Please Don't Feed My Kaiju - Ultraman E01

The genesis of this blog happens to be coinciding with the beginning of my fascination with kaiju--that is, giant Japanese monsters. I'm certainly no stranger to the kaiju genre, having seen at least a dozen in my lifetime. This recent interest, however, is sparking in my a desire to watch and review as many kaiju movies as I can this winter.

Let me preface this all by saying that I really love Heisei era Godzilla. Always have. My favorite kaiju movie so far is Godzilla 1985 (or more accurately, The Return of Godzilla version). My favorite colossal beast is Gamera. I think it will be interesting to see how this changes by the end of this project.

My first kaiju review for Please Don't Feed is not going to be a movie but rather an episode of the classic tokusatsu series Ultraman. Ultraman is a cool choice for this feature because each episode has a new kaiju for Ultraman to fight and there's only 39 half-hour episodes, making it a very light time commitment. The original Ultraman series is available super cheap on DVD. I ordered the entire series released by Mill Creek on four discs for less than $8 shipped. Without further ado, let's review Ultraman episode one!

Ultraman E01 - "Ultra Operation No. 1"

Bemular and Ultraman are about to tango!

I watched this episode earlier today with English dubbing turned on. Generally speaking, I prefer neither subs nor dubs and greatly enjoy both. The Mill Creek DVDs I own contain both English and Japanese audio tracks with English subtitles. The subtitles are translations of the Japanese dialogue and thus differ substantially (enough to distract) from the English dubbing. You may still find yourself turning them on occasionally, however, as there is footage that never received dubbing that is included even when you have English audio turned on.

This episodes plot involves Science Patrol team member Shin Hayata chance encounter with a UFO orb. Hayata crashes his ship into a floating ball, taking him to the verge of death. The other party in the crash happens to be Ultraman. To make up for nearly killing poor Hayata, Ultraman decides to merge their two beings together. Hayata can now morph into Ultraman for a limited time using the beta capsule. Prior to the crash, Ultraman was in pursuit of the 50 meter tall dino kaiju Bemular. Bemular lands in a lake and decides to re-emerge the next day. Hayata and the Science Patrol immediately attack Bemular with no negotiation. Their lasers and missiles have little effect. The giant lizard bites Hayata's submarine and attacks the others with heat breath. Hayata uses the capsule to become Ultraman and makes easy work of Bemular. The monster tries to escape in its pod but is blown out of the sky.

The first episode was a lot better than I expected. I was surprised at the tone of the show. I expected something much more juvenile. Don't get me wrong--the show is quite kid friendly, but not to the point where it becomes a distraction. The episode does manage to maintain a semi-serious science fiction tone throughout. Once Bemular appears, things start to resemble the action shots of the 1958 film Varan the Unbelievable. It very well could have been Varan stepping out of that lake and being bombarded with missiles (and boy, did he get hit with a TON of missiles).

The special effects were fairly decent. Ultraman obviously didn't have the big budget that a feature film like Godzilla did, yet nothing looked too silly. Bemular didn't look too scary, mostly because it was shot in full lighting. On the other hand, it sure did look like a monster that could squash you handily. The miniature models were present in small doses although I would have liked to have seen more. The models are limited to a few cabins being crushed as Ultraman and Bemular tussled about.

The most disappointing thing about the episode is Ultraman's super sloppy stuntwork. I have seen clips of the show before, so I knew to expect. That didn't stop me from frowning seeing the amateur, unchoreographed wrestling between our hero and his foe. Whoever played Ultraman looked like a hyperactive 5 year old in that suit. One particularly embarrassing moment saw Ultraman deliver a horrid elbow drop/body splash to the downed Bemular. Honestly, the kaiju fighting is worse than the cheesiest scenes I've witnessed in the Godzilla and Power Rangers/Super Sentai franchises.

Your mileage may vary. I normally don't like retro shows from the 60s or 70s, but Ultraman was pretty decent in that regard. Despite my displeasure with the suit fighting, I really liked the visual look of the kaiju. The Ultra Monsters have some of the best kaiju design available. If you're a kaiju fan wondering whether you should pick Ultraman, I say go for it. The entire original series is available for under $10. It cost me all of $0.20 to see the first episode of Ultraman, and I think it was totally worth it.

Check it out!