Premise: SSSP officer Shin Hayata is sent to track two odd glowing spheres flying over Lake Ryugamori. While trying to keep up with them, the red sphere collides with his plane, killing him. The being known as Ultraman merges with him, bringing him back to life and grants him a device that will allow him to turn into the being in order to fight monsters.
Favorite character:
The main cast is perfectly fine and they play their roles rather well but due to the nature of the show, they don't get a lot of development. Hayata is probably the least developed imo but its not that big a deal given the show is sort of being a scifi anthology with kaiju fights. My favorite character is definitely Mitsuhiro Ide. He pretty much steals the show for me and his actor (Masanari Nihei) gives the best performance out of all of them. He is the team's scientist as well as the comic relief in certain episodes while also managing to give a good dramatic performance in other episodes. The episode "My Home Is Earth" has the man's best performance in the entire show.
Effects: The effects hold up pretty well all things considered. Very few of them look out of date and even the kaiju suits look pretty good. The miniatures are fantastic and pretty realistically detailed. There are a lot of varied sets and the show makes great use of them. Given the time the show was made in, it goes without saying that every single major effect in this show that can be done practically is done practically. They aren't even afraid to light a really expensive looking model city on fire in a few episodes. The only effect that doesn't hold up imo is the side-view of the Jet Vtol flying but thats mostly because its a rather simple looking model and it looks better from an overhead-view so I'm not really gonna hold that against the show.
Favorite Episodes: There really isn't a single episode I dislike as most run the gambit between pretty good to ok for me. Whether its the episode scenarios or the kaiju themselves, there is always something at the very least interesting about each episode. The kaiju fights are handled pretty well and the kaiju all have some pretty interesting and memorable designs. Every episode is pretty much self-contained so you can really jump in anywhere imo. Here are some of the ones that stood out to me.
Episode 2: Shoot the Invaders!
This episode is great because of how well it presents the Baltans and they are its main strength. The plot of the episode is that the Baltans show up to invade colonize Earth after their planet was destroyed by their own dependence on nuclear energy. They have this mysterious and unsettling vibe to them. It makes them feel appropriately alien, creepy, and really dangerous. They feel like alien ninjas to me and they honestly kind of scare me. They're pretty much my favorite monster in the show and potentially my favorite out of the whole franchise. I was so glad to see them return in episode 16.
Episode 12: Cry of the Mummy
I love this episode a lot. Its pretty heart-wrenching and tragic. Basically the plot of this episode is that a group of archaeologists dig up a mummy and it wakes up and goes on a rampage. Once Mummy Man dies, that causes Dodongo to wake up and goes on a rampage forcing Ultraman to put it down. This episode stood out to me because its ending pretty much outright says that killing those two was not a good thing because it was humanity's fault they woke it up. The kaiju fight doesn't even have that triumphant feeling to it. Dodongo's defeat had me holding back tears precisely because the episode focuses on the tragedy of it having to die by lingering on its death wails and it doesn't even explode.
Episodes 26 and 27: The Monster Highness
The Monster Highness is the only two parter episode in the show and its pretty cool. The plot is basically that a scientist wants to capture a live Gomorasaurus and bring it to Japan as an expo exhibit. They put it to sleep so they can capture it and transport it. The anesthetic wears off along the way allowing Gomora to escape and it goes on a rampage. What makes Gomora so great in these episodes is that its a normally docile monster that ends up being a powerhouse and it even manages to beat Ultraman in its first fight. The rematch is pretty brutal because Ultraman is quite literally ripping Gomora apart. Its not as tragic and sad feeling as Cry of the Mummy as this whole episode has the "Don't poke the giant multi-ton bear" vibe to it due to the sheer scale of damage Gomora does.
Final Thoughts: Its a pretty solid episodic scifi show. It holds up pretty well as far as I'm concerned. It was cool seeing Ultraman's look get more refined over the course of the show. The type A helmet (episodes 1-13) made him look kind of creepy given how roughly it was sculpted so I was glad to see them switch to a smoother one. They also made the suit look more muscular as the show progressed. Like I said earlier, pretty much every episode is self-contained, even the final episode, so you can jump around the show if you feel like it and not worry about feeling lost. Overall, I really do recommend the show if you want some good old episodic kaiju/scifi fun.
