Category: Ultraman

Ultraman Ep. 9: Lightning Operation

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate Sep. 11, 1966.

A good Ultra fight finale can do a lot to salvage an otherwise mediocre episode. Ultraman’s wrestling match with monster-of-the-week Gabora (orGavora as the Mill Creek subtitles spell it) is tough and agile. A good deal of the credit for its success goes to performers Bin Furyua in the Ultraman costume and the legend himself, Hauro Nakajima, in the Gabora costume. Nakajima was the first person to put on the Godzilla suit, and he played the monster for almost 20 years. I believe he’s the best suitmation actor to ever rampage across a miniature stage. He brings something extra to every monster he plays, and Gabora is no exception. 

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Ultraman Ep. 8: The Monster Anarchy Zone

~ Ryan Harvey
Red King from Ultraman episode The Monster Anarchy Zone

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo and Shozo Uehara. Airdate Sep. 4, 1966.

In the previous episode, the Science Patrol flew off for a fantasy adventure in the Middle East. This week, they’re taking the Jet VTOL to a volcanic jungle island stacked with monsters. It’s classic Lost World and Skull Island stuff, and I’m surprised Eiji Tsuburaya didn’t find a way to cram in a giant gorilla among all the other kaiju. The King Kong influence is all over this half-hour.

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Ultraman Ep. 7: The Blue Stone of Baradhi

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo and Samaji Nonagase. Airdate August 28, 1966.

We pop out of the slump of middling episodes with a mini-epic that sends the Science Patrol to a lost city in the Middle East and expands upon the mythos of the Ultras. The mixture of 1930s pulp adventure and giant monster movie makes for a stand-out half hour. I also just enjoy it when an Ultra show sends its defense team outside of Japan to soak up some different backdrops.

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Ultraman Ep. 6: The Coast Guard Command

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate August 21, 1966.

The first episode to focus on young Hoshino, the boy who wants to one day join the Science Special Search Party. Hoshino and his friends Chiro and Nobuku get swept up in a Hardy Boys-style story investigating smugglers along the wharf. Notorious smuggler “Diamond-Kick” (great name) has hidden his newest diamond shipment among bags of cacao beans, and the young detectives end up kidnapped when they start poking around the warehouses. It sounds like the kind of adventure tale a child might come up with. A child might also add a giant monster that comes up onto the wharf to throw everything into chaos. A monster who loves chocolate.

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Ultraman Ep. 5: The Secret of the Miroganda

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Toshihiro Iijima. Written by Keisuke Fujikawa. Airdate August 14, 1966.

Rewatching “The Secret of the Miroganda” made me acutely aware of the budget fight Tsuburaya Productions was locked into during the early production of Ultraman. TBS may have given an enthusiastic greenlight to the show, but they were hesitant about the hefty price tag per episode, which was often more than double the cost of an episode of Ultra Q. The network forced the creative team at Tsuburaya Pro to cut costs at every opportunity. The situation improved once episodes started to air and the show became a popular sensation, but the early sacrifices the creative team had to make often poke through. “Miroganda,” only the second episode shot, has some of the most obvious. 

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Ultraman Ep. 3: Science Patrol, Move Out

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Toshihiro Iijima. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate July 31, 1966.

We now enter one of the less interesting stretches of Ultraman, an early slowdown that’s likely due to the rush to finish episodes and the stinginess of TBS and their sponsor partner when it came to budgets. I didn’t notice this quality lapse when I first watched the series; I was having too much fun with the basic monster formula. It wasn’t until the show started to really blast off that I looked back and thought, “Yeah, they had a bumpy patch right after takeoff.” 

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Ultraman Ep. 2: Shoot the Invader

~ Ryan Harvey
shoot-the-invader

Written and Directed by Toshihiro Iijima.* Airdate July 24, 1966.

The second Ultraman episode aired, although the first shot, starts with comic character Ide breaking the fourth wall to address the TV audience. He wants to explain how he got his black eye. We flashback to hear the story — which has almost nothing to do with Ide’s black eye and everything to do with the first full alien invasion of the Ultra Series. These invasions would happen with some, uhm, frequency throughout the rest of the franchise. The fourth-wall breaking is not as common, but Ultraman is already training its viewers to expect the unexpected.

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Ultraman Ep. 1: Ultra Operation No. 1

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Testuo Kinjo and Shinichi Sekizawa. Airdate July 17, 1966.

Unlike Ultra Q, which has no introductory episode and drops viewers into the middle of its premise, Ultraman begins with an episode that establishes its formula and explains its alien hero, the Science Special Search Party, and their various tools of the trade. It fits this all in the space of a half-hour span while still finding enough time for action and a fight with a big monster. That’s a lot to do, and while “Ultra Operation No. 1” isn’t the strongest episode of the series, it checks off all the boxes it needs to and leaves viewers ready to see more. 

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Ultraman Ep. 0: The Birth of Ultraman

~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Akio Jissoji. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate July 10, 1966.

We have to start here — I write with some embarrassment for the poor Tsuburaya Productions team. This “pilot” episode for Ultraman is just a live stage show taped in black-and-white to promote the actual show debuting the next week. “The Birth of Ultraman” exists because Tsuburaya Pro desperately needed more time to finish episodes before the premiere date of Ultraman, and this was the quickest way for the Tokyo Broadcasting System to get something on the air to create a buffer. TBS could have gone ahead and broadcast the last remaining episode of Ultra Q, but because it wasn’t a monster-centered episode, they delayed it for over a year and a half to leap right into … this.

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