Series REVIEW: Zone Fighter
At the height of Japan's second monster boom, declining theatre attendance saw Toho look toward bringing their particular brand of superhero/monster tokusatsu to television - inspired by Tsuburaya Productions ' revival of the Ultra Series through The Return of Ultraman and Ultraman Ace . With the popular Godzilla franchise at their disposal naturally these plans would somehow involve the King of Monsters, but although Godzilla himself was effectively a superhero by this point a different kind of hero to be the face of the series. The result was 1973's Ryusei Ningen Zone ( Meteor Man Zone ), copyrighted in the US as and perhaps best known as Zone Fighter . The second of Toho's superhero shows after the previous year's Rainbowman , Zone Fighter curiously combined elements of both kyodai (giant) and henshin (transforming) heroes. The series ran for a total of 26 episodes, however due a combination of low ratings and financial woes caused by the 1973 oil crisis no...