Series / Ultraman

"Our Hero Ultraman".

"From the Land of Light, for all our sakes, here he comes, our Ultraman!"

Ultraman is a Sci-Fi Super Hero television show in the Japanese Toku and Kaiju tradition, which aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from July 17, 1966 to April 9, 1967, with a total of 39 episodes (40, counting the pre-premiere special that aired on July 10, 1966). It was created by Eiji Tsuburaya from his Tsuburaya Productions, a pioneer in special effects who was responsible for bringing Godzilla to life in 1954.

It is the second edition of the Ultra Series Franchise and the first to have an Ultraman.

The storyline begins in the near "future," established in one episode as the early 1990s. As with the Kaiju movies, e.g., Godzilla and his various oversized playmates, Earth is under the near-constant threat of attack by sinister aliens and giant monsters, most of them focusing, for obviously convenient reasons, on Japan. The Science Patrol, a special international police force, is the only organization on Earth capable of handling this barrage of threats, although even they are consistently overmatched. But little do they know, the second-in-command of the Patrol's Japanese headquarters, Hayata, can transform secretly into the giant super-humanoid from "a billion miles away," Ultraman.

The series begins when Hayata, flying his plane on a routine mission, inadvertently crosses paths with a red sphere of light (called a "ship" in the English dub, but more resembling a red crystal ball) containing Ultraman, who is pursuing an alien monster. Hayata is killed in the crash, and out of remorse, Ultraman merges his life essence with Hayata to resurrect him. From then on, Hayata serves as Ultraman's human form, and depresses a button on a cylindrical device called a Beta Capsule to transform into Ultraman in times of need — almost always at 19 minutes into each 24-minute episode.

Ultraman stands 40 meters (130 feet) tall, weighs 35,000 tons, and is 20,000 Earth years old. He can fly at Mach 5 in essentially the same manner as Superman, has super-strength, and is in possession of various superpowers, sometimes rather surprising ones that only appear once. Most, but not all, of his special abilities involve animated energy beams or rings that he emits from his hands.

Upon first transforming from Hayata to Ultraman, a large disk in the center of his chest, his Warning Light (a.k.a. the Color Timer), shines a steady blue color. However, as he exerts himself, the Warning Light changes to red, then blinks with increasing rapidity, and a helpful narrator informs us, "The energy that Ultraman receives from the Sun diminishes rapidly in Earth's atmosphere. The Warning Light begins to blink. Should it stop completely, it will mean that Ultraman will never rise again."

There's a manga continuation that is serialized in Japan by Shogakukan and in North America by Viz Media that deals with the aftermath of the series when his son continues with his Ultraman duties that has since been adapted into an anime for Netflix in 2019. A Japan Animator Expo short called The Ultraman based on Mamoru Uchiyama's manga was released on September 4, 2015.

Not to be confused with Superman's Evil Counterpart from Earth-3.

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Ultraman provides examples of the following tropes:

