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From what I read on the wiki, Seven doesn't have the 3-minute time limit of other Ultras, because his Protector (chest armor) has solar panels on it to prolong his charge. That's why he doesn't have a Color Timer. And it's presumably why they need to keep having the Eye lost or stolen to provide an excuse for him not to change earlier in the episode.

 

I don't know about this. Pretty much every time we see Nebula M78 the Ultras are always there physically (with the Ultra Brothers and more important Ultras wearing the red mantles/capes), and we've seen nameless civilian Ultras just walking around, and they have physical buildings. Also, Ultras are still born as children and grow up, we've seen Ultraman Taro as a child at least in a flashback in Ginga (and they were his memories so its not just a hallucination or something).

Maybe at some point they were supposed to have less coporeal forms as a regular thing, but at least with modern Ultra shows and movies the main Ultra home of Nebula M78 is definitely a physical place where a bunch of giants physically exist.

 

Okay, yes, I have to correct myself. I was under the impression the spheres of light representing Ultras in first episodes of some series (like original Ultraman, Ultraman Max, or the 2004 Ultraman movie) were the true form of the residents of the Land of Light, with the Ultra Armor simply being a suit they conjured up through energy to take a more physical form and make interactions with each other and other beings easier. This was supported by light particles escaping from wounds in some battles. The buildings in the Land of Light themselves looked quite energy-based to me, as well.

Reading up on it, it appears that the people of the Land of Light are in fact born with the Ultra Armor as a form of protective skin, and there seem to be instances suggesting even their bodies underneath the Armor is not entirely made of energy. There are also pictures from tie-in media (though apparently several decades old) showing the anatomy of Ultraman, Taro and Ultraseven, including organs and a skeleton:


OTOH, when Ultraman Jack lost his color timer during a fight, his energy left the Ultra Armor and seemingly left it like an empty suit:


I'm not sure what's been explicitly stated on-screen and what how much tie-in media like the anatomic images above are considered canon. But I'm pretty sure I remember wounded Ultras leaking light particles from cuts in their Armor, so at least partially they are beings of light.



Meanwhile, in this week's episode #20 of "Ultraman Chronicle Z: Heroes' Odyssey", Tiga has to confront an evil doppelganger:

 

I remember seeing that art, I probably should have posted about it, but it slipped my mind. I think that light/energy is definitely a part of their body, since I don't recall ever seeing them bleed what we would consider blood maybe they have energy instead of blood. There are also Ultras who can do many different things with their bodies, like Ultraseven who doesn't have a time limit at all even on Earth and can be human sized very easily, so maybe Jack deflating was some kind of technique or side effect (I haven't gotten to Return of Ultraman yet in my watching, although I do own the Blu Ray).

Regardless of the inconsistencies, the Ultras seem to be mostly physical beings, but with varying amounts of control over their bodies. They did use to be human-like aliens in their ancient past, so maybe that influenced things (although its all just in universe speculation).

 

Presenting the re-uploaded episode #16 of "Ultraman Z":

 

I just saw Ultraseven episode 28. There is a dinosaur grafted onto a tank. Why is there a dinosaur grafted onto a tank?

 

Still having trouble getting into the spirit, are you?

In episode #4 of "Ultraman Cosmos", our young hero has to confront an alien toy robot:

 

Oh, I've gotten so used to the weirdness in early Super Sentai that I hardly bat an eye at it anymore. Your finisher ball turned into a random object that comically fits the monster's theme and blows it up in some ironic way? Okay, if you say so. Goggle Pink randomly confounds a tequila-swilling cactus kaijin by turning into a flamenco dancer in mid-battle? Weird, but I've seen weirder.

But the Kyoryu Tank was out of left field for the Ultraman franchise. It was an otherwise generic dinosaur kaiju whose hind legs were apparently amputated so that its hips could be grafted onto the back of an otherwise generic tank. It was ungainly as hell, it was incongruous as an alien weapon (since it was such an ordinary tank), and it was just so completely slapdash, the laziest possible approach to hybridizing two unrelated things. It was so bizarre that it took me a while to figure out that it wasn't just attacking the tank but was riding it, and then that it wasn't just riding it but was physically fused to it in an extremely awkward way.

 

Well, having to come up with a new kaiju pretty much every week does put some pressure on the production team. There's also the issue of focus, not just to think of what makes sense for the story, but more importantly what's something you haven't seen before, not just in how it looks, but what kind of action it provides.
And, since Dinosaur Tank is still popular with merchandising (like the diorama below), seems like it went well. I mean, it does speak to the inner eight-year-old in many fans.

 

The dinosaur tank was stupid but I loved it, one of my favorite episodes of Ultraseven just for how goofy the kaiju was.

