Gold Lightan

Golden Warrior Gold Lightan
Screenshot showing Gold Lightan reaching his hand out to Hiro.
黄金戦士ゴールド・ライタン (Ōgon Senshi Gōrudo Raitan)
Genre	Mecha
Anime television series
Directed by	Kōichi Mashimo
Studio	Tatsunoko Production
Original network	Tokyo 12 TV
Original run	1 March 1981 – 18 February 1982
Episodes	52(List of episodes)

Golden Warrior Gold Lightan (黄金戦士ゴールド・ライタン, Ōgon Senshi Gōrudo Raitan) is a mecha anime television series that aired from 1981 to 1982 in Japan. The show was also popular in Hong Kong and was aired there around the same time. There are 52 episodes that were aired at 30 minutes each.

The story is about a young boy named Hiro Taikai who finds a gold lighter which turns out to be the giant Golden Warrior Gold Lightan with the mission to save the earth from an invasion by King Ibalda. Gold Lightan joined forces with his robot teammates to ruin the plots of King Ibalda and destroy invading alien robots by using his surpassing hand and leg strikes. Hiro also founded a group called the "Bratty Rangers" with his friends.

The robot is usually disguised as a tiny gold Zippo-style lighter in Hiro's pocket. When called upon, Gold Lightan transforms into a giant robot towering at 30 meters and weighing 200 tons. All robots in the show are sentient and do not require pilots. Usually the robot ends a battle with a trademark golden hand stab move which drives a hand strike cutting the enemy robots body, pulling out and smashing the heartbox energy device.

In 2005, Hong Kong Bandai reissued the semi-original robots as part of the Soul of Chogokin label. The individual robots were released with a hard plastic display case, robot footstand, red carpet storage box, interchangeable gold hands pieces, and an enemy's heartbox energy device. This version also feature the robots with high quality 18K gold plating. The toys can be purchased individually or as a set. There are 2 known sets in the reissues. one is the first generation grey box, available in Hong Kong and Japan, featuring 6 of the robots; the other is an exclusive redcarpet wooden box set, known to be available only in Japan, featuring all 11 robots.

Later, in 2005, replicas were re-released by Hung Hing toys in Hong Kong and Macau featuring the robots built in cheaper die-cast metals. The texture and few minor details were inconsistent between the products. Multiple variations of the toys were sold as well. One such version is the large toy Gold Lightan measuring at 11.5 inches in height when standing in robot form, although only 2,000 were manufactured. Additionally, at the base of the foot, of the toy, is a label counting the manufactured number out of 2,000. Other variations include team robots in different colors or grey low weight plastic/silver exclusive to Hong Kong and Macau.