Eiji
Tsuburaya has come up a few times already for his work with Toho
Studios as a special effects director with a long and storied career
that began in the 1920s. Arguably most famous for his work on the
original Godzilla films and his pioneering work in “Suitmation”
(the technique of putting an actor in a monster costume and
destroying a miniature set), he was a mainstay at Toho during the
company's rise in the 50s and 60s. In 1963, he founded his own visual
effects studio, Tsuburaya Productions. While still continuing his
work with Toho, the new studio would release Ultra Q,
a black-and-white 28 episode long horror series in the vein of The
Twilight Zone (with a
significant presence of monster costumes), which led directly to
Ultraman, released
that same year.
Ultraman
ran for 39 episodes (40 when
factoring in a pilot episode) and was in color. Wildly successful,
the show featured an extraterrestrial giant merging with a human to
save his life, who could then transform into the giant superhero
Ultraman to defend Earth from giant monster threats.
In
October of 1967, the sequel series to Ultraman
would air: Ultra
Seven.
Originally intended as a standalone show, it was folded into the
Ultra series in pre-production and featured suit and monster designs
by Tohl/Tohru Narita, who worked with Tsuburaya during the late 60s.
The
plot is similar, but different from the original Ultraman.
Instead of merging with a human host, this show's Ultraman came to
Earth from the Land of Light in Nebula M78 (an actual nebula and part
of the Orion constellation) and rescued a guy, then took his form and
calling himself “Dan Moroboshi” joined the Ultra Garrison, an
organization dedicated to defending the planet from alien invaders as
its sixth major member. Using an eyepiece called the Ultra Eye, he
can transform into his true form, a 40 meter (131 ft) tall red and
silver giant superhero dubbed Ultraseven because he was the
unofficial “seventh member” of the Ultra Garrison. Equipped with
a staggering array of special attacks and abilities typical for a
tokusatsu superhero, the show was an even bigger success than
Ultraman.
It ran for 49 episodes and featured even better ratings than the
previous series. Ultraseven is one of the most popular characters of
the entire Ultraman metaseries, and holds a high rank as one of the
Ultra Brothers. Dan Moroboshi's actor, Kohji Moritsugu is still
active and frequently reprised the role in more recent Ultra
shows.
Cool
guy status notwithstanding, Ultraseven is like all the other Ultras:
a giant dude, not a robot. Unlike the original Ultraman, Ultra
Seven
introduced giant robots into the mix.
Nurse,
or Narse, is a giant robotic space dragon that serves Alien Wild, a
collector of human souls. The dragon can transform in a flying saucer
form, but was ultimately ripped to pieces by Seven.
Crazygon
is an asymmetrical scavenger robot built by the Alien Banda race to
collect machinery. In practical terms, the robot rampages around a
city and puts cars into its torso with a giant claw arm.
A
race of near-humans called the Alien Salome built an imitation robot
Ultraseven in their scheme to conquer Earth. Eventually the real
Seven would escape captivity and defeat the robot with the help of
Agira, a capsule monster ally.
What's
a capsule monster? In the show, its a series of three artificial
monsters that Seven can summon from a capsule to help him fight. Two
of them, Agira and Miclas, are more bestial in form, while Windom is
a more obviously robotic creation. Windom was reprogrammed by the
Alien Kanan race into fighting Seven before being rescued, and then
later fell in another battle. The entire concept of monsters that
could be miniaturized in a portable storage device and then deployed
to fight on behalf of the owner would be one of the major influences
on Pokemon years later.
Lastly,
and probably the most iconic of Ultra
Seven's
giant robots is King Joe. Deployed by the warlike Alien Pedan race in
an attempt to conquer Earth, King Joe was deployed as four piloted
ships that could combine into a 55 meter (180 ft) tall mecha that
trounced Seven in their first fight until it was knocked over and
unable to get back up, like a turtle, and transformed into flight
mode to get away, like a different turtle, until eventually being
defeated by Seven in a harbor. The robot's odd name was in reference
to the lead writer of Ultraman
and Ultra
Seven,
Tetsuo Kinjo.
Originally
planned as the final Ultra series, Seven's success guaranteed that
another show would get made, but it would be several years before
another Ultraman series would air.
Next
time on Shin Super Robot Sunday: He tried to kill me with a forklift!
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