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Ultraman(ウルトラマン) is the generic name
for the
television series, movies, animations and other such things concerning
a 40+ m several-thousand-ton
giant from the
Nebula
M78 fighting monsters that harm the Earth (and saving the occasional
innocent monster.) Said being is also usually red-and-silver (although
several colour variations have been seen in recent years), has glowing
yellow bug-eyes and also has the ability to fire energy beams from various
positions of crossed hands.
Ultraman's creator was
Eiji Tsuburaya from
Tsuburaya Productions, a pioneer in
special effects. The show's predecessor was a series called
Ultra-Q, a
black and white 28-episode series very much like today's
The X-Files or
The Twilight Zone. The gist of the first series goes like this;
Science Patrol (Kagaku Tokusou Tai) member Hayata Shin was flying his
plane when a red sphere of light crashes into his
VTOL. The sphere turns out to be a giant red-and-silver giant called
Ultraman, and feeling remorse for killing the human, he merges his essence
with Hayata to revive him. In return, Hayata serves as the human form for
this being, and when danger threatens, he raises the Beta capsule and
transforms to Ultraman to save the day.
Ultraman ran from July
1966-April
1967 and was followed by many, many other series. Some of the more
famous ones include UltraSeven (1967), Return of Ultraman
(1971), Ultraman Ace (1972), Ultraman Taro (1973),
Ultraman Great (a.k.a. Ultraman Towards the Future) (Australian
production), Ultraman Tiga (1996), Ultraman Dyna (1997),
Ultraman Gaia (1998) and the most recent incarnation,
Ultraman Cosmos (2001). Foreign productions include the
1987
Hanna-Barbera co-production Ultraman: The Adventure Begins,
an animated movie; Ultraman: Towards The Future, an Australian
1990 production and Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero, produced in the
United States in
1994.
At present, close to 40 Ultraman/women exist, not counting the few
animated efforts from Tsuburaya Productions.
Ultraman's
licensing rights outside of
Japan are the subject of a prolonged legal dispute between Tsuburaya
Productions and a company based in
Thailand.
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