First Human Giatrus

Giatrus (ギャートルズ) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Shunji Sonoyama. It spawned two other manga, two anime television series, a television drama, and an anime film. The first TV series mark the debut of Joe Hisaishi, composer of My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. The official English title is Gon, The Stone-Age Boy.

Manga
It was first published from 1965 to 1975 in Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha's Weekly Manga Sunday, and spawned two spin-off manga: the first, entitled First Human Gon (はじめ人間ゴン) and illustrated by Hideo Shinoda, was published in Gakken's Gakushū Magazine in 1966; the second, entitled First Human Giatrus (はじめ人間ギャートルズ), was published by Shogakukan's Gakunen Magazine in 1974.

Shunji Sonoyama won the 1976 Bungeishunjū Manga Award for his work on the manga series.

Anime series
The third manga was adapted by Tokyo Movie into a homonymous anime television series consisting in 77 episodes, which was broadcast on ABC between October 5, 1974, and March 27, 1976. Another anime was produced; this time Studio Pierrot adapted the second manga into a series directed by Yutaka Kagawa that originally ran from April 3, 1996, to January 22, 1997, in NHK-BS2.

Cast
Source:
 * First Human Giatrus
 * Gon: Hiroko Maruyama
 * Father: Kaneta Kimotsuki
 * Mother: Keiko Hanagata
 * Dotechin: Kazuya Tatekabe
 * Piko-chan: Rihoko Yoshida

Source:
 * First Human Gon
 * Gon: Ikue Ōtani
 * Father: Kenichi Ogata
 * Mather: Miyuki Ichijo
 * Dotechin: Chafurin
 * Piko-chan: Tomoko Kawakami
 * Mammoth / Saber-tooth tiger: Kazuhiro Ōguro
 * Shinigami: Kōji Ishii

Film
First Human Giatrus was adapted by Tokyo Movie into an anime film, which was released by Toho on March 15, 1975.

TV drama
The manga was adapted into a live-action Japanese television drama entitled Back to the Giatrus Days (バック・トゥ・ザ・ギャートルズ・デイズ). It was produced by Koji Matsuoka and starred Ryoko Takizawa, Katsuhisa Namase and Toshiya Sakai.