Back when I was a kid I used to love watching Ultimate Muscle, one of the first anime I truly got invested in after Pokémon. I was really into WWF at the time it was turning into WWE, so it was cool to a series that was a goofy take on wrestling and had a banging theme song to boot. Little did I know at the time that Ultimate Muscle was actually the sequel series to a series that began back in 1979, known as Kinnikuman in Japan.

The first anime adaptation of Kinnikuman began in 1983, and to commemorate its 40th anniversary there'll be a special exhibition on display at Tokyo Tower. Also, it's getting a brand new anime adaptation, but not much else other than this visual and this rather empty (for now) web page has been revealed thus far.

Kinnikuman was created by a duo known as Yudetamago (meaning boiled egg), consisting of writer Takashi Shimada and artist Yoshinori Nakai, and follows a superhero called Kinnikuman (muscle man) as he takes part in an intergalactic wrestling tournament to rightfully inherit the throne of planet Kinniku. The original manga ended in 1987 but was revived online by Yudetamago in 2011. It also had a sequel series called Kinnikuman Nisei about the son of the original Kinnikuman; which had an anime adaptation in 2002 released in the west as the Ultimate Muscle series I grew up with. The series has had a load of manga spin-offs, animated movies and video games, but the west's first exposure came as a line of collectible eraser figures called M.U.S.C.L.E. (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere), or Kinkeshi in Japan.

I'd wager this new series is a reboot of the OG Kinnikuman for modern audiences, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Over to you; have you had much experience with the Kinnikuman franchise? Did you watch the Ultimate Muscle anime way back when as well? Sound off below!