Article on Slashdot, with links to articles on the Japan Times website. The Japan Times site requires registration to view the stories, but a helpful poster did what they often do on Slashdot - posted the entire story text for the one article.
It was amusing to see one poster on Slashdot who made the same observation I did lately: the episodes (at least from Season 1), seem to follow the same formula over and over.
Click here to read the Slashdot story (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/26/077254)
I was more of a Specter Man fan when I was a kid. When I got a dvd of all the episodes off ebay a year or so ago I was amazed at how terrible they were! I need to pick up that Ultraman dvd that came out not to long ago still.
Spectreman! I remember that show. Have not seen it in over twenty years, so I wonder if it will suffer as badly (or worse) as Ultraman did.
They have put out a second Ultraman DVD set, which I have not picked up yet. I am only about halfway through the first DVD set. Of course, it often feels like I am watching the same episode over and over. One that did trigger a big memory was the man-eating plant monster one. Terrifying as a child, seeing somebody flopped upon by a plant monster that looked more like a huge latex glove.
I thought he was called Inframan?
Nope, here's Spectreman.
http://www.arislan.net/henshin/spectreman/
Every week Spectreman would battle some pollution-based monster let loose upon the world by two alien monkeys that flew around in a flying saucer. It's good campy big rubber suited monster fun. When I saw them again I had a hard time watching some of them though because it's like watching the same episode over and over again, like Andrew mentioned with Ultraman.
What's funny is that as a kid I thought Ultraman was a bad rip off of Spectreman when it was really the other way around!
No....
I was referring to this guy:
(http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4852/inframan092iy2.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
This is definitely Inframan...but is there another character called Ultraman?
I used to play the Super NES game Ultraman but the character looked different.
I get 'em mixed up.
Yes, totally different guy in a suit fighting monsters. And there have been about a dozen different versions of Ultraman (including females).
I found this site with pictures and lots of background. Probably more background than is healthy.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/ultrafaq/Ultraman-FAQ.html