- Timby
- Dec 23, 2006
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Your mother!
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You know since Doctor Who IS a contemporary, you guys get the Burk Talk too
What I want to talk about today is ‘Heisei’ UltraSeven, which for simplicity I’ll refer to as UltraSeven Evolution. Though that was only the subtitle given to the last of the 90s and early 2000s UltraSeven series, it does broadly fit the whole of Heisei UltraSeven and it also keeps me from having to constantly use a Japanese term that I’m going to wager some of you don’t really understand. What it is, for UltraSeven’s 25th, 30th and 35th anniversaries, more or less, Tsuburaya brought back the character and setting for brand new adventures and stories. But that’s not really fair to newcomers who have no idea what any of this even is to begin with!
So let’s take a step back. What I want to talk about is some poo poo made in the 90s and 2000s in Japan, but what I’m going to talk about in this blurb is the context for all of that to make sense. Let’s roll the wheel of time back a few decades to 1954. Less than ten years after WWII went down, Japanese and American relationships were still wounded, not made any better when an American H Bomb test went way out of control and caught fishing ships in its wake. Sadly it would leave no survivors, the sailors dying from radiation poisoning not long after. This would inspire Toho Studios, one of the largest film studios in Japan, to set to work on Gojira, which would eventually come to the US as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in 1956.
We have to tie things back this far because the man who brought Godzilla to life, the effective creator of the Tokusatsu Genre for Japan, was none other than Eiji Tsuburaya. For you new comers, as I’m going to be posting this in more than just the Toku thread, Tokusatsu is basically just ‘Live Action Special Effects’. The CW Super Hero series are an example of American Tokusatsu, as would the X-Files be and other similar shows. It doesn’t strictly mean super heroes, but that is what it has become closely associated with. There are, in theory, examples of these movies before Godzilla in Japanese history, but all of them have been lost to time sadly. Godzilla changed the game and Tsuburaya was the man behind it all.
Using his clout and influence, Tsuburaya established his own special effects studio that would begin developing projects for TV, while also aiding him on Toho movie projects. Due to this, while constrained to a weekly budget, Tsuburaya was able to pull off some impressive stuff on the small screen, and had access to top of the line recording equipment and special effects artists. Due to his unique and personal relationship with Toho he could even reuse suits, props and sound effects for his own personal series. The first of which being the classic black and white 1965 series, Ultra Q.
Ultra Q is an interesting beast of a series. We won’t spend too long on it because it is in many ways Tsuburaya getting his feet wet and proving that his plans could work on a weekly TV program. It is in effect Japan’s answer to the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone, closer to the Monster of the Week formula of the former though some episodes dip further into the latter. Never an overly serious show, the episodes range from twenty five minute monster movies, to out there fantasy fables and bizarre sci-fi tales with almost zero continuity in between. The reoccuring cast do not grow, merely acting as audience cyphers across the strange and weird tales that run the gambit of furry mole Godzilla fighting feathery Rodan, an actual giant mole monster, the Giant Octopus that fought King Kong and Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s children getting his own adventure, and a magical train that goes to the fourth dimension where walruses exist. Also crippled old ladies are suddenly able to walk again because of radiation and a little boy rides on a flying turtle to fight Manda in space. It’s a weird series.
But it also ran out of steam quickly, Tsuburaya growing discontent with the program. He felt that they needed something else, something more to add. Real heroes, to combat the alien invaders and kaiju week after week. So, after a lot of design work and a lot of testing, Ultraman 1966 was created. Ultraman is a whole story all on its own, one of the most influential things in modern Japanese culture that is omnipresent across Japanese media. Largely considered the Superman of Japan, Ultraman is up there with the most recognizable and popular of Japanese fictional heroes. Without Ultraman, there would be no Kamen Rider, no Super Sentai/Power Rangers, no Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, probably a very different Dragon Ball, and so much more.
But Ultraman is an interesting show to talk about. The thing with it was, it was never a very serious show. There were serious episodes, one of them is a stand out for being so dark and somber and touching on very real, very bitter concerns and emotions. But by and large, the show had a very fantastical feel to it, fitting better as Science Fantasy than anything. There was very little gravitas to the whole endeavor- Ultraman was a near invincible space God who could do drat near anything, the heroes were good and pure, and the aliens were all a bunch of bastards. Kaiju are inherently dangerous and must be wiped out and the show didn’t really care about the morality of things.
