Barom One

Barom One (バロム・1) is a Japanese manga series written by Takao Saito. Original story was serialized for about a year from 1970 in Weekly Bokura Magazine (週刊ぼくらマガジン).

In 1972, TV tokusatsu series were created titled Chojin Barom 1 by Toei, and broadcast by Yomiuri TV in every Saturday 19:30-20:00pm from April 2 to November 26. In this TV series, original story and its design by Saito were widely changed.

And an anime version was created and broadcast from December 2002 to March 2003 by Anime Theater-X. Also in this version the plot and story were changed from its original version.

Plot
One night, a monster comes out from a lake and starts attacking the childhood and born-in-the-same-day friends Takeshi Kido and Kentaro Shiratori. When the monster is about to kill both of them, a thing called Kopu calls and tells them that they are the chosen to protect the world from the Evil creature Doruge. Kopu gives a radar to Kentaro and Takeshi and the ability to transform into the powerful monster Barom One by joining their hands. Now both boys must destroy the monsters possessed by Goumon.

References to Barom One in other media
In Battle Royale manga during Yumiko Kusaka and Yukiko Kitano's flashbacks in the second volume (Shuuya Nanahara illustrates a point by mentioning the two main characters of the story).

After being their bodies swapped, Excel and Hyatt from Excel Saga return to normal after Nabeshin's instructions to fusion themselves as a monster that is very similar to Barom One (even Excel says she wanted to be Takeshi).