ougon bat (character)

The titular character from the Ougon Bat supernatural action superhero franchise. He is also known as Phantoma in English, Fantasmagórico in Spanish and Fantaman in Italian.

The character was created by writer Ichiro Suzuki and illustrator Takeo Nagamatsu in 1930. Ougon Bat made his debut in Kamishibai, a traveling show in which a sequence of pictures is narrated by a storyteller and was very famous before World War II.

In these early stories Ougon Bat was a superhero that had a golden skull shaped head, a green and white 17th century costume with a high collared red cape and was armed with a rapier sword. He possessed superhuman strength and invulnerability as well as the ability to fly. He also lived in a fortress in the Japanese Alps.

In the TV anime and the live action films from the 60s the character was a “God of justice and protector of the weak” from the ancient and legendary lost city of Atlantis who was put into suspended animation in a sarcophagus to be awakened in the future to fight the forces of evil. In the anime the character still has a golden skull head and the red cape, but now has a golden armored bodysuit and is armed with a staff.

In the cancelled late 90s remake the character was re-imagined with a new skinnier and more gruesome look with vampire fangs in the golden skull as well as having the ability to fly with bat wings instead of the original Superman-styled flight. The powers of Ougon Bat also were upgraded and he now has the ability to perform several powerful energy attacks.