• All Myths Are True: If a legend exists about an ancient monster, you can bet Ultraman's going to have to fight it in the next half hour... or is the myth himself, in one case.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Far too many examples to list, mostly employed and/or sought after by the Science Patrol.
• Art Evolution: From the rough-around-the-edges Type A Ultraman mask (first 13 episodes) to Type B (more refined; used for the next 10 or so episodes) to Type C (even better-looking; used during the rest of the show). Those changes were for the better.
  • For one of the recent movies, Ultraman's CGI design was based on Type A.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: its basically the premise of the entire show.
• Arch-Nemesis: The Alien Baltans, and Alien Mefilas. The former being Ultraman's most iconic enemy, while the latter being a Worthy Opponent and Evil Counterpart.
• Badass Teacher: Before coming to Earth and beginning his long career as a superhero, Ultraman was a university professor on his home planet.
• Badass Normal: Gomora is nothing more than an extraordinarily large Earth dinosaur, and its only special ability is tunneling through the ground (which it doesn't use in combat), yet it is the only monster to take two episodes to beat.
• The Cameo: Bin Furuya (Ultraman's suit actor) as a bellhop in "The Mysterius Dinosaur Base". His mentor, Haruo Nakajima, was the suit actor for Jirass.
• Combat Tentacles
• Cool Car: The Science Patrol-use car. Essentially a toughened Chevrolet Corvair (director Hajime Tsuburaya's car, in fact, with stickers slapped on the body during photography).
• Cool Gun: The Science Patrol standard-issue Supergun, as well as the Mars 133/Ichi-San-San.
• Cool Old Guy: Ultraman is 20,000 years old, and when presented with the chance to return to M-78, demands that Hayata be revived instead, reasoning that the comparatively young human needs the time more than he does.
  • Behind the scenes, Akiji Kobayashi (Muramatsu) was this to the other actors, who apparently called him 'Cap' off-set as well.
• Cool Plane: The Jet VTOL is a multi-purpose workhorse capable of Mach 2.2 and roomy seating.
• Creepy Monotone: Ultraman himself when he and Hayata first met - he has an odd echo to his voice, and this appears to be his speaking voice rather than telepathic inter-alien communication.
• Critical Annoyance: Ultraman's Warning Light/Color Timer may even be the Trope Maker.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Generally avoided - most of the Kaiju put up a decent fight, when it was clear that they could fight - but there's a couple of exceptions. Dada spends his episode chasing after the last two human specimens he needs... and one of them is Muramatsu, so that just goes over poorly. Then, Dada gets to fight Ultraman himself, and man is it one-sided.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Nintendo DS game Kaiju Busters functions as this for the Science Patrol. The game is a more sciencey take on the Monster Hunter formula, featuring Science Patrol members who manage to defeat various classic Ultraman monsters without an Ultraman's help. Unless you unlock the hidden Legend Weapons, which are all red and silver with a little blue Warning Light/Color Timer on them, and are even created from Specium ore.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: A rare toku aversion, most of the monsters just die. Possibly an Unbuilt Trope at that point in toku history.
• Doppelgänger Spin: Alien Baltan can generate illusional copies of himself to disorientate foes.
• Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: Hoshino, a young boy who becomes the Science Patrol's unofficial mascot.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: There's many, just because this show pretty much kick-started the genre. Unlike the later defense organizations, for example, the Science Patrol has a more 'civilian defense' feel to it, more public servant than military. The alien invasions are largely one-man shows, the defense team's jet is borderline indestructible, etc.
  • Likewise the Ultras aren't portrayed as kind-hearted as they would be in future installments, with Ultraman making some rather brutal kills while taunting his opponents and Zoffy showing no concern for the life of Shin Hayata in the final episode when separating him from Ultraman, and requiring the latter to talk him out of leaving Hayata's body to die and letting him heal the human.
• Eye Lights Out: After Zetton defeated him.
• Energy Weapon:
  • Ultraman typically uses them as finishers, relying more on wrestling moves until that point.
