Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/10/thankfully-streaming-services.html
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I was more of an Ultraman fan myself.
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I loved Ultraman as well. Los Angeles area early AM programming in the 70s and early 80s.
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Fuck yeah!
Going back to it as an adult, I like that there is a character arc for the Robot as well as a nice closure to the series. There are a few obvious “filler” episodes with vampires, an alien … easy to disregard.
But watch how the Robot begins the series as a very mechanical machine but then his “AI” starts to attach to Johnny and the Unicorns (most esp. demonstrated by Mari in one specific episode). Consider that the final action of the Robot is to defy a direct order from Johnny — something everyone understood he could not do.
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In the face of a whole shitload of missiles fired from a giant robot’s fingertips… there can be no discussion (I always say).
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Isn’t this kind of a rip-off of Gigantor (Tetsujin), which was a cartoon?
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Could be seen that way; Gigantor very clearly pre-dated Johnny S.
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Comet TV was airing episodes for a while. I get it as Digital Over-the-Air, but they now have a Roku channel, according to the website.
From the episodes I saw, it was a really cute show. I always wonder how much I’m losing in translation between the original language and the English dub.
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I was a fan of anything that was on after school. I loved Johnny Sokko, one year.
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I’ve never seen anything from this show, but know the theme song mainly via Buckethead, who has played multliple versions of the theme over the years, as well as Otomo Yoshihide’s epic cover
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This was one of those oddball series shown on New Brunswick (Canada) TV that it seems no one has ever heard of outside of there - at least until now. I have to admit when I found out it was on iTunes I just had to grab it. Simultaneously how I remembered it an not at all at the same time 
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Ultraman, Johnny Sokko, and The Space Giants pretty much ate up my afternoons.
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Basically the series was “Ultraman, but more tacky and gruesome.”
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You all get off my lawn, here’s my guy…
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I had to search for that one, just to make sure I didn’t imagine the whole thing…
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IMO, it had the best theme. 
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[why not both? gif]
Oh yeah, and Spectreman. (Which I liked for its horror-themed stories, and was willing to overlook its incredibly cheap production values.)
That was the appeal. (Also of “Spectreman.”)
Oh yeah, that too. For some reason I remember the show being called “Goldar,” even though it wasn’t, anywhere, as far as I can tell. Weird.
Still the first thing that comes to mind when the light on my electric toothbrush starts flashing…
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So the similarities are no coincidence, nor were they a result of one creator ripping off another. Gigantor, or Tetsujin 28-go, was originally a manga created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. Johnny Socko and His Flying Robot, originally Giant Robo, was created later as a loose adaptation of the same story, and the executive producer was Mitsuteru Yokoyama. So there you go.
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