Fireman (1971)
Production: Tsuburaya Productions
Episodes: 30
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

I first learned about Fireman from an old issue of Oriental Cinema, in which the series was reviewed. It sounded very interesting as described by the reviewer, but at the time I had no means of getting copies of the show to check it out myself. It would not be till this year that I finally was able to hunt down some episodes and now I’m glad I did.

The Story

Deep in the Earth’s underground, near its core, lives a race of people known as the Agan. They are very sensitive to the light that our sun radiates on the surface of the planet and if exposed to it for longer than three minutes it causes their demise. Despite this danger, one brave Agan has decided to travel to the planet’s surface so that he may help protect mankind from new dangers that are making an appearance in the world.

In order to accomplish his mission successfully he joins forces with Misaki Daisuke, a member of the Scientific Attack Force (SAF). Now whenever trouble arises and our hero is needed Daisuke uses the Fire Stick to unleash the power of Fireman, a giant hero who will do everything in his power to help protect the Earth.

Review

Produced by Tsuburaya Productions in 1971, Fireman is an interesting show that capitalizes on the popularity of many of the company’s other hero programs, specifically the Ultraman series. Despite its obvious similarities to the better know Ultra-heroes, Fireman stands out in many respects and in some areas is even better than many of Tsuburaya’s other programs.

The area in which I found Fireman to better than many other shows in its genre is in the stories that were written for each episode. These were very mature in their nature and had a heavier element of serious science-fiction to them than many other hero programs of its time, which relied more on kid-friendly narratives that would be easier to digest. From the beginning of the show to its very unpredictable and sad end, Fireman demanded to be watched.

As usual with anything made by Tsuburaya the special effects were of the highest quality, albeit the optical effects seemed to be used in a limited fashion in this series. The most amazing work as far the effects go were done on the models and sets used to depict Fireman’s world. Everything from the houses/buildings to the military equipment that appeared to help Fireman fight the giant monsters was incredible.

Unlike the models used in the series and some of the other effects, I found the monsters that were used in Fireman to be a mixed bag. While most of them were just amazing to look at several of the costumes used were poorly done and disrupted the flow of the program when they appeared. In a way some of these monsters destroyed the illusion of Fireman’s world being a real one, you suddenly realized that you were watching two guys in rubber costume fighting on a small set full of miniatures. This sis omething that only affected a handful of episodes though and even then its probably not as bad I am describing it.

Finally, I like to note that the music in this show was excellent! After watching Fireman for this review I pulled out my Tsuburaya hero song collection and listened to some of the songs/music from the program. It had to be some of the best giant hero music ever recorded and I highly recommended for fans of tokusatsu music.

Conclusion

Fireman is the type of show that needs to be watched by all tokusatsu fans and as such I ask that you look it up and get some episodes to check out. I especially recommend it to those fans who may have only seen Tsuburaya’s better known Ultra-shows, as Fireman is a nice change of pace from those programs.

Jeffrey Couto