an imperfect conscience circuit constantly warring against his own programming. This was a pretty fertile time for Ishinomori’s heroes as in addition to a Kikaider sequel (Kikaider 01) he also had Inazuman (a mutant bug-man) and Kaiketsu Zubat (a costumed vigilante guitar player) on the small screen.

By far his strangest hero show though was the Three Musketeers as Demons series Akumaizer 3.  The protagonists were three non-human demons who worked with humanity to fight off their own people to prevent harm coming to innocents.

Go Nagai, who is more famous for his anime work, also got in on the tokusatsu craze of the 1970s with two very interesting shows.  The first is Battle Hawk, a series with a trio of heroes empowered my magic tomahawks (a theme Go Nagai enjoyed) given to their mentor by a mysterious Native American tribe that transforms them into heroes with axes for weapons.

The stranger one though is Star of Pro-Wrestling Axteckaizer which combined professional wrestling, tokusatsu heroes and animation in a very different way.

Most of the series featured live action but the end of every fight scene switched to animation to show off the strange wrestling moves that would have been impossible given the budget of the show and the limitations of the way human bodies bend.

These are just a few of the more notable non-franchise series of the older days of tokusatsu.  There are so many more to look into that I just don’t have the time to list here but these above are some that stand out to me or I find notable for their place in the history of the medium.

Thanks for the question!

[chernobog13]

PLANET PRINCE (May 19, 1959)

PLANET PRINCE - THE TERRIFYING SPACESHIP (May 25, 1959)

Just as Toei had produced theatrical features based on the popular Senkosha television show Moonlight Mask, they gave the same treatment to another Senkosha show: Planet Prince.

However, unlike the Moonlight Mask films, which were faithful to the original hero, the Planet Prince films reinvented him completely.

DVD cover for one of Planet Prince's TV adventures. Sharp-eyed folks looking at the bottom left photo might recognize actor Koichi Ose, who played Detective Jūrō Iwai/Moonlight Mask in the Moonlight Mask TV series.

Planet Prince, as he appeared in the television series, was in an open-faced costume. He also possessed superpowers such as tremendous strength, a degree of invulnerability, and flight.

The movie Planet Prince had none of those abilities, although he had an indestructible costume that protected him from harm. He also had a wand that fired lasers and a tiny spaceship that resembled a flying Toyota Corolla.

The two Toei features, 57 minutes and 64 minutes long each, were acquired by Walter Manley, the same producer who gave us the Starman films. Manley had the two Planet Prince films edited together into an 85-minute feature, dubbed it into English, and released it in 1965 as Prince of Space.

[chernobog13]

A manga cover featuring Prince Planet (original Japanese title: Planet Boy Papi), who also had his own 52-episode anime series in 1965.

[chernobog13]

PLANET PRINCE (May 19, 1959)

PLANET PRINCE - THE TERRIFYING SPACESHIP (May 25, 1959)

Like Toei had done earlier with the television series Moonlight Mask (Gekko Kamen), it adapted another television series from Senkosha into short feature films. This time it was Planet Prince (Yusei Ouji), Senkosha's take on the wildly popular Super Giant films.

Unlike their Moonlight Mask films, Toei's adaptation of Planet Prince drastically changed the heroic main character. In the television series, Planet Prince had powers almost identical to Super Giant (Starman): super strength, limited invulnerability, and the ability to fly. However, in the films, Planet Prince has no superpowers, wears a mask, uses a wand laser, and flies around in a little spaceship.

The two films, which were a serialized story told in two parts, ran for a total length of 121 minutes. Like he had done for the Super Giant serial films, American producer Walter Manley edited the two Planet Prince films together into a single 85 minute film, dubbed it in English, changed the title to Prince of Peace, and released in to American television stations in 1965.

[chernobog13]

Poster for Planet Prince: The Terrifying Spaceship, released on May 25, 1959. This was the second half of a two-part serial; the first half was released the previous week on May 19.

These two short features - Part One was 57 minutes long, Part Two was 64 minutes - were produced by Toei. They were adaptations of the Planet Prince television series from Senkosha, much like Toei had done with Senkosha's previous series Moonlight Mask (Gekko Kamen).

However, unlike the Moonlight Mask films, the Planet Prince films featured a hero not at all resembling his television counterpart.

The television Planet Prince was Senkosha's answer to Shin Toho's theatrical superhero Super Giant (aka Starman in the USA), with a similar costume and superpowers. Over 49 episodes his costume changed a bit, but he looked like this:

I think we can all agree, the two versions of Planet Prince look nothing alike. Well, except that they both have the same number of arms and legs and noses and whatnot.

In 1965 the two Toei Planet Prince films were edited together into an 85 minute-long TV movie for American television entitled Prince of Space. This is the version seen on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and was released on DVD with the Sonny Chiba (as Iron Sharp/Space Chief) film Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961).

Anyhoo, in no way should Planet Prince/Prince of Space be confused with this guy:

This is Prince Planet, the hero of a 52-episode animated series that debuted in Japan in 1965. An English-dubbed version hit American airwaves the following year.

Prince Planet was, like Super Giant/Starman and Planet Prince, and alien endowed with incredible superpowers (Although most of his came from his pendant) who came to Earth to protect its inhabitants from various threats.

The series did not last more than a year, however, because of two reasons:

It was black-and-white when color TV was rapidly gaining popularity; kids had more colorful choices for their viewing pleasure.

Parent groups complained about violence in the series, especially when Prince Planet seemed to have no qualms about killing his enemies. I have not seen this series, but I really, really want to just for that reason alone.

Finally, in 2012 there was a theatrical reboot of Planet Prince, appropriately entitled Planet Prince 2021.

I have not seen this film yet, though I did see the trailer a couple of years back and wasn't very impressed; it seemed the filmmakers were going for a goofy, "look how silly we can be" vibe, much like Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit (2008), the sequel/reboot of The X From Outer Space (1967).

I will seek out this film and view one of these days, though, if only because it features one of the last performances by the late Jirō Dan, who was Ultraman Jack's alter ego, Hideki Go, for decades.

Also, the costume looks kinda neat, in a low budget sorta way, although I'm not crazy about the sneakers.

[chernobog13]

A whole bunch of toku heroes!