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News Stay At Home With ULTRAMAN| Ultra Science Fiction Hour on YouTube

Episode #10 of "Ultraman Chronicle Z: Heroes' Odyssey" takes a look at a specific kaiju, the Void Monster Greeza, and its battles against Ultramen X, Geed and Z:
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The international re-upload of "Ultraman Z", episode #6:
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And the Spring Special Campaign presents episode #1 of "Ultraman 80" (just before the weekly uploads end next week):
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With only a couple of episodes to go in episode #37 of "Ultraman Max", android Elly picks up gossipping about Kaito and Mizuki's relationship. And a kaiju appears. Enjoy:
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I'm glad to see we're getting info soon. I'm interested in the new show regardless, but I suppose its too much to hope that the main character doesn't use old Ultra powers to transform and fights entirely new monsters :sigh:
 
Turns out it was for the reveal of Tsubaraya's own streaming service:

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and Sevenger is getting a spin off

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In the Spring Special Campaign's third entry, episode 41 of "Ultraman Mebius", Mebius teams up with Ultraman 80:
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And here is the series finale of "Ultraman 80":
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Hopefully, Tsuburaya will start uploading some other shows for us outside of Japan (the Japanese audience probably won't get so many free episodes now that they are supposed to subscribe to Tsuburaya Imagination).
 
Halfway through "Gridman" with episode #20:
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Revisiting an old conversation...

There are a bit more similarities between Tiga and Dyna, simply because not only did one directly follow the other, but Dyna was a direct sequel to Tiga. Though the characters of every show are usually very clearly defined archetypes, there's a bit more variation between all the shows than between those two.

I've finished Ultraman Cosmos now (and I ended up liking it quite a bit more than I initially said when I started last June), and I find that it also follows an almost identical team formula to Tiga and Dyna, aside from conflating the "Leader" character and the "female pilot" character into Shinobu and not having her be the Ultraman host's love interest (although I got the sense toward the end that Ayano had a crush on Musashi).

On the question of what universe Cosmos is in, which we also discussed back in June, I found some really badly translated fansubs of the second and third movies on YouTube, and they confuse the issue of universes, because they have guest appearances by several Tiga and Dyna cast members playing unnamed authority figures that could very well be interpreted as their established characters having moved up in rank. Although I don't think they can be, since as I mentioned last year, the original Cosmos movie establishes that the world knew about Ultra Warriors while Musashi (Cosmos's host) was still a child, which would've been before the events of Tiga.


For now, instead of moving forward from Cosmos, I've decided to stick with what's legitimately available on ShoutFactory. I watched Ultra Q, which was interesting but uneven, and often quite surreal, with a few episodes that felt like children's daydreams. I really liked Hiroko Sakurai as Yuriko, the female lead -- she had a fun attitude and a great smile. I've since moved on to the original Ultraman, and I was surprised to see that Sakurai continued as the female lead, but as a new character, Akiko Fuji. I'm disappointed, though, that her role is smaller and makes less use of her range as a performer. She was the second or third of three leads in UQ, but here she's the least prominent in a team of five, or even six if you count the boy Hoshino, and she's largely just there to say "Hailing frequencies open," as it were.

It's weird to go from Cosmos, where the team's default reaction to monsters was to try to safely restrain and capture them and ship them to a nature preserve, to OG Ultraman, where the default reaction to monsters is to kill, kill, kill, often through some fairly gruesome dismemberings. Good grief, as early as episode 2, Ultraman even committed genocide, destroying a spaceship containing billions of miniaturized alien refugees looking for a new homeworld.
 
I've finished Ultraman Cosmos now (and I ended up liking it quite a bit more than I initially said when I started last June), and I find that it also follows an almost identical team formula to Tiga and Dyna, aside from conflating the "Leader" character and the "female pilot" character into Shinobu and not having her be the Ultraman host's love interest (although I got the sense toward the end that Ayano had a crush on Musashi).

The "fat comic relief" character was definitely missing in Nexus, Max, and Mebius, and I can't think of any other Ultra series aside from "Ultraman 80" to have such a character.