  • The Science Patrol's weapons don't have recoil, and none of them, strictly speaking, are 'lasers' in the usual sense. The Supergun is rendered as more of an electric wave, the Spidershot gets used more as a flamethrower, etc. Even the Mars 133, which is depicted with the usual 'laser' effect, is actually a Specium ray gun and is fired from a mounted or recoil-absorbing position like a rifle.
  • And then Ultraman's energy attacks are actual energy bullets.
• Expository Theme Tune: Interestingly, the US/English version of the theme song is far more expository than the original Japanese version, or it may be just a case of cultural difference: both praise Ultraman, but the English version stresses his powers, and how he saves the day, while the Japanese version praises him in far more abstract/metaphorical ways — "he is our Shining Star," etc.)
• Expy: Just as Ultra Q had its own expy of Godzilla - Gomess (who has gone on to appear in some of the newer Ultraman series entries), Ultraman has Jirass, who looks even more like Godzilla. Like Gomess, Jirass's suit was made of two Godzilla suits (a body and a head) put together, repainted and modified.
• Family-Unfriendly Death/Family-Unfriendly Violence: Despite most series being kid's shows, monsters, and sometimes Ultras are often blown up, have limbs sliced off, or are brutally killed. Series creator Eiji Tsuburaya took note of this and decided to tone down the violence after the first 10 episodes or so. Though monsters like Red King II still get sliced into thirds, there is no blood present. However, Eiji soon decided to include blood and gore in the second Ultra Series show, Ultraseven, but much less criticism resulted.
• Glass Cannon: Ultraman, due to his three-minute limit and Color Timer preventing him from fighting on Earth for too long.
• Gonk: The human antagonist in "The Ruffian from Outer Space" has a scruffy appearance, which turns grotesque when he laughs during the prank montage.
• Henshin Hero: Hayata has no super-powers while in human form, beyond special training as a Science Patrol agent.
• Hour of Power: It became a hallmark of the franchise that after transforming, Ultraman only had a few minutes [usually three] to deal with the monster or he'd die.
  • The 'Three Minute' rule was apparently because there was only so much time the production company could devote to the giant-size battles due to cost, and 1/10 of the 30-minute running time seemed about right.
• Implacable Mon: Zetton. None of Ultraman's abilities work against it.
  • This actually happens a few times (Keronia, Alien Mefilas, etc.), but Zetton is unique in deploying an effective counter-attack before Ultraman can find something that works.
• Improbable Weapon User: Ultraman uses wrestling moves, self-generated energy attacks and very rarely psychic powers.
• Improbably High I.Q.: Alien Mefilas's IQ is stated as 10,000. He's also the only other alien who communicates directly with humans, without a translation device.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Happens to Arashi in the episode "Don't Shoot, Arashi!" when he disobeys orders and recklessly opens fire on a monster, endangering civilians (including children) thereby.
• It Amused Me: The human antagonist in "The Ruffian from Outer Space" decided to use the magic alien orb to create Gyango. Why? To prank people and laugh about it. He got what he wanted...
• Kaiju: The backbone of the series. The Science Patrol is, essentially, a specialized response to them and other supernatural phenomena.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Once Alien Mefilas acknowledges that his and Ultraman's powers are too evenly matched, he calls off the fight, declares that he will return to conquer the Earth another time and teleports out.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: When Ultraman leaves, Hayata gets his time combined with him erased as a side effect of being revived.
• Last Episode, New Character: Zoffy, Ultraman's superior officer in his home planet, only appears in the final episode of this series, but goes on to become a key character in subsequent Ultra shows and movies.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The opening shot of the second episode appears to be Ide talking about how he got his black eye to someone we can't see - but he tells his story directly to the camera. (This is because that's the pilot episode.)
• Licensed Pinball Table: "Ultra Legend Pinball", a re-skinned version of the "Gladiators" pinball from the iOS version of Last Gladiators.
• Master of Delusion
• Meaningful Name: All of the Kaiju had this. "Bemlar", for example, was one of the possible names for Ultraman, during planning stages = the name of Ultraman's first opponent.
  • Zetto (last letter of the Latin alphabet) + N (last letter of the Japanese language) = Zetton, the ultimate alien badass.
• Monster of the Week: Again, if not the source of this trope, Ultraman is an archetypal example.
