Saturday Night Showcase: The Original Ultraman

If I understand correctly Ultra Q was about scientists fighting monsters, which is what giant monster (aka kaiju) movies were like at the time, but this was a TV show. I think I heard it compared to The X-Files, which wouldn’t come out until decades later. For the sequel series Tsuburaya tried something new by having the military develop a special anti-kaiju task force. However, one member of the team would merge with a giant good alien from another galaxy and together they would protect the planet from space and terrestrial monster threats. That version was called Ultraman, and it was so well received that it began a franchise that still makes new series to this day. Ultraman would be dubbed into English to air on US television as would some of the sequel series. Two shows would also be co-produced with a US studio, one of which was a previous Saturday Night Showcase.

Tonight, thanks to Shout Factory’s TokuSHOUTsu channel I get to bring you the first episode of Ultraman along with a more recent Ultra series next week. The original is in Japanese but the subtitles are available on-screen without using the captions. If you don’t like to read the subtitles I also found a posting of the dubbed version, but there’s a reason the really curious may want to watch both.

“But if I already watched it in the original Japanese why should I watch it again in English?”

Well, I’m not sure this part will sell you but US TV even back then had to shorten the show slightly for their broadcast to make time for ads and stuff. See if you can find all the differences but there are a lot more similarities than you’d expect for a 1960s dub.

Here in the US the whole series is available subbed to stream at Shout Factory TV. However, if you want the home video version you’ll have to go to Mill Creek Entertainment. I’m not sure how that licensing works but there you go. I don’t know where you can get it in English legally.