As for the female pilot, that's a character archetype almost all Ultra shows have, as most of the kaiju-fighting teams' members are also pilots and, original show aside, they felt the need to at least have a token female character fighting alongside the male characters. This character, though has not always served as a romantic interest to the Ultraman host. Often enough, the female lead is paired with the Ultraman host on the team because he is the one most tied to the action, and this by default gives the female lead more to do (though it also tends to have this female lead get knocked out more often than other characters, so the host can turn into his Ultra form without endangering his secret identity).

The shows I can think of with a romantic subplot between the Ultra's host and the female lead (at least those that I've seen) are UltraSeven, Ultraman Great, Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Dyna, Ultraman Nexus, Ultraman Max, and Ultraman Z.

I also learned that the adult fan tendency for shipping is not really considered for the Ultra franchise, as it is still pre-dominately aimed at Japanese pre-pubescent boys without much interest in romance.

On the question of what universe Cosmos is in, which we also discussed back in June, I found some really badly translated fansubs of the second and third movies on YouTube, and they confuse the issue of universes, because they have guest appearances by several Tiga and Dyna cast members playing unnamed authority figures that could very well be interpreted as their established characters having moved up in rank. Although I don't think they can be, since as I mentioned last year, the original Cosmos movie establishes that the world knew about Ultra Warriors while Musashi (Cosmos's host) was still a child, which would've been before the events of Tiga.
Such cameos by actors with previous roles in the franchise are commonplace throughout the Ultra series. Officially, Cosmos is set in its own distinct universe.


Now, this week's episode 11 of "Ultraman Chronicle Z: Heroes' Odyssey" has only a brief look at a team-up of Ultraman Z and Ultraman Geed before showing the first part of the team-up movie "Ultraman Tiga & Ultraman Dyna: Warriors of the Star or Light" (with next week's episode concluding the story):
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If that appearance by Z and Geed wasn't enough for you, though, here is this week's re-uploaded episode #7 of "Ultraman Z":
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And, as part of the Spring Special Campaign, episode #6 of "Ultraman Geed":
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The "fat comic relief" character was definitely missing in Nexus, Max, and Mebius, and I can't think of any other Ultra series aside from "Ultraman 80" to have such a character.

The original Ultraman definitely has a comic-relief science guy, Ide, but he's tall and skinny.


Such cameos by actors with previous roles in the franchise are commonplace throughout the Ultra series. Officially, Cosmos is set in its own distinct universe.

Yes, but the movies left their identities vague enough that it would be easy to think they were the same people if you forgot the continuity differences. Which was probably the point.
 
Well, strictly comic relief characters have been more commonplace, but the stereotype of the "fat comic relief" was only in those series I listed, as far as I remember.
Ide also got a few dramatic moments as the series went on. And, funny enough, he had gained a lot of weight when he had some cameos in the Max/Mebius era.
 
Today sees the first part of Max's last adventure on Earth in the penultimate episode #38 of "Ultraman Max":
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And today, Tsuburaya's Spring Special Campaign presents us with episode #27 of "Ultraman Gaia":
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Ide also got a few dramatic moments as the series went on. And, funny enough, he had gained a lot of weight when he had some cameos in the Max/Mebius era.

What I want to know is, does Hayata ever develop a personality? I just saw an episode of Ultraman where he was missing and held captive for most of the story, and I barely noticed he was gone. The other leads have clear, distinctive personalities and presence, but Hayata is just a blank receptacle for Ultraman. I'm glad that trend didn't continue.
 
Yeah, Hayata mostly stayed the carbon copy of your standard 1960s childrens programming hero. Sometimes he was allowed to laugh at some jokes, and one time he even got to give an encouraging speech to Ide, but that's pretty much it.

Of course, when Ultraman splits from Hayata in the final episode, Hayata doesn't remember anything from the point when I first encountered Ultraman, which would suggest that it was always Ultraman and not Hayata in control. Thinking about it, this would have given a lot of opportunity for a stranger in a strange land kind of character, but they didn't seem to think of that until UltraSeven (and then going even further with it on 80 and Mebius).
 
Of course, when Ultraman splits from Hayata in the final episode, Hayata doesn't remember anything from the point when I first encountered Ultraman, which would suggest that it was always Ultraman and not Hayata in control.

I'm not sure, because in the one I just watched, an evil underground empire kidnapped Hayata so they could brainwash him and turn Ultraman into their slave (why does every alien always know Ultraman's secret identity?), but the narrator explained that hypnotizing Hayata had no effect on Ultraman because they were separate beings.
 
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