Ultraman Blu Ray Review: The Guardian of Earth, Ultraman!

In 2019, I begin watching Ultraman series due to being widely available on Crunchyroll, Toku and on  Mill Creek’s streaming service: Movie Spree and what better time because not only Ultraman is everywhere because of Tsuburaya Productions owning the worldwide right from legal troubles from other companies, toys, an upcoming Marvel comic series, and recently with Mill Creek’s Blu Ray releases of most of Ultra franchise. Created by co creator of Godzilla, Eiji Tsuburaya, Ultraman was 1960’s Kaiju series meant for young audiences that the Japanese network TBS needed after the success of Ultra Q. Eiji was rushed in production for a spin-off of Q that not only becoming more famous than Ultra Q but had more ratings on the Japanese television every day it was on. Ultraman later came in North America by United Artists Television and had some it’s content trimmed or censored by of broadcasted standards and Titra Studios involved with dub, which had notable Speed
Racers actors like Peter Fernandez as Ultraman.

From Wikipedia, When the Earth is threatened by alien invaders and giant monsters, the world relies on the Science Patrol, a special anti-monster defense agency armed with high-tech weaponry and vehicles to combat these threats from the unknown. When the Science Patrol's weaponry is ineffective and all hope is lost, one of their members, Hayata, transforms into a giant alien called Ultraman to defeat the monstrous menace threatening the Earth, unbeknownst to the other Science Patrol members, who are unaware of his secret identity.

I had a lot of fun with Ultraman. It has a nice and fun charm with the monster fights, the characters while being somewhat archetypes of shows of the time are still like able and you want to see what will be next for them in the next episodes. Each episodes function like a typical monster of the week formula where something happens in local area (mainly the monster for that episode) and the squad, The Science Patrol, go to the location and look for the problem, the monster appears and Ultraman beats them like a usually Tsuburaya suit fight. Speaking of Tsuburaya suits, the monster designs are great with a nice creative and weirdness to them that feels appropriate for the show ( Heck one of the Godzilla suits is used for one of episodes). Ultraman design has earlier design flaw where it looks rushed (because it was) and later on, it will get tweaks to make it more of how Ultraman looks that we know him today. 

For the Blu Ray release of Ultraman by Mill Creek Entertainment, they only made standard edition of Ultraman but also a Steelbook release which is the version that I owned. This will be for all of the future releases of the classic Ultraman serie, which will pleased fans who want to have a consistent release for their collection. The steelbook is a gorgeous looking design that makes great of the source material and makes comfortable for your shelf. It comes with a booklet that tells the history of Ultraman, Bios on the characters and monsters, episode bios, and plenty of information facts Ultraman. The video quality is nicely looking transfer that still gives the 60’s looked quality from shows around that time. The Japanese only audio is also nicely crisp and consistent throughout the episodes. The only problem is the discs being staked on the case. It’s not bad because their Blu Ray discs but worried about not damaging them.

Overall, if your fan of Godzilla, Ultraman may be a good way to into the series. It’s not for everyone, but there’s charm about watching shows like this and it’s the reason why Ultraman stands out with fans for many years.