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Kaiketsu Zubat

  • TV Series
  • 1977
  • 30m
IMDb RATING
8.5/10
44
YOUR RATING
Kaiketsu Zubat (1977)
JapaneseSuperheroActionAdventureCrime

Private detective Hayakawa Ken(Number one in Nippon) takes on the identity of Kaiketsu Zubat to revenge the murder of his friend, Asuko Goro, by the evil group Dakkar. Each week Zubat defeat... Read allPrivate detective Hayakawa Ken(Number one in Nippon) takes on the identity of Kaiketsu Zubat to revenge the murder of his friend, Asuko Goro, by the evil group Dakkar. Each week Zubat defeats another masked villain leaving a card with a large "Z" in the center of it, and a red ro... Read allPrivate detective Hayakawa Ken(Number one in Nippon) takes on the identity of Kaiketsu Zubat to revenge the murder of his friend, Asuko Goro, by the evil group Dakkar. Each week Zubat defeats another masked villain leaving a card with a large "Z" in the center of it, and a red rose on the fallen criminal. Hayakawa Ken (or Ken Hayakawa to westerners) looks like he step... Read all

  • Creator
    • Shotaro Ishinomori
  • Stars
    • Hiroshi Miyauchi
    • Nobuyuki Nakano
    • Nobuko Oshiro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    8.5/10
    44
    YOUR RATING
    • Creator
      • Shotaro Ishinomori
    • Stars
      • Hiroshi Miyauchi
      • Nobuyuki Nakano
      • Nobuko Oshiro
    • 3User reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Episodes32

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    1 season1977

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    Top Cast98

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    Hiroshi Miyauchi
    • Hayakawa Ken…
    • 1977
    Nobuyuki Nakano
    • Osamu Terada
    • 1977
    Nobuko Oshiro
    • Midori Asuka
    • 1977
    Makoto Saito
    • Dectective Shingo Toiyo
    • 1977
    Ryuji Hayami
    • Grand Master L
    • 1977
    Jirô Yabuki
    • Interpol Agent Shinsuke. Jinryu
    • 1977
    Toshie Kokabu
    • Landlady
    • 1977
    Kyosuke Aihara
    • Ayanokoji
    • 1977
    Shunji Moriya
    • Sadan
    • 1977
    Isao Kuraishi
    • Nazis Jagar
    • 1977
    Kazuyuki Senba
    • Ryutenmaru
    • 1977
    Matsumoto Hijiri
    • Lisa Minagawa
    • 1977
    Homare Hasegawa
    • Kiyoshi Koyamauchi…
    • 1977
    Shôji Ozawa
    • D'Artagnan…
    • 1977
    Shotaro Ishinomori
    Shotaro Ishinomori
      • 1977
      Hideyo Amamoto
      Hideyo Amamoto
      • Ryunosuke Kaze
      • 1977
      Daisuke Ban
      • Kazuhiko Kawana
      • 1977
      Sachio Sakai
      • Mickey Hebiyama
      • 1977
      • Creator
        • Shotaro Ishinomori
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

      User reviews3

      8.544
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      Featured reviews

      10richardratliff

      Tokusatsu at it's best!

      This may be the greatest TV show ever made. It is a SCIFI Western Noir detective show with martial arts and a lot of explosions. Did I mention the flying car and a super suit that can crush it's user in minutes? Action, mystery, intrigue and beautiful Japanese women are all in this tokusatsu action show.

      Also my kids love Zubat! He is a true selfless hero. One for the ages.
      7TooKakkoiiforYou_321

      Interesting but flawed experiment

      Of mixing two things that, apparently, have nothing to do one with each other, meaning the western storytelling taken from stuff like the Jonah Hex Comics by Michael Fleisher during his tenure on the character in the same era this show was produced (even the constant strapping/maiming/trapping of Hex is reproduced here) and the henshin hero antics typical of the Kamen Rider, Ultraman and Super Sentais, in particular of the latter's abortive second iteration JAKQ Dengekitai from which it is taken not only the scheme of the fights but also the crudest of the stuff like the villains trafficking in drugs and humans, children with suicide bombs, fathers taking a shotgun to kill their sons etc. (the reason why the ratings were awful and the series was cancelled, if you ask me). Flawed because, albeit this time luckily there is no ubermegaipergigacrappy Big One in sight due to Hiroshi Miyauchi already being busy in the pants of the main protagonist, the more time it passes the more it becomes clear the two halves don't mesh particularly well and you have the impression that the henshin hero part was forced by Toei on Ishinomori while he was more interested in making a fully-blown western toku with no henshin hero in sight. It also gets a bit boring the more time it passes, even discounting the fact that this is a showa era show and you must watch it accordingly to the showa standards (particularly concerning the repetition, something that plagued the Jonah Hex comics too from a certain point on). As a side note, it's interesting to note that this so-much-lauded and nonsensically overhyped "masterpiece" by a certain kind of toku aficionados (the ones who hate the Maestro Toshiki Inoue for his 70's shoujo sensibilities) apparently had the same stuff Inoue applies to his output, meaning...you guessed it, a love triangle, an innuendo of the 70's shoujo mixture of love and hate, people talking about dating and marriage. So Inoue haters love the same stuff Inoue does (even if he does it ten times better at least) and all they need to do it is the name of the granfather of the Toei tokus on it! Unbelievable.
      ZoneFighter

      Modern east becomes old west.

      If you like old western movies or TV series you'd enjoy this series which though it takes place in modern Japan features characters who dress and behave as if living in the American west of the 1800s.

      This is also a great series for fans of Miyauchi Hiroshi (Kazami Shiro in Kamen Rider V3 and the blue ranger in Goranger) who plays private detective Hayakawa Ken and the whip whielding hero Kaiketsu Zubat.

      Kyo Kensuke's wonderful music is reminiscent of the western movies this series is patterned after.

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      Related interests

      Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tôko Miura in Drive My Car (2021)
      Japanese
      Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Hemsworth
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      Bruce Willis and Taniel in Die Hard (1988)
      Action
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      Crime

      Storyline

      Edit

      Did you know

      Edit
      • Connections
        Referenced in Kamen Rider OOO, Den-O, & All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders (2011)
      • Soundtracks
        Zubat Of Hell
        Main Title Theme

        Composed by Kensuke Kyo

        Lyrics by Shoutarou Ishinomori

        Sung by Ichiro Mizuki

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      Details

      Edit
      • Release date
        • February 2, 1977 (Japan)
      • Country of origin
        • Japan
      • Language
        • Japanese
      • Also known as
        • 快傑ズバット
      • Production companies
        • Ishinomori Productions
        • Toei Company
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Tech specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        • 30m
      • Color
        • Color
      • Sound mix
        • Mono
      • Aspect ratio
        • 1.33 : 1

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