Ultraman Turns 40

[Andrew]

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

[MonsterX]

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.

[Andrew]

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.

[Ash]

I thought he was called Inframan?

[MonsterX]

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!

[Ash]

No....
I was referring to this guy:



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.

[Andrew]

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