Zebraman is the name of a Japanese superhero who was introduced in a 2004 live action movie of the same name. The movie follows the antics of the titular character - a school teacher and family man called Shinichi Ichikawa - who dresses up as a character from a television show he watched when he was a kid. An unpopular tokusatsu show, it was cancelled after just seven episodes, much to Ichikawa's disappointment. He is inspired to fight crime as Zebraman thanks to one of his students - Shinpei Asano - a wheelchair-bound boy and fan of Zebraman whose mother serves as the love interest (and alter-ego of the character "Zebra Nurse") in the movie. Its true silliness comes from the fact that it is discovered that the Zebraman show was actually a cautionary prophecy of an imminent real-life alien invasion that was written by the principal of the school Ichikawa works at (a school that had experienced a spate of bizarre murders in recent times). In spite of knowing how the television show actually ended (not well), Ichikawa develops his prophecised powers and defeats the aliens before the United States can devastate the land with an airstrike on them.
