Tsuburaya's Ultra Series.

Late but my picks for the first 5 shows are:

- Gomora: A really cool-looking Kaiju with a really nice introductory episode and a badass reputation.

- Zetton: The first Kaiju to kill an Ultra. Its black/yellow color scheme is just fantastic and so is its sounds.

- King Joe: Awesome dividing giant alien mecha is always cool.

- Black King: Just like Gomora it has a really simple yet badass design.

- Bemstar: A really cool-looking chicken :D

- Verokron, Barabas and Vakishim: The coolest-looking Choju. All of them having awesome roars helps.

- Tyrant: The best-looking Taro monster.

Next Week's Episode:

Legitimately surprised that Kelbeam is back. Seems like Z is aiming for more obscure Kaiju such as Kelbeam (last seen in Orb) and Barabas (last seen 48 years ago) to make major reappearances this time around.

Edited by VengefulBale on Nov 13th 2020 at 7:09:42 AM

Trailer for Shin Ultraman

Directed by Shinji Higuchi with screenplay written by Hideaki Anno.

Edited by jun_kagami on Jan 28th 2021 at 9:16:48 PM

First Godzilla, now Ultraman. Anno has to be living for this.

I love how close the design is to the (good) one from the original series. Complete with the weird googly eyes.

(I say good as opposed to the uh, unfinished looking design from the start of the show)

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 28th 2021 at 10:37:20 AM

Holy shit. That is AWESOME! I haven't been following any news regarding the movie at all, but this looks fantastic. Pretty cool that they're using Neronga and Gabora as the monsters for the movie - would have expected them to use a more iconic foe like Baltan or Gomora, but this is perfectly acceptable.

Also, I have to admit that due to the fact the film's title reminded me of Shin Godzilla (and the fact Higuchi and Anno were also involved), I was expecting them to much more drastically reimagine the character, so seeing them stick to the classic Ultraman look was a little surprising to me (again, haven't been following news surrounding the movie, so this is new to me).

EDIT: Rewatching the trailer, I also have to say that I love the way they reimagined Gabora. Turning his back ridges and head cone into a giant drill is a really cool idea.

Edited by MagnusForce on Jan 28th 2021 at 7:51:20 AM

The one thing I'm really wondering is that the movie's Ultraman doesn't have a color timer. Either they want to get rid of it for their iteration of the Silver Giant or its for plot-related reason and they will introduce it for the sequel(s).

I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped it because it isn't necessary for the plot or something. It's a built in drama element that the original show uses really strangely sometimes (I just started rewatching it from the start. It only really gets first mentioned in the third episode, out of nowhere, right before the monster is defeated anyway) and it puts a time limit on the big battles. Yes, I know most of the shows are incredibly fuzzy about the time limit, but it is an awkward element that needs to be worked around.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 28th 2021 at 11:13:08 AM

I'm not loving the Ultra design. Kinda Uncanny Valley? I don't think CGI works well for it.

They could have just scrapped the color timer because they want Ultraman to be active for longer than three minutes. Or maybe he acquires it during the story. Or hell, maybe they just wanted to make the design more different.

they actually wanted to make it closer to the original designer, as the original didn't have color timer and was only added later.

Edited by jun_kagami on Jan 29th 2021 at 6:26:22 PM

Sorry, I'm still relatively new to Ultraman, exactly what's the color timer for?

On the trailer for Shin Ultraman, man, that's actually rad looking. The monsters look like they came out of a video game, but maybe it's to emphasize how alien they are?

I also have half a mind to suspect that this is set in the same world as Shin Godzilla and we'll see that creepy fifth form of Godzilla either as a final boss or teased for a future Shin Godzilla vs. Shin Ultraman movie.

Long story short, Ultras can only be active for three minutes on Earth because of its atmosphere. The color timer flashes red to indicate time is nearly up, and/or they've been injured too badly. Well, that's the case for the original Ultras; some of the other ones' work differently, or even something else in place of a color timer. In some continuities (IIRC, including the main/original one) it's a surgical implant, hence why it's theoretically impossible Shin Ultraman could obtain one later.

I'd love a Shin Ultraman vs Godzilla, though I'm not sure how willing the companies involved would be. There was a video game they both appeared in, but they didn't actually fight in that.

