Before Zone Fighter, Toho's first tokusatsu superhero was a red and white alien who could grow to gigantic size and defended Earth from monsters. No, of course he's not an Ultraman ripoff, he's Godman.
He has a blue visor and a giant mane of platinum blonde hair.
See? Completely different.
Go! Godman ran for 26 episodes comprised of multiple five minute segments segments from October 5, 1972 to April 10, 1973. The plots were simple affairs centered around monsters threatening people, the people calling on Godman for help, and then Godman arrived to pummel the monster into the dirt.
On November 12, 1973, the spiritual sequel to Go! Godman aired: Go! Greenman (Ike! Greenman). 52 eight minute episodes comprised of 3 parts each ultimately aired, and this time there was more of a plot tying everything together.
Deep underground, the devilish monster Maoh, the lord of the underworld awakens, learning that God has exiled him below the Earth. Plotting revenge, Maoh needs the blood of children to power himself up, and summons an army of minions to hunt them on the Earth's surface for him.
Standing in his way is Greenman, an envoy of God sent to protect the innocent children of the world from Maoh's depredations. After losing initially, Maoh escalates things (literally) by turning his minions into stronger minions that can also grow to gigantic size. With the phrase “Greenman Giant Machine Change!”, Greeman himself can grow gigantic and battle the demons on equal footing.
Greenman is a robot from Planet Green, and can grow to a height of 45 meters (148 ft). Designed by Tsuguo Murase and refined by a committee that included his brother, veteran monster designer Keizo Murase, the costume was modeled after Buddha statues from Southeast Asia. The similarity is most noticeable in the head, and the whole design was intended to be bright and ostentatious. Like most all tokusatsu heroes of the era, Greenman has an array of weapons, including flight, super speed, energy attacks, a staff called the Greenman Stick, Leg Arrow, chest missiles called the Greenman Breaster (probably influenced by Mazinger Z), and Ear Boomerangs (which are self-explanatory). Greenman also gave the children a box called the Green Call with a button that, when pressed, would summon him to their aid.
A notable feature of the show was recycling costumes (and monsters) from Toho movies, including Gaira and Sanda from The War of the Gargantuas, Gabara and Minilla from All Monsters Attack, and the King Kong costume from King Kong Escapes. Kong could only be called “Gorilla” in Greenman because Toho no longer had the rights to the King Kong license. If you ever wanted to see an evil version of Godzilla's son get thrown around and laughed at, then here you go.
Go! Greenman had a successful run, but the character went dormant after the show ended. In 2008, Toho released a 22 minute direct-to-video short movie called Go! Godman that brought back Godman to fight against a group of monsters. At a critical moment, one of the human characters finds a Green Call box, presses the button, and Greenman arrives to aid Godman save the day. As a surprising bit of trivia, the Greenman mask and most of the costume remained intact after thirty-plus years and were re-used for this movie.
Next time on Shin Super Robot Sunday: A new sub-feature that looks at some series that aren't about giant robots per se, but are worth mentioning in context. Get ready for Shin Super Robot Sunday Gaiden.
You can blame Space Battleship Yamato getting into a Super Robot Wars game for this.
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