Except for one episode. That stand out episode mentioned before, episode 23. My Home Is Earth. A mysterious alien in an invisible spaceship comes to Earth and starts attacking the UN during important peace talks. The Science Patrol are tasked with stopping this alien without letting the world know of his true origins- namely the fact that he’s not an alien at all. His name is Jamila, and he was a human astronaut who was stranded in space, abandoned by his own people. He found himself on an inhospitable alien world with no water and ended up mutating into a grotesque, horrifying new form and eventually repaired and upgraded his ship to return to Earth and reveal the crimes of his country, who hid what happened to him.
It is a dark story that sees the comic relief of the show, Ide, go from being eager to kill this rogue alien to finding out the truth of him and having an emotional breakdown. Ultraman is forced to drown the poor man in the end, and the peace talks go on without a hitch, Jamila’s true fate kept secret from the world. Ide remarks bitterly that this is always the way with politicians and angrily leaves, to the cries of his fellows.
This is the only episode of Ultraman like this. Most of Ultraman is very silly and fun, very light hearted. It is a grand show with a lot of imagination and heart, but by its very nature it was limiting. Creatively stifling. Episodes like Jamila were what appealed to Tsuburaya more, and so he decided to cut Ultraman short at 39 episodes and move on. The TV stations begged him to keep the show going, but he felt he had done everything he could with the program like Ultra Q before it. He wanted to explore new ideas, go further than Ultraman ever had, and tell stronger, better stories.
Which brings us to 1967, UltraSeven. UltraSeven, it needs to be said, is not a sequel to Ultraman and does not take place in Ultraman’s universe. The two are not connected at all, and as of this period of time, UltraSeven is not an Ultraman. He is Agent 340, a cartographer from the M78 Nebula- Ultraman only ever referred to being from the Land of Light- whose original name wasn’t even going to be Ultra related. In progress names had him as Redman, UltraEye and others. Even the name UltraSeven does not refer to Ultraman at all. In UltraSeven, there is a Terrestrial Defense Force, a kind of world wide military, with a specialized unit for dealing with alien attackers, the Ultra Garrison. Each member are denoted as Ultra One, Ultra Two and so on. With his job to map the Milky Way Galaxy, Seven wandered to Earth and found an inspiring sight- a mountaineer sacrificing himself so that his partner could live, cutting his own rope when they were in trouble.
Saving the man before he died and shape shifting into his form, Seven took the human name Dan Moroboshi. From there Dan would join the Ultra Garrison as Ultra Six, which left his true form as, of course, UltraSeven. UltraSeven the series and character are far more serious and nuanced- the characters in Ultraman are largely archetypes or very flat, while the characters in Seven can be a lot more dynamic and fleshed out. To a degree of course, this is still the 60s. The series is regarded as Japan’s Star Trek, tackling sci-fi plots and far more serious stories than Ultraman was ever able to. It is also widely regarded as superior to the original Ultraman, and UltraSeven is often cited as the more popular of the two in Japan, and even at Tsuburaya the company itself.
UltraSeven would be made an Ultraman after his own series ended, in 1971, when he was brought back twice to save Ultraman Jack from certain death in homage to the recently passed Tsuburaya, who claimed UltraSeven as his favorite of his TV series. Not hard to see why given all of the love and affection given to the show- unlike Ultraman and Ultra Q, UltraSeven was kept going as long and as far as it could, lasting a full 49 episodes until Tsuburaya oversaw the grand finale personally.
Some of the episodes in UltraSeven are slower than others, bog standard sci-fi adventures with cunning alien invaders and brave heroes. But some of them go the extra mile. One of the best is the expertly shot and filmed The Targeted Town, episode 8, about people from a specific town going murderously insane for apparently no reason. Extremely well done visuals and cinematography coupled with a memorable villain and a down right awesome coda all come together to make it one of the best episodes of the franchise, despite the fact that it features almost no fighting at all. All of the two parters in UltraSeven are enjoyable for their own reasons, and all feature threats that rival our hero in power.
Because Seven predates Kamen Rider and what most know as Modern Toku (Power Rangers and the like), the series works more like a comic book super hero than what most think of as a Japanese one. There’s no random posing, no calling of attacks, no inexplicable power ups or training to get new abilities. No toys, beyond just the iconic things found in the series itself. Seven has a set bunch of powers that he uses in clever and brutal ways to fight whatever comes his way. Often his battles with the aliens come down to a game of wits, his alien foes knowing they’re not strong enough to face him in battle.
