Ultraman - Vol.1
(BCI International Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(1966)
review by Big McLarghuge

Ultraman! Ultraman! Here he comes from  the skies…

When Eiji Tsubaraya applied his successful special effects talents to television, the suits at Toho had to know he was foretelling the death of daikaiju cinema, at least, the cinema of the Showa era. If the kids, who had become the general audience for giant monster films in Japan could see them on TV for free every week, why spend the money to make films for the cinema? The proof of this death comes in the late Showa era films, Godzilla vs. Gigan, Megalon, and the Mechagodzilla films which are budget-strapped shadows of the mid-60's films.

Not surprisingly, Ultraman, and a million-billion similar shows flooded Japanese television through the 1960's 970s, 80s, 90s, and even today. While the effects and storylines have grown more polished, the slam-bang action first established in Ultra-Q hasn't changed much.

The Science Patrol, who wear orange business-casual commando suits, matching ties and motorcycle helmets oversee the safety of Earth from both outer space and monster threats until they need help from Ultraman.

Ultraman, so the story goes, is a superhero from Nebula M-78 and feels so guilty about crashing his meteorite into Hiyata, the pilot of a Science Patrol jet, he bonds with the pilot.

Now, whenever Hiyata is in trouble he can use the Beta Capsule (a pen) to become Ultraman and battle the forces of evil (or on many cases, technological catastrophe).

Each episode brings another adventure in which The Science Patrol faces off against some giant monster until, Hiyata transforms and opens a can of suitmation whoopass. This storytelling template is still being used today, and not just in live-action TV like Zhu Rangers, or Kamen Rider, or The Space Giants, or Johnny Sokko, but the influence on innumerable anime titles such as The Guyver, cannot be overstated.

The plots in Ultraman are virtually interchangeable from one show to the next, and that's to the credit of the show. Since the writing doesn't change much and the characters never evolve, the Tsubaraya team can focus their efforts on making new and interesting monsters for the inevitable Ultraman battle.

Keep in mind that these are kid shows so there's narry a whiff of the angst and drama of modern anime and tokusatsu TV.

What's significant to mention here too, is that the effects are pretty much on par with anything Toho or Daiei were doing in cinema. Sure, there may be fewer HO scale tanks to do battle with any number of monsters, but they are pretty much the same props as used in the Godzilla films. That said, like the later films, most of the action takes places on wilderness sets (these are much cheaper than model cities). As the popularity of the show grew the budgets increased and several incarnations followed, Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Gaiai, among others.

But if, like me, you get all jazzed up at the thought of a Godzilla vs Monster Zero/Godzilla vs The Thing double feature, then Ultraman Volume 1 offers 450 minutes of bliss.

Tsubaraya repurposed more than a few familiar Toho monster costumes for cameo appearances in Ultraman. Even Godzilla makes an appearance, though he sports a frill this time out. The monster design varies wildly from "hmm, that's kinda cool!" to "what the hell is that stupid thing?" But even that doesn't diminish any of the fun in these episodes.
 
Ultraman came to US TV in the 1970's via Peter Fernandez, best known as the man who made Speed Racer our of Mach Go Go Go and who voices several of the main characters in Ultraman.

The DVD offers 20 episodes of Ultraman with both English dubbing, and in the original Japanese with English subtitles. I am not sure if it's my DVD player, or some of the episodes, but a few can't be watched with and English audio track. In an effort to make this set as complete as humanly possible, the bits edited out for US TV are restored here on an episode-by-episode basis. These reinserted scenes are not dubbed into English though so bumping into thirty second/one minute of Japanese language can be jarring unless you keep the subtitles on. But, who keeps the English subs on when they are watching an English dub?

The video seems a bit blurry too, but that could very well be because of the source material and not the DVD remastering. I'd like to think that these shows could have been sharpened up a whole lot more than this otherwise. The colors are muted as well, but again, I don't know if it was a conscious decision to make the episodes look just like they did on a color TV circa 1966, but if that was the case, they succeeded.

That's not really a complaint actually, just and observation. The DVD also comes with a paper booklet summarizing each episode and profiling each monster featured in that episode. Additional features includes and interview with the principal English voice actors Peter Fernandez, Corrine Orr, and Earl Hammond. The interview is very hissy though so prepare to turn your sound system to maximum volume to hear what they say. Finally, a monster profile rounds out the options allowing the inner six-year-old to read up on the origin and power of every one of Ultraman's enemies.

This is a nice set and provides a hell of a diversion on a rainy Sunday afternoon especially if, like me, you have a Godzilla obsessed six year old who is an actual child and not an inner child. Now I have to save my pennies for Volume 2.