Perman (パーマン) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by the manga artist duo Fujiko Fujio about a clumsy boy, Mitsuo Suwa, who is chosen to apprentice to a powerful superhero to save the world along with other superheroes. The manga series was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in 1967. The first anime series was first produced in black-and-white in 1967. The second anime series was made in color in 1983 with short films releasing in 1983, 2003 and 2004. The original manga which started serialization in 1966 was a joint work. Perman 2 (Booby), Kabao, Sabu, and Birdman (Superman) were drawn by Abiko. The continuation of the series serialized in 1983, was solely written by Fujimoto. Ninja Hattori-kun + Perman was serialized in 1984 and was written by Abiko alone. Two short films for the series were made in 1984 and 1985.

Plot

Mitsuo Suwa, a lazy young boy, meets an alien named Birdman, who is part of a group that maintains peace in the galaxy. Birdman recruits Mitsuo to become a Perman. Mitsuo is given three items. Birdman instructs Mitsuo that if a Perman's identity becomes known to others, he would be turned into animal (in the original work, his brain cells would be destroyed). To help keep Mitsuo's secret identity, Birdman gave Mitsuo a doppelgänger robot called a copy-robot, who takes Mitsuo's place when he is Perman. During his duty as Perman, Mitsuo meets other Permans; Booby, Perko and Peryan, (and Perbo in the original work), and they soon become best friends. Perman's story later revolves around the bonding between the Permans and their adventures of averting crime and disasters. Eventually, Birdman picks one of them to go to Bird Planet in order to train to be his successor, the one who was chosen was Mitsuo and he bids farewell to his family and friends (in secret) and all of the other Permans promising to one day return as the best Perman, with his copy robot taking his place on Earth.

Characters

Main characters

Supporting characters

Antagonists

Media

Manga

The manga was written by Fujiko Fujio and published from 1966-1968 and 1983-1986. It was published by the Japanese company, Shogakukan, and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It has 7 tankōbon.

Anime

Two anime television series based on the manga were produced. The first television series, consisting of 54 two-part episodes, was produced by Tokyo Movie with music composed by Hiroshi Tsutsui. It was broadcast on TBS from April 2, 1967, to April 14, 1968. Certain episodes are lost and some episodes have lost their audio. This version was dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese and Mexican Spanish. The second anime television series was produced by Shin-Ei Animation under the direction Hiroshi Sasagawa and Sadayoshi Tominaga with Akihiko Takashima composing the music. The series was first broadcast every Monday through Saturday on TV Asahi from April 4, 1983, to March 30, 1985, for a total of 526 episodes. Starting on April 2, 1985, the series was rebroadcast and concluded on July 2, 1987.