As remarked before the 1960s were a time of firsts for television anime, and that's certainly no different when it comes to 1968. In January, GeGeGe no Kitarô popularized the yôkai anime genre, introducing the world to all of the unique supernatural monsters of Japan and paving the path for other pseudo-horror successes in the same year (Kaibutsu-kun, Yôkai Ningen Bemu). In March, Star of the Giants (Kyojin no Hoshi), the popular baseball manga from Ikki Kajiwara and Noboru Kawasaki, became the first sports anime to hit TV and presented four years of surreal baseball drama.Since the advent of the Astro Boy series in 1963, 1968 was the first year to see no new adaptations from Osamu Tezuka's body of work. However, the preeminent anime of this year is undoubtedly the work of his one-time protege and one of the most influential manga creators of all time: Shôtarô Ishinomori, who got his big break in the 1950s working on the Astro Boy manga as Tezuka's assistant.
