Throwback To My Childhood

There were two 1960s Japanese import TV shows my peers and I watched in the early- to mid-70s:  Speed Racer in the morning, and Ultraman in the afternoon.  Speed Racer was anime, Ultraman was live action.

Ultraman was cheesy, but when your age is measured in single digits, that's OK.  We loved the fight scenes, we loved the monsters, we loved the Science Patrol theme song, and we loved Ultraman's crossed-hands pose that fired a spacium beam.  And since it was dubbed, we even liked watching mouths move and seeing that the words didn't match the mouths!  Yes, we could sometimes see the string holding the model that was supposed to be Science Patrol's VTOL plane, and we could see the zipper along the back of the Ultraman costume, but that didn't matter.  Whereas children in the 50s had Superman as their TV superhero, we had Ultraman, and he was awesome.

When I saw the complete series, all 39 episodes, on Blu-ray at Best Buy a couple weeks ago, and at a reasonable price, I had to buy it.  And you know what?  The show is just as cheesy as it ever was, and I like it just as much as I did as a child.  The only difference is that this version is not dubbed so I have to read the subtitles.

In May 2022, an Ultraman movie was released in Japan.  It's Ultraman "reimagined", and all the characters have changed.  There's no Hayata!  If you want to see this movie, though, you have to act quickly:

Move over Godzilla; Shin Ultraman will have a limited theatrical run in U.S. theaters, according to an announcement made during the Ultraman Connection panel at Anime NYC.

In partnership with Fathom Events, Shin Ultraman will have a two-night run in theaters across the U.S. Fathom Events is owned by three of the world's largest theater circuits: AMC, Regal Cinemas (Cineworld) and Cinemark. Fans can catch the film in participating theaters on Wednesday, Jan. 11 and Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. 

Get your tickets here.