The Ultra Project: Year One

~ Ryan Harvey

It was a year ago that I took The Ultra Project live, announcing to the internet my creation of a website providing episode-by-episode reviews of the Japanese Ultra series. I’d already spent two months working on the site, writing the first batch of reviews, then doing a soft launch in late August. It wasn’t until after I posted the first Ultraseven episode review that I was ready to unveil the site to the, uhm, eager public.

It’s been a busy year. I’ve published over a hundred reviews covering four different Ultra television shows, as well as reviews of several monster movies, both tokusatsu and from outside of Japan. I completed the review series for Ultra Q, the first Ultra show and the one that most directly influenced me to take on this whole project. Currently, I’m writing the final stretch of reviews for the original Ultraman. I’m well into the writing the second half of Ultraseven, while Ultraman Tiga continues to plug along. I project that I’ll have the last of the Ultraman reviews published in early 2026, after which I’ll roll over into reviewing Return of Ultraman.

I have an announcement of an upcoming feature: I’ll start publishing reviews of Ultraman Ginga/Ultraman Ginga S (2013–14) at the beginning of October. These will be the first shows from the New Generation Heroes era I’ve tackled on the site. It’s fresh territory for me. I debated whether to include any New Gen shows when I conceived of this project, as my original intent for the site was to cover the entire Showa era and some of the Heisei shows. New Gen didn’t fit in with those goals. But the desire for variety won out. I understand many younger viewers of the Ultra Series first came to it through the New Generation Heroes shows, and they’d likely appreciate seeing them covered here — although they probably won’t share my opinions on them.

Traffic on the site has grown from a tiny trickle to a steady brook with occasional gushes. I’m grateful to the readers who’ve taken the time to explore the site thoroughly. A special shout-out to my Brazilian readers, who make up the largest number of views outside the US: almost a quarter of my traffic. Brazil has a significant Japanese diaspora, the second largest Japanese population outside of Japan, and I’m thrilled that so many Brazilians have found something worthwhile in what I post.

My most popular reviews over the last year:

If you’re wondering where the Ultraman episodes are on this list, the reviews for that show — the most famous in the franchise — have the lowest views of the four programs I’ve reviewed so far. I can’t account for that. The most viewed Ultraman review is “My Home Is Earth,” and it’s down at #22 for the year. At least people are looking at a review of one of the classic episodes, and I’m proud of that work I did on that one. It deserves special attention.

If you have comments about the site or suggestions for anything you would like to see, please email me at Ryan@RyanHarveyAuthor.com. I’d like to hear my readers share their thoughts with me.

Also, I guess I’m an Ide/Fuji shipper. (Iduji? Fujide?) Never thought I would self-identify as a shipper, and maybe I’m not. I just think these two would make an adorable couple.