Ambassador Magma

Ambassador Magma
Cover of the second volume from the Osamu Tezuka Manga Complete Works edition
マグマ大使 (Maguma Taishi)
Genre	Mecha
Manga
Written by	Osamu Tezuka
Published by	Shōnen Gahosha
Magazine	Shōnen Gaho
Original run	May 1965 – August 1967
Volumes	3
Television drama
Studio	P Productions
Original network	Fuji TV
Original run	July 4, 1966 – September 25, 1967
Episodes	52
Original video animation
Directed by	Hidehito Ueda
Studio	Bandai Visual, PLEX, Tezuka Productions
Released	1993
Episodes	13

Ambassador Magma (マグマ大使, Maguma Taishi^?) is the title and protagonist of a manga and tokusatsu TV series created by Osamu Tezuka. The TV series, produced by P Productions, aired on Fuji TV from July 4, 1966 to September 25, 1967, with a total of 52 episodes. It is the first color tokusatsu TV series in Japan, beating Ultraman to the airwaves by 6 days. The show later aired in the U.S., dubbed in English, as The Space Giants.

The alien invader Goa plots to conquer Earth. He first warns the Murakami family (father Atsushi, mother Tomoko, and son Mamoru) of their invasion, and demonstrates his powers by transporting them to a prehistoric jungle and destroying a Giant Dinosaur (in reality, Agon, the title monster of a Godzilla-like TV series) before their very eyes. But they will not agree to surrender to Goa, so hope comes in the form of Magma, an armored, golden giant with long hair and antennae. He and his human-sized wife Mol, both of whom were created by the wizard Earth (who indeed lives deep beneath the Earth), are sent to defend our world against Goa. They befriend Atsushi and Mamoru; the latter has touched Magma emotionally, as he wanted to have a child with his wife Mol, so Earth creates a duplicate of Mamoru, whom he names Gam, and who wears a white helmet, with built-in antennae, on his head. Earth gives Mamoru a whistle, with which he can call Gam (when blown once), Mol (when blown twice) and Magma (when blown thrice) in times of crisis. So when Goa unleashes his various daikaiju, chances are that Magma, Mol, and/or Gam will fly to the rescue.

Ambassador Magma, despite his robot-like appearance, is not a true robot, but actually a living giant forged from gold. In fact, true to his original manga appearance, in the series pilot opening, Tetsuya Uozumi, the actor who played Magma, actually wore gold make-up on his face. But such difficulties as Uozomi's own face turning beet-red, drowning out the gold makeup, quickly arose. The solution proved to be an easy one; in all the show's subsequent episodes, Uozumi wore a golden human-like mask.