The History of Golden Bat | Japan's First Super Hero

Hey everyone! I helped Kenny out a bunch with the research and script editing for this video! If you want a full list of the media mentioned, here it is: 黄金バット 摩天楼の怪人 / Golden Bat: Phantom of the Skyscraper (1950 film) 黄金バット / Golden Bat (1966 film) 黄金バット / Golden Bat (1967 anime) 紙芝居昭和史 黄金バットがやって来る / Kamishibai Showa History: The Golden Bat Is Here (1972 film) 검은별과 황금박쥐 / Black Star and Golden Bat (1978 animated film) 스타짱가2 슈퍼 베타맨 마징가V / Star Changa 2: Super Betaman Mazinger V (1990 film) 영구와 황금박쥐 / Young-Gu and the Golden Bat (1991 film) 黄金バット MILLENNIUM VERSION / The Golden Bat: Millennium Version (2003? anime short) 牙狼 - GARO - (2005 TV series) There's a few things we cut for relevance and time, like "Dark Bat", Bat's rival in the '67 anime; or the monster Belobog in Shin Megami Tensei "if" having a cape and cane in direct homage. We found a lot of the history stuff on a Japanese Golden Bat fansite, "The Sarcophagus of Atlantis" (http://ogonbatter.web.fc2.com). Turns out there's a TON of pre-war Golden Bat kamishibai by different artists, all stemming from the original, created by Ichiro Suzuki (not that one), and drawn by Takeo Nagamatsu. However, thanks to the war and less-than-ideal storage, not many original kamishibai survived the bombings. The ones you see nowadays are largely either brand new or reproductions of old ones. Give that site a look if you're interested. Kenny was really great to work with, and I hope to work with him again on future videos!

The idea of a golden skeleton that laughs like a crazy person, beats people up with a stick, is hurt by absolutely nothing, and is basically omnipotent is so stupid that I'm immediately in love

A heroic golden skeleton who laughs like a villain? That's really amusing

Lol Korean here. My dad was born in the early 60s. When he was a college student, his nickname was Golden Bat (황금박쥐) because he had this tendency to appear and disappear randomly, in seemingly impossible timeframes. Didn't know that the OG Golden Bat was basically an invincible skeleton.

I've only met Golden Bat like 7 minutes ago but if someone doesn't bring this skeletal, evil laughtin, chaotic, pre-historic hero back, I'll have no choice than to do it myself

Golden Bat vanishing after creating the genre is weirdly fitting given his backstory.

In the span of ten minutes I've gone from never having heard of Golden Bat to caring deeply about his legacy and desperately needing him in my life.

I like how they didn't make him invincible because of some mysterious backstory that happened to him, he's just invincible because it's funny.

I love the idea of a hero who just laughs at their enemies. Nothing else, they could be giving a speech and the hero just laughs the whole time. This needs to be done outside of golden bat

A skeleton, that doesn't talk, is invincible, beats up and destroys all the evil, with a crazy laugh - the most brilliantly simple idea for a superhero.

I love the idea of a superhero who is just an esoteric force that no one understands or can control; he just shows up, destroys the villains without trying, and then leaves.

golden bat is like that one hero who doesnt require any credit or fame, he just purely does it because hes an absolute legend. And then he goes to obscurity when he isnt needed. Truly a character.

This has so many elements from everything, that I'm not convinced that this isn't just a time traveler going back in time trying to make a popular show

Of course Dr. Nazo is one of the most evil characters of all time, his face is literally the draw 4 card from Uno

Google: “The first superhero ever is The Phantom, created in 1936.” Golden Bat 1931: “HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Many writers are worried about making their main characters too powerful or competent for fear that it will make their stories uninteresting. Golden Bat thinks these people are cowards and cackles madly as he beats them with his stick.

I just picked up the Japanese Batman manga and the first villain Bruce faces is a skeleton named Lord Death Man who is laughing nonstop and keeps rising from the dead. Pretty sure he's based on Golden Bat.

It turns out that the story of Gilgamesh is just mistranslation of Golden Bat.

0:54 "quick, we need a sea monster and we have like two days" "uh... let's just rotoscope me wiggling my fingers in the air" "Genius."

Bro, you're doing the lord's work by introducing people to unknown characters and stories like Golden Bat. I had no idea he was a precursor to Ultraman, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai