Ultra Q Ep. 14: Tokyo Ice Age

January 18, 2025July 23, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Samaji Nonagase. Written by Masahiro Yamada. Airdate April 3, 1966.

The most terrifying monster of all has arrived: climate change! Yes, scientists already knew about this encroaching global threat in 1966 and were sounding the alarm bells. They didn’t, however, warn that melting Antarctic ice combined with nuclear power plant accidents would force the deep-freeze monster Peguila north to wreck wintry havoc! Would more people have paid attention if they did? I think so.

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Ultraman Tiga Ep. 5: The Day When the Monster Appeared

January 15, 2025January 22, 2026 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Kyota Kawasaki. Written by Chiaki J. Konaka. Airdate Oct. 5, 1996.

Ultra warriors tend to blow up their monster opponents or fly them out to space to dispose of them. But what about the monsters they defeat that leave behind massive carcasses on land? “The Day When the Monster Appeared” takes a look at the disposal operation for one of these dead kaju — although this creature washed ashore rather than being a leftover after a fight with an Ultra.

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Ultraseven Ep. 9: Operation Android Zero

January 11, 2025March 5, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Kazuho Mitsuta. Written by Shozo Uehara. Airdate Nov. 36, 1967.

A small-scale episode, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting. The devious alien of the week may not have a plan that will conquer the world — although he believes it will — but it’s a vile plan with disturbing relevance to the current day. All the action remains at human size with no giant monsters and no super-sized Ultraseven, but it’s superbly staged, paced, and shot. At times, it feels like a live-action version of a Batman: The Animated Series episode where Batman has to take down a villain who builds children’s toys that are actually lethal devices.

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Ultraman Ep. 12: Cry of the Mummy

January 8, 2025November 16, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Keisuke Fujikawa. Airdate Oct. 2, 1966.

Another winner of an episode, the third in a row. We have a new story archetype to explore: the archeological adventure. The mummy of the title isn’t a traditional Egyptian mummy, although it has tomb wrappings, but a mysterious, possibly supernatural creature from prehistoric Japan. As a nice surprise, the Mummy Man doesn’t end up enlarging into the episode’s giant monster. No, there’s a much more impressive kaiju waiting in the wings to fill that role.

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Ultraman Tiga Ep. 4: Goodbye, Planet Earth

January 4, 2025June 25, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hirochika Muraishi. Written by Hidenori Miyazawa. Airdate Sep. 28, 1996.

It’s a familiar science-fiction tale: a crew of astronauts on a mission becomes mutated by an alien force and returns to Earth as a deadly, rampaging monster. This is the story of the classic Ultraman episode “My Home Is Earth,” which borrowed it from The Quatermass Xperiment. (Yes, I’m bringing up that movie again. Its DNA is everywhere in the Ultra series, there’s no helping it.) The immense popularity of “My Home Is Earth” has caused many later Ultra shows to attempt their own versions. Here’s Ultraman Tiga’s take.

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Ultra Q Ep. 13: Garadama

January 1, 2025May 2, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hajime Tsuburaya. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate March 27, 1966.

Children in the countryside discover a strange rock that fell from the sky — not the only time this will happen in the Ultra Series. They dutifully turn it over to their teachers, who then turn it over to Professor Ichinotani to investigate. Ichinotani discovers this mystery meteorite (or garadama as the locals refer to such phenomena) is made from an alien material known as Tilsonite. It’s not a monster egg, however, but the control device for the monster arriving in a larger meteorite that splashes down in a lake near a hydroelectric dam. Monster Garamon, an artificial alien construction, breaks loose from its stone transport. It starts to wreak havoc, and then … oh, you’ll have to wait for Part 2 to learn the rest.

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Ultraseven Ep. 8: The Marked Town

December 28, 2024January 5, 2026 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Akio Jissoji. Written by Tetsuo Kinjo. Airdate Nov. 19, 1967.

After seven episodes of sporadic success sifting through the basics, Ultraseven at last comes together in one of the most memorable and imitated half hours in all of tokusatsu. There are episodes ahead I like more, but “The Marked Town” is a landmark and arguably the show’s essential episode. A simple case of “If you see only one Ultraseven episode, make it this one.”

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Monster Theater: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

December 25, 2024August 13, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

The title "The Quatermass Xperiment" over an image from the film of a crashed rocket.

Directed by Val Guest. Written by Richard Landau and Val Guest. Starring Brian Donlevy, Richard Wordsworth, Jack Warner.

I keep bumping into the British Quatermass series as I write these reviews — specifically the 1955 film The Quatermass Xperiment. This isn’t surprising. The movie was a huge hit when released in Japan a few months after its UK premiere. This was only a year after the release of the original Godzilla, so the country was primed for more science-fiction horror.

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Ultraman Tiga Ep. 3: The Devil’s Prophecy

December 21, 2024December 20, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Hirochika Muraishi. Written by Chiaki J. Konaka. Airdate Sep. 21, 1996.

After two episodes without much character development for the GUTS team, we get a story focused on Captain Iruma and her personal and professional struggles. Megumi Iruma is my favorite character in Ultraman Tiga, and “The Devil’s Prophecy” shows how much she can shine. Defense team captains before her were stoic, occasionally boring, and at times borderline negligent. Iruma is the captain I’d feel most confident serving under. Maybe a tie with Captain Muramatsu from Ultraman, but I get to know far more about Iruma as a person.

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Ultraman Ep. 11: The Rascal From Outer Space

December 18, 2024September 13, 2025 ~ Ryan Harvey

Directed by Kazuho Mitsuta. Written by Tatsuo Miyata. Airdate Sep. 25, 1966.

The first time I watched Ultraman all the way through, “The Rascal From Outer Space” rewired my brain. The episode was so bonkers, so bizarre, so absurdly comic, I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Since I hadn’t seen any other Ultra shows — they were unavailable in North America at the time — I didn’t know this comic nuttiness was a series tradition. I hadn’t yet watched Ultra Q episodes like “Grow Up! Little Turtle” and “Kanegon’s Cocoon,” nor was I aware of the lunatic world of Ultraman Taro. Still, I was certain I was discovering a key part of the franchise, something essential about it, with “The Rascal From Outer Space.”

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