 

Today's 55th Anniversary upload is episode #8 of "Ultraman Ace", which the Ultraman Wiki has given the warning labels "Severe Blood" and "Dismemberment":

 

And from the nonchalantly brutal days of Ultraman Ace to today's episode #5 of the much less violent Ultraman Cosmos:

 

This is interesting:

So, in one week, there will be a special livestream event for international fans, featuring the first seven episodes of the "Ultraman Z" spin-off "Sevenger Fight", which was produced for the Tsuburaya Imagination streaming service in Japan.
There will also be live interviews with "Ultraman Z" (and, I guess, "Sevenger Fight") actors Rima Matsuda and Takaya Aoyagi, as well as series director Kiyotaka Taguchi. The event will be hosted by "Ultraman Max" actor Sean Nichols.

https://ultramanconnection.com/

 

In this week's episode #30 of "Gridman", the villainous Khan Digifer and his human henchboy, Takeshi of the Toxic Behaviour, release the kaiju Jubagon to emit a mind control beam over town, that even Naoto himself falls victim to. Fair warning, though, there is a very homophobic bit in the first five minutes.

 

This week's episode #21 of "Ultraman Chronicle Z: Heroes' Odyssey" presents the team-ups of Ultraman Z with Ultraman Ace, and Ultraman Tiga with Ultraman:

 

Alien pirate Barossa returns in episode #17 of "Ultraman Z":

 

Hmm... Ultraseven episode 33 has some interesting scene transitions, cutting quickly back and forth between the current scene and the next one with timpani accompaniment, and I'm pretty sure Gerry Anderson's UFO did its scene transitions the same way. Since it was a creepy alien-invasion episode, I thought "Oh, they're homaging UFO," but then I checked the dates, and this was two years before UFO. So was UFO homaging it, or was it a coincidence, or am I forgetting which show used that technique?

 

Maybe Gerry Anderson used the technique in Thunderbirds?! I know that that show was a big influence on Tsuburaya, and especially UltraSeven, as it aired in Japan shortly before development of UltraSeven started.

Edit: Took out a previous referrence to Captain Scarlet, as I checked and saw that this show had its first run in the UK while UltraSeven was produced, so it could not have been the source of inspiration for Tsuburaya.

 

Yeah, I just remembered it was Captain Scarlet, not UFO.

 

I just finished the original Ultraman. It was ok, but just ok. Some fun episodes, but a lot of mediocre to annoying ones. The SSSP generally isn't as interesting as Ultraseven's TDF, except for Muramatsu (the Captain, who was pretty good) and Arashi (who is basically playing the same character he'd play in Ultraseven, just with a different name). Hayata is a decent host, and I liked him well enough, but he pails in comparison to Dan Moroboshi from U7.

The actual episodes were also generally weaker then U7's. The action ranged from ok to kind of pathetic, the stories were actually a bit too similar at times (they did two "monster blinds people" episodes fairly close together, for example) and there was also the dreaded kid of the week episodes, which Ultraseven generally didn't have. This was compounded by the annoying little shit Hoshino, a little kid who becomes an SSSP member. That is both pathetic (a little kid on a Earth defense team makes the team look like idiots) and annoying. Luckily he goes away for the last 12-15ish episodes (the actor had an accident on vacation or something, nothing too bad but kept him off the show), although we get some random kids in his spot on occasion.

It was interesting to see Ultraman and the series in general evolve. Ultraman actually gets three different suits that look progressively better. The original Ultraman suit used in the first 13 episodes had a really bad head (it looked like a kid trying to make Ultraman's ace out of paper mache), but the "B" and "C" suits looked much better. The monsters ranged from iconic (Red King, Gomora) to interestingly weird (Pestar, a double conjoined starfish with a bathead, and Jirahs, who is literally a repainted Godzilla suit with an added frill) to kind of lazy (a bunch of generic four legged monsters that I can't remember well because they're fairly generic being the best example of this).

I do want to list some of my favorite episodes (not an all inclusive list, just a few that come to mind):

Episode 10: The Mysterious Dinosaur Base - Jirahs, aka repainted Godzilla, appears, and the actual story of the episode, along with the ending Ultraman fight, are pretty good
Episode 22: Overthrow The Surface - A race of underground people infiltraite the surface and try to take over the Earth. This episode was purposefully filmed in a way very unique for the series, very creepy and dreamlike, and it made a good impression with me.
Episode 34: Present from the Sky - A comedic episode that is actually pretty entertaining. A kaiju arrives on Earth and, while not super violent, doesn't want to leave. The SSSP and Ultraman have to try to get the alien off Earth and back into space, and their attempts get progressively more ridiculous, but in a good way.
Episode 35: The Monster Graveyard - A good premise, a good story and a sympathetic (and cool looking) kaiju.

Overall I liked the original Ultraman series well enough, but it definitely has its weaknesses and Ultraseven would end up improving on it in basically every way possible.