  • Mascot Mook Red King, Gomora, Zetton, Baltan, Alien Mefilas, Sadora, and Pigmon just to name a few.
• Memetic Hand Gesture: The Specium Ray hand pose. Almost every Ultra Series hero and many non-Ultra Series giant heroes do a version of it.
• Narrator: Koji Ishizaka up to Episode 19, Hikaru Urano thereafter.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Who knew Ultraman could just levitate the monsters when necessary? And wouldn't that have come in handy in, um, most of the other episodes?
  • In the second Baltan-seijin episode, while he and a few others are stranded on Venus while Earth is under attack, he suddenly gains the power of interplanetary teleportation. Convenient, but the series justifies its limited use by explaining that using that ability takes a lot of power, enough that his Color Timer starts blinking upon arrival.
  • His psychic powers are established as rather draining (Hayata collapses after the teleportation), and he hesitates to use them without a pressing reason - generally, when his normal attacks are ineffective or would be ill-advised to use.
• Never Say "Die": If the fight lasts too long, Ultraman will never rise again. Actually an aversion, since Ultraman doesn't actually die in any sense of the word from his timer running out.
• Nightmare Face: Dada, Mummy Man, Gyango, Alien Zarab, Alien Mefilas, and even Ultraman (type A mask, who looks like he's falling apart).
• No-Sell: Zetton deflects or neutralizes all of Ultraman's attacks. It took the Science Patrol firing a new bullet made of Phlebotinum to blow him away at the end.
• Oh, Crap!: Ultraman pulls off an excellent silent example when Zetton teleports out of view during the final battle.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Episode 39, notably. Subverted when Zoffy revives the hero to take him back to M-78... and even revives Hayata in the process.
  • Hayata actually dies in the first episode, and is revived only through Ultraman's intervention.
• People in Rubber Suits: Ultraman and the kaiju foes he fights are portrayed this way, and in two cases, the kaiju of the week is played by two suit actors in a single suit.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Science Patrol member Ide, known as Ito in the English dubbed version, is a bumbling and cowardly klutz who is also the team's weapons designer. Subverted in a couple of episodes, wherein Ide/Ito actually provides the most tear-jerkingly dramatic moments.
• Reality Warper: Bullton, an Eldritch Abomination that can cause all sorts of four-dimensional weirdness by firing beams from its metallic antennae.
• Recycled INSPACE: Though you can count on one hand the number of times Ultraman fights off-planet.
• Reluctant Monster:
  • Pigmon, who despite being quite monstrous-looking is only human-sized and just wants to help people (unlike Garamon from Ultra Q, which seems to have worked against him in his second appearance). And then there's Gavadon, who really doesn't do much except sleep, and Skydon, who sleeps and is really heavy.
  • Both Ultraman and the Science Patrol recognize when this his happening, and try to spare monsters who aren't deliberately harmful.
• Rings of Death: The Ultra Slash, a razor sharp energy ring that the hero occasionally uses to slice the Monster of the Week in half — or on one occasion, in thirds.
• Rule of Cool: Bizarrely adhered to in-universe in one episode: a monster arises from a child's drawing during the day (cosmic rays + sunlight = Kaiju. No sunlight, no beastie.) It also never attacks unless provoked. They discuss what to do about it, talking about the damage that would be done if they did do battle with it. When Ito says they can simply erase it while it's dormant, the chief actually says that that is too dull a solution, and they'll have a proper, fair-and-square fight when it reappears in the morning (keep in mind here that they have orders from above to do so, and don't actually know where the picture is). The chief was dead serious about having a city-wrecking battle the monster's temperament doesn't even make necessary because the safe solution wasn't as interesting. Getting it out of the city by non-violent means doesn't even come up at the strategy meeting.
• Rule of Symbolism: Frequent use of crosses and Christian symbolism (especially the famous "sign of the cross" gesture Ultraman makes to invoke the Specium Beam; creator Tsuburaya was a (Catholic) Christian^note Though apparently the creators had 'a ninja's throwing star position' in mind.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Zetton's fireballs are explicitly said to be one trillion degrees hot. That much energy would probably be enough to destroy the Earth several times over, yet all it does is light the ground on fire and break a few windows in the Science Patrol HQ. A book on sci-fi science analysed it and estimated a single such fireball would emit a Gamma-ray burst so powerful it would wipe out all life within 200 light years and consume so much energy, if Zetton is entirely made of fusion material, compared to the entire Earth he would need to be the size of a normal man standing on a tennis ball.
