Directed by Shingo Matsubara. Written by Masakazu Migita. Airdate Sep. 14, 1996.
I like it when the first word spoken in an episode is the name of the monster of the week. “Gakuma! Gakuma is coming!” Starting off strong and fast, reminding us that monsters are cool and they’re one of the big reasons we’re watching.
Continue reading “Ultraman Tiga Ep. 2: Legend of the Stone”
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.
Continue reading “Ultraman Ep. 6: The Coast Guard Command”
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.
Continue reading “Ultraman Ep. 5: The Secret of the Miroganda”
Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate Oct. 1, 1967.
Earth is being targeted. Beings from countless stars floating in space have begun a terrible invasion.
These words from narrator Hikaru Urano, spoken over a night scene of a swarm of car headlights on a freeway, set the tone for Ultraseven. Darker than Ultraman, more epic than Ultra Q.
Continue reading “Ultraseven Ep. 1: The Invisible Challenger”
Directed by Koji Kajita. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate Jan. 23, 1966.
“Mammoth Flower” was the first episode of Ultra Q to go before cameras. Although it wasn’t designed specifically as an introductory episode, it makes an extra effort at world-building. Koji Ishizaka’s narration sounds like the original pitch for the show when it was still known as Unbalance: “Currently, a part of Mother Nature that surrounds us is starting to make a strange move. That’s right, this is a terrifying world where everything is unbalanced.” The exit narration mentions “the Unbalance Zone” with an invitation to viewers to tune in next week.
Continue reading “Ultra Q Ep. 4: Mammoth Flower”
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.”
Continue reading “Ultraman Ep. 3: Science Patrol, Move Out”
Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate Jan. 7, 1966.
If you have Godzilla in disguise in the first episode of your monster TV show, why not have King Kong in disguise in the second? It must have made sense for the Tokyo Broadcasting Service, who picked “Goro and Goro” for Ultra Q’s second aired episode. The monster star, one of the two Goros of the title, is a slightly modified King Kong costume built for the movie King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962).
Continue reading “Ultra Q Ep. 2: Goro and Goro”
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.
Continue reading “Ultraman Ep. 1: Ultra Operation No. 1”
The Ultra Project 