And unlike Ultraman, UltraSeven does not waste time fighting. If a fight lasts more than a minute, it’s because the enemy is dangerous or has some kind of trick up their sleeve. Because what really mattered to the series was the story, not the fights or monsters. Early, early on it is established that humanity are no angels, and that Seven would be forced to make hard choices if he decided to stand beside them. One featured an alien city traveling towards the Earth, unaware that the inhabitants of the planet weren’t able to move their planet like they could. It comes down to Dan trying to reach the aliens and convince them to move before the Ultra Garrison destroys their city- or the aliens destroy the Earth. Sadly for Dan the aliens are unable to be reached, and the Ultra Garrison destroys the city, killing billions.
Another famous story sees a parallel to the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Dan fighting to bring peace as best he can, ultimately futile. In the end the victim of humanity has to be put down and the human race only learn to fear the horrors of the universe even more. Finally for this talking point, we have the most somber of all the Seven episodes. Aliens begin sending warnings to the humans to avoid the ocean, to leave it be. Turns out they have underwater cities and are trying to live peacefully, but recent testing has badly harmed them. Dan ends up having to side with humanity or the aliens, and chooses to save his human friends- leaving them to wipe out the aliens.
Only, it’s revealed that the aliens were not invaders. They weren’t even aliens. They were the Nonmalt, the original and rightful inheritors of Earth. They claim that Humanity’s ancestors came to the planet as invaders, forcing the Nonmalt into the ocean and taking the earth as their own. A horrific crime, and one that leaves Dan questioning if humanity is worth fighting and suffering for. One that would have ramifications into the Evolution series, along with the other sins of humanity.
Unlike with Ultraman, who was unceremoniously defeated by a new monster of the week in a single episode to shuffle the series out the door, Seven was given a huge send off with a two parter that had greater stakes than ever before. After so long fighting for humanity, Seven is dying. His physical injuries have caught up to him and he’s unable to absorb solar energy anymore. Just as this starts happening, the worst alien invasion in the history of the franchise kicks off, the Goth Aliens wiping out New York, Moscow, London and Paris in underground explosions, declaring that they will wipe out all of humanity if they do not bend at the knee.
On their side is their super monster, Pandon, as well as their volcano base where they operate. Seven takes on Pandon but finds his powers are failing, unable to use his energy attacks or control his famous Eye Slugger, a blade built into his head that he normally could telepathically control. Instead Seven has to take it in hand and in a difficult struggle, lops off Pandon’s arm and leg, passing out after.
But this does not stop the monster nor the aliens. The Aliens retaliate by turning Pandon into a cyborg and capturing Soga, Dan’s best human friend. Dan’s health is failing rapidly and even his superior warns him that if he transforms and fights, he will die before reaching home. Unable to abandon his friends and loved ones, Dan transforms in front of Anne, his love interest, one final time. He rescues Soga as the volcanic base is destroyed by the Ultra Garrison and then fights Reconstructed Pandon one final time, managing to kill the beast for good by lopping off its heads.
After that the weary hero leaves the Earth, his human friends unsure if he will survive the trip back to his homeworld. One laments that if Dan dies, it’ll be their fault. He’d have died because of them. Furahashi however believes that Dan will return, Anne backing him up. They know Dan will live and Dan will return to them, one day. His fate uncertain, the series draws to a close.
For 1967 UltraSeven, it is unmatched in my eyes compared to its contemporaries. The aliens didn’t always look the best, but the storytelling was tight and powerful, the characters well realized, and the effects for the time honestly as good as they possibly could have been. It stands up there with the best of 1960s sci-fi, and is one of the best super hero media out there. Seven as a character is not naive, having lived for 19,000 years, but he believes the best in people and wishes to see the best in others. He also would do anything for the people he has grown to love, choosing humanity over his own happiness and well being time after time even though he knows how flawed they are.
Its long lasting appeal and outstanding quality is why it has stood the test of time and become one of the primary pillars in the Ultraman franchise and beyond. For as much as Ultraman has inspired in media, UltraSeven has inspired even more. It stands as one of the best super hero properties out there, and is my favorite superhero period.
And with that preamble out of the way, soon I will go into the UltraSeven Evolution series, broken down into their individual eras. We have four to cover- two TV movies released in 1994, three direct to video movies released in 1998, six direct to video movies released in 1999, and a five episode mini series released across 2001 and 2002 to finish it off. Tying that with the UltraSeven X series made in 2007 for Seven’s 40th, if you lot don’t mind, I’ll walk you all through the slightly lesser known aspects of UltraSeven’s story. Not what came before, but what happened after he left the Earth that fateful 1968 night.
Be seeing you soon.
wat
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Jul 22, 2019 12:40
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