• Shoe Phone: The Science Patrol communicators are the little badges they wear on their lapel. Pull out the antenna, and off you go.
• Sizeshifter: Most, but not all, of the aliens either do this or are capable of it. (The Zettonian in the last episode gets shot dead before we find out if it can or not, for example.)
• The Smurfette Principle: Fuji is the only female member at the Japanese Science Patrol headquarters, and what's worse, she's the communications officer. Justified, barely, as being made in 1966; averted when possible as Fuji herself is aware of it, goes on field missions on a regular basis, and is by all means a competent Science Patrol member.
• Spell My Name with an S: Quite a few things. For example, the space monster/thing "Bullton"? The name almost certainly comes from Andre Breton - and that explains the whole episode, doesn't it.
• Stone Wall: The Jet VTOL looks basic, but can take a ridiculous amount of punishment and still land properly (at one point taking a direct hit from something that straight-up explodes Phantom F-4s). Even the Mini VTOL requires something like Ultraman's Travel Sphere colliding with it at Mach speeds to put the pilot in danger.
• Strictly Formula: Weird stuff happens. Surprise, it's caused by a giant monster. The Science Patrol tries to take care of it, fails, Hayata gets separated from the others, gets big, fights the monster — oh, no, the warning light is blinking! But Ultraman wins Just in Time and flies off. Hayata returns, never to be asked why he's always coming back just after Ultraman leaves. (The show takes pains to put him in the sort of situation where the others realistically wouldn't question his absence.) The end. At least, those are the Stations of the Canon that nearly every episode must visit; the situations actually are quite varied. It's just always a giant monster causing it, or being sent by whoever did.
• Superpowered Alter Ego: Ultraman is this to Hayata. (In practice, it's not actually clear to what extent Ultraman-Hayata is Hayata, or is Ultraman.)
• Super Speed
• Symbiotic Possession: The reason Ultraman takes a human host is to save Hayata's life, and in exchange Ultraman gets to stay on Earth. They remain two distinct beings, and in the last episode, they separate to let Hayata stay on Earth while the big guy goes back to M-78 to recover after his defeat at the hands of Zetton.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the episode "Coast Guard Command" the human villain, a gangster named Diamond-Kick first instinct when he sees the monster Gesura outside the building he is in? Shoot at it with a revolver. This, of course, upsets Gesura who goes about destroying the entire building Diamond-Kick is in. Surprisingly he survives but is captured by the science patrol at the end of the episode.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: the Science Patrol is described as having numerous branches in other locations, with an HQ in Paris - we're only shown the adventures of the Japan branch, is all.
• Toku: Pretty much kickstarted the genre on Television.
• Transformation Sequence: Nothing like the elaborate Super Sentai or Metal Heroes ones. After Hayata raises his Transformation Trinket, we get a stock-footage scene of Ultraman growing into action. Of course, the technology of the decade prohibited such things from getting too fancy, and the nature of the transformation^note Strictly speaking, the Ultras don't need to use a Transformation Trinket specifically, and can transform without them. But having a device greatly simplifies the process, and they don't have to worry about forgetting how to transform means that simple is better.
• Transformation Trinket: The Beta Capsule. (Basically a modified multi-cartridge pen.)
  • And, briefly, a spoon.
• Translation Convention: Justified as a rule. Any time any non-human (including Ultraman) is heard speaking Japanese, there's either a justification along these lines (Zarab-seijin can't actually communicate with anyone else without a computer to go through, the Dadas are only intelligible when speaking to each other, the Alien Baltans have to possess a human or go through the Pan-Universal Translator, etc.) or they've obviously taken the time to learn an Earth language (notably Keronia, whose broken Japanese is explained as Gotou having been away from Japan for so long that he's begun to forget it). Alien Mefilas doesn't get one, but it's entirely within his character to have learned Japanese somehow.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot
• True Companions: The Science Patrol.
• Unbuilt Trope:
  • The episode "The Monster Graveyard" can be seen as a Deconstruction of the Monster of the Week formula that Ultraman helped popularize. Going through the monster graveyard, they see past monsters' corpses and start to empathize with them, questioning the morality of killing them for the simple crime of being inconveniences to humanity; showing at the end of the day Monster of the Week formula is basically killing a living, breathing creature every week.
  • The aliens in the series avert the Aliens Speaking English trope that is common in many Toku involving aliens. Most of them have trouble communicating with humanity, and often have to use a translator or possess a human to understand the language, even the main hero Ultraman never communicates with anyone else besides his host and Zoffy, another one of his kind. The only exception is Alien Mefilas, but he has a 10,000 IQ; so it makes sense why he could learn the language.
  • This series introduced the Transformation Trinket to toku superhero shows, but unlike later tokusatsu works, it's not just there to look cool. First, the transformations are extremely quick, completely eschewing Transformation Isa Free Action—and even with its relative quickness, sometimes Hayata is interrupted before he can transform. Second, the device is often used to heighten drama, either being knocked away during an intense moment, or stolen by an enemy, making the Transformation Trinket more of a hindrance that must be overcome to save the day rather than a simple cool gimmick.
  • Ultraman being killed by Zetton in the Final Battle doesn't lead to a Heroic Second Wind, the Science Patrol are just left to kill Zetton on their own. He and Hayate are brought Back from the Dead by Zoffy, but only after the action is already over.
• Wham Episode: "Don't Shoot, Arashi!" Arashi, the team's shooter, goes off-policy and opens fire on a monster during an incident where there are large groups of schoolchildren present who are at risk from his actions. He gets (temporarily) drummed out of the Science Patrol as a result.
  • Also, Gomora's fight with Ultraman that resulted in a draw brought kids to shock, as Ultraman lost a fight for the first time in the show's run.
  • "My Home Is Earth", a beautifully-shot episode where the MOTW is revealed to be a Space Race astronaut named Jamila who was mutated by exposure to an alien atmosphere and painstakingly repaired his ship to return to Earth, only to be hunted down by the Science Patrol because his return threatened to expose the cover story over his initial disappearance. Emotions run wild among the group, with Plucky Comic Relief Ide sympathizing with his plight as a pioneer of science. Jamila appears on Earth and is truly enraged, storming towards a UN Conference and kicking down the flags and construction cranes outside as he tries to advance on the building. Ultraman tries to stop him, but ultimately is forced to kill the mutated human. Jamila dies at the hands of Ultraman's Ultra Shower on waterlogged ground in horrific pain, mere yards from the very people he wanted to stop. A memorial plaque is placed in this spot, but Ide bitterly notes that the lofty words of politicians mean nothing compared to their actions.
• What If?: The Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3 game had an unlockable alternate ending to the Final Battle. If you hold off Zetton long enough as Ultraman before losing, Zoffy arrives in time to fight Zetton himself instead of after him. After destroying Zetton, things essentially progress the same as the series did.
• When Trees Attack: Greenmons.
• Worthy Opponent: On several occasions. One of the most notable is episode 10, when Ultraman has to deal with a Godzilla Expy (it was in fact an old Godzilla suit with a ruff around it's neck) in Scotland; after the battle in which Ultraman vanquishes the monster, ripping the ruff off his neck during the fight, Ultraman respectfully — in fact, tenderly — replaces the ruff around his defeated enemy's neck.
  • Ultraman makes a distinct effort to try to avoid killing his enemy on several occasions if there's a chance he can fulfill his mission while preserving his opponent's life (for instance, in the Gabadon episode).
  • Alien Mefilas sees Ultraman as this, and honorably calls off the battle when he realizes that he's beaten.
• Wrestler in All of Us: In contrast to some of the later Ultras who rely more on fancy energy attacks, Ultraman relies mainly on good old fashioned wrestling moves. This is even reflected in his design, the red markings on his skin(?) resembling an Olympic wrestler's singlet.

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