Ultraman Ace / YMMV

Anvilicious: Namahage in "Resurrection! The Father of Ultra" while appearing first simply as a Grinch archetype it becomes very clear that he's more of a criticism of Japanese xenophobia of other cultures particularly the Western ones.
Namahage: Snowgiran, trample him! Crush the westernized trash!
Namahage: Kick out those Western creatures from Japan.
Ass Pull:
- The episode "Life of the Sun, Life of Ace", before the battle Minami is in critical condition after doing a life-threatening technique as Ace and later Ace is killed by Doragory but is able to stop them from destroying the rocket which in turn destroys the meteorite Goran, saving the earth. Additionally, the destruction of Goran not only revives Ace but restores Minami's strength in human form. They do not even attempt to explain how the destruction of Goran could do either of these things.
- In "Resurrection! The Father of Ultra" at the end of the episode while the monster is defeated it blinded many innocent people, luckily the Father of the Ultra brought Minami with him who can heal eyesight. The series never alluded to her having healing powers or even foreshadowing that she was going to show up in the episode.
Awesome Music:
- The opening theme, especially the string section at the end...
- TAC's theme. An instrumental is frequently heard, but a vocal version was sung by TAC after Minami left.
- Bizet's Toreador Song from Episode 10
- Debussy's Clair de Lune.
- Once again, "Fight! Ultra Seven", heard when Ace destroyed Ace Killer with the Space Q.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
- Muruchi's brief and sudden appearance to help Doragory and Metron Jr. in the Episodes 7-8 two-parter. and then for some reason that only makes sense to Doragory, he murders Muruchi in the most brutal death of the entire Ultra Series and then the fight resumes like nothing happened.
- The second episode of the Alien Hipporito two-parter. The Ultra Brothers are turned into statues, most of TAC's forces failed to defeat the alien, and in the Darkest Hour, comes an incredibly weird chase scene between a TAC jet and Hipporito's Super-Persistent Missile, to the tune of Can-Can (!!!). With the song accelerating at a wacky speed before the pilots jettisons their ride.
- Children sing the Ultraman Ace theme song in a Christmas episode. Do they realize they gave away Ace's secret identity?!?
Fair for Its Day: Tsuburaya Productions wrote the Ultras with no concept of gender inequality, thus the reason both a male and female host were chosen. However '70s audiences couldn't handle this, especially the kids.
- Mikawa can be put on the same boat as Minami in that regard. Her debut made TAC the first team to have more than one female member, and she was the second-in-command of the team as well.
Fan Nickname: Due to the fact that many of the eponymous hero's abilities involve cutting and dismembering (and a lot of monsters in the series get chopped up), Ace is sometimes called the "Guillotine Prince" by Japanese fans.
Fridge Brilliance: Many fans are still confused about the unexpectedness of Muruchi's appearance in a puff of smoke to help Doragory and Metron Jr. Cut to Ultraman Mebius 30-something years later, which reveals that Yapool has a smoke-like Choju named Gadiba able to take the form of non-Choju monsters. Hmmm.....
Hilarious in Hindsight: Episode 29 was called "The Sixth Ultra Brother". Cue the succeeding series.
It Was His Sled: It's pretty much standard knowledge amongst fans of the Ultra Series that Minami turns out to be a Human Alien from the Moon and is forced to leave Hokuto behind.
Memetic Psychopath: Relating his Fan Nickname as Guillotine Prince, Ace received a lot of infamy in the present day due to his excessive use of dismemberment attacks. Fans of both English and Japanese portray him as a murderous psychopath that sometimes seen with a katana (Ace Blade) or any sharp weapons.
Narm: Jumbo King is not very scary, creepy, or well made. And this was the last of Ace's Choju.
- The show has a lot of other ridiculous-looking Choju, but the absolute crowner would have to be Geegon, a violin kaiju, from the penultimate episode.
One-Scene Wonder: An example of a weapon rather than a character, but the Ace Blade is well-loved by fans as despite only appearing in two episodes, the simple yet brutal nature of the katana is a great representation of Ace himself and iconic to the character. It helps that Ace pulls out the Ace Blade when he gets serious, which often signifies the enemy Choju is about to get a brutal death.
Retroactive Recognition:
- Future Yellow Goranger, Baku Hatakeyama, has a small role in Episode 2.
- Saburo Shinoda, who plays the human host of the next series, guest stars in Episode 20.
Seasonal Rot: The second half of the series (after Episode 28) is considered to be not as good as the first half, especially since the introduction of Dan Umezu was a painfully obvious attempt of aping Goh and Jiro's relationship in Return of Ultraman, ultimately proving to be unsuccessful as Dan vanished from the series after Episode 43.
Signature Scene:
- Vakishim making an entrance by shattering the sky.
- Muruchi's brutal murder by the hands of Doragory, mostly for how unexpectedly violent it was.
- Episode 13 has two: Ultraman slapping Ace for being stubborn and the four Ultra brothers being crucified.
Special Effects Failure: There's a downgrade of quality in the suit department compared to its predecessors due to Japan's declining 70s economy. Episode 40 (the one with Alien Steal) should receive particular note for featuring a panda obviously played by a man in a laughably bad costume.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the Mill Creek release instead of calling Yapool's monsters Chōjū or the direct translation of Super Beasts in the subs they're called Terrible Monsters, ^note with many finding the new name generic and awkward.
Visual Effects of Awesome: While the effects are lacking compared to past seasons the famous Interdimensional Travel done by various Chōjū; where they break a hole between realities is an great visual effect for the time and still looks impressive today. It looks so good that even though only Vakishim and Garan did this in the show proper, all returning Chōjū in subsequent series would use this effect.
Values Dissonance: Part of the reason Minami was written out of the show was that '70s audiences couldn't handle a woman being an Ultra host for a male Ultra. This finally changed by the early 2000's with Ultraman Justice, but Minami holds the distinction of being the first host who is the opposite gender to her respective Ultra.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: There's a surprising amount of monster gore in the show. Episode 8 is an especially good example, with Muruchi's infamously violent dismemberment, Alien Metron Jr.'s guts spilling out of his sliced-open body, and Doragory having a hole punched through his stomach before being decapitated.
- The series has a surprising amount of on-screen human death as well even compared to the previous series, where the body count can sometimes go into the double digits. One disturbing scene involves Aribunta brutally murdering a train full of people as they screamed in terror.
- The episode 30,000 Year Choju Appears is a good example of the surprisingly dark tone series had. It involves an obsessed manga artist not only betraying humanity to the Yapool but kidnapped Mikawa and tried to force her to marry him. He then shows her the corpse of a woman he kidnapped earlier, implying that he's a straight-up Serial Killer.
- Execs took notice of this and pressured the showrunners to make the series more kid-friendly leading to the more uneven second half where it's tone became rather inconsistent between dark and goofier.
The Woobie: Minami, given her backstory.

YMMV / Ultraman Ace

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