Kyodai Hero

The inception of the Kyodai hero genre initially began with Godzilla in the film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.

Godzilla is portrayed as a personified natural disaster at first but over the course of the film franchise's many monster battles, he is gradually put into the position of protector of the human race, a key trope of the Kyodai Hero genre.

Though Godzilla established the minor concept of the Kyodai Hero, the genre technically began with P-Productions' live action adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Ambassador Magma which predated the popular Ultraman franchise, by six days.

The 1970s saw the uprising of Tokusatsu and Kyodai hero shows, which coexisted with and helped shape kaiju films of the era.

Many of the tokusatsu shows from the 70s era mainly featured Kyodai heroes such as Spectreman and Super Robot Red Baron.