Tsuburaya Production (Ultraman's company) and Toho have collaborated since the 1960's. They also recently collaborated for Godzilla pachinko machines cutscenes. So I think a collaboration is not out of the question, especially considering that Tsuburaya Productions was made by Eiji Tsuburaya who first worked as the special effect directors in Godzilla movies since the original until.

Also they recently settled down the Chaiyo Productions lawsuit, so they might be more available to cooperating with their half-brother studio.

Edited by VengefulBale on Jan 30th 2021 at 2:17:40 PM

Finishing off Ultraman X and Greeza's actually really creepy? Like, it wouldn't be that far out of place in GARO, it'd just need to be smaller.

Considering that Greeza's essentially a walking mindfuck that is more akin to a black hole than a monster or alien it makes sense.

Okay, so Ultraman X was my first full Ultraman series and I enjoyed it. The comedy episodes were kinda painful though, but I don't really go for the really broad humour that pops up in toku stuff a lot.

Out of curiosity I tried out the dub of the movie on the Mill Creek set and I don't recommend it at all. All of the casting is weird and all over the place and damn it gets caught up in lip lock all the time. Like, I get that it's weird to dub live actors, but it's a lot more distracting to leave a two second pause in the middle of a sentence than to just keep saying the line. I got through like, 10 minutes and then switched to the subs.

Fun movie though.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 6th 2021 at 1:45:37 PM

I appreciate that the dubs exist (accessibility, and showing that Tsuburaya cares about foreign fans), but I will almost always go for original audio and subs. Granted, the Absolute Conspiracy dubs weren't too bad.

At least it isn't the bad spanish dubs that things such as the Ultraman Mebius movie and Ultraman Anime on Netflix have received where no one can properly pronounce names. More decent dubs of older series exist such as the original, Ultraseven and even Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle but they're hard to come across

Edited by VengefulBale on Feb 6th 2021 at 3:04:49 AM

Yeah, it's definitely not the worst dub I've heard (like, at least the audio engineer knew what they were doing. Crest/Banner of the Stars used some software to adjust the cadence of the lines to better fit the lip flaps and it sounds terrible, even before the bad acting) but I wouldn't recommend anyone start with it if there's any other options.

Reminded me a bit of the Sentai dub of the Garo: Red Requiem movie. You can't really apply anime approaches to live action dubbing because you're always going to get a weird mismatch between the visuals and audio, so trying to stay strictly to the mouth movements isn't going to work. The better live action dubs are the ones where they try to keep the timing more or less right, but don't really bother that much with getting it exactly right.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 6th 2021 at 2:10:33 PM

Well, at least the Ultras (and almost every suit character) don't have moving lips. Would hope that would help.

So I started up Ultraman Orb now and uh, it's a lot easier to get invested in it than Ultraman X. I like X, I'll probably watch it again at some point, but it doesn't exactly have a major, like, plot. There is like, scraps of a plot in the Gomora stuff and Daichi's parents and the Dark Thunder Energy, but the overall show like, doesn't actually do anything with said plots until right at the end. Orb, on the other hand, actually tells you upfront that there's a plot and it has that villain guy present right from the start and interacting with the other characters.

there's a reason why Orb is one of the, if not the most popular among the New Gen Ultras. Gai and Juggler is still very popular as well. After you finished the series, check out the prequel, Orb Origin Saga on Amazon. It's a bit darker and with comparatively little humor, but still pretty great.

Huh alright so should I go with those series if I'm starting Ultraman?

Also I just rediscovered my 3 volumes of the Ultraman manga & after rereading them I feel "Man I should continue collecting this."

How is the manga currently doing?

I have the Mill Creek blu-ray of Origin Saga, I’ll be watching it next.

I do have to say though, the Mill Creek blu-ray release order is...weird. Like, the Showa and Heisei series are getting released in order, which is fair enough, but their releases of the New Generation stuff are more or less random in order. Orb, Geed, X, Neo Ultra Q, Ginga and then R/B. I guess they didn't want to start off with Ginga.

It looks like they're moving into the post-Hesei pre New Generation stuff really soon though.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 14th 2021 at 12:07:51 PM

Shunji Igarashi has expressed interest in doing a full return to the franchise, which hopefully means that we'll see Mirai again in time for the 55th anniversary of the franchise and the 15th anniversary of Mebius