Secret Sentai Hurricane | Cover | Hiroshi Kaizuka | Adventure King 1966

Cover Illustration by Hiroshi Kaizuka for 'Secret Sentai Hurricane' (秘密戦隊ハリケーン)

Size : 25.5 x 36 cm cm 
Media: pencil & ink on paper (no zip-a-tone)
Condition : very good condition

Hurricane is a rare sci-fi spy adventure manga by the legendary Hiroshi Kaizuka, serialized in Akita Shoten’s popular monthly magazine Adventure King (Bōken-ō) from May to December 1966.


Capitalizing on the mid-60s ‘spy boom’ and the ‘tokusatsu’ (special effects) craze, the series follows the high-stakes exploits of Captain Azuma, Chibitan, and Minami, members of the Secret Squadron Hurricane, as they battle the villainous Joker XY Gang and their plot for world domination.

While Kaizuka was celebrated for his gritty World War II epics like Zero-sen Red and hot-blooded baseball manga such as Chi no Tamashii (Father's Soul), Hurricane represents a fascinating chapter in his career. In 1966, the massive success of Ultraman and Ultra Q pushed (by the editors of different mangazines) many top mangaka to steer towards science fiction to compete with, or to be aligned with, the spectacle of television.


Kaizuka rose to the challenge by blending his signature airplanes and his ‘hot-blooded’ character dynamics with the futuristic espionage elements made popular by the global James Bond and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. craze.


The series feels like a natural evolution of his earlier work; you can really see the DNA of his famous Zero fighters reimagined through a sci-fi lens in the squadron’s high-tech machinery.
Hurricane stands as a unique testament to a master mangaka adapting his talent to the ‘future-forward’ demands of 1960s Japan, a period where everything was in the idea of modernization !