Fragments recovered from The Man Beneath the Mask.

During the twilight autumn of 1967, the life of Mizuka Hiro, a young experimental theatre actor and stunt performer working on low-budget tokusatsu series, changed forever when he became a legend by portraying the first Masked Titano.

Nicknamed by the press of the time “the chameleon of Fukuoka”, Hiro was known for his ability to disappear completely into his characters. But it was beneath Titano’s mask that he found the unexpected role that would define both his brief career and his fate. He choreographed every fight himself, designed the now-famous transformation pose, and explicitly requested that no stunt doubles be used. For Hiro, every explosion, every blow, every fall was an essential part of the hero’s nature.

A total of 13 episodes, each 24 minutes long, were filmed, but only 12 were ever broadcast. The dark thirteenth episode —the supposed series finale— would never make it to air. Years later, the original reel was reduced to ashes, along with other classics of the era, in the archive warehouse of the legendary Kurokusa Sutajio 黒藻スタジオ (Black Seaweed Studio), during a controversial fire in October 1978. Since then, the lost episode has fuelled strange theories, obsessions, and more than a few outrageous legends among the most devoted fans and collectors.

Mizuka Hiro died five years after the series premiered, in a tragic motorcycle accident on the lonely eastern road —the Domokki Road— in Aomori Prefecture, during the first snowfall of the year.

He was 31 years old.

After several reboots of the series with different actors, his figure still survives in yellowed fanzines, and his long shadow remains: in the gestures, the poses, and in those fans who still remember that —the first— was the only one who never truly acted.

The original Titano.

Mizuka Hiro. The First Masked Titano.