#tsubaraya productions

[henshinwolf89]

My tokusatsu collection part 1. I don't have a problem. You have a problem.

[simeonscott]

Why Ultra Q is Still Worth Watching

Heaping Braise on the foundation that began what we know today as TV Tokusatsu in earnest.

[redsnerdden]

Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man Gets A New Promotional Trailer

Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man Gets A New Promotional Trailer #スパイダーマン #SpiderMan #Ultraman #Tokusatsu #manga #ウルトラシリーズ #Marvel #Comics

You may recall the previous coverage for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, there was a surprise announcement regarding a new collaboration project involving Marvel, Viz Media, Tsuburaya Productions, and Shogakukan for Ultraman: Along Came a Spider-Man, a new promotional video was released for the newly released manga crossover. Shogakukan’s Monthly Magazine, CoroCoro Comic, and the Official…

[freezing-kaiju]

ALRIGHT, IT'S TIME!

THE SECOND RYUKI-AND-BLADE-ACCOMPANYING ANIME POLL IS NOW HERE!!!

SO, MEET YOUR CHALLENGERS!

AJIN Demi-Human

We start with a dark horror and possibly scifi about ethics in science, immortality, and an outlaw fugitive alien plot as a boy finds himself part of a group of immortals declared legally inhuman. While I have some misgivings about Oh No I Was Secretly A Creature All Along plots, I do fucking love horror and there’s a lot of ways for those plots to hit hard in the trans and gay and autism organs and be really important!!!!

Dimension W

The New Tesla Energy Corporation has monopolized the fourth dimension and the coils that connect to it. A duo of bounty hunters, one human and one robot, make money via repossessing illegal coils and seek out the answer to the mysteries within the dimension. I really wanna watch this one for a few reasons, the primary one of which is 'there are multiple fat women'. It seems to have freaks and weirdos and fun times, and its comedy is emphasized more than most of the other ones on this list so it might give some needed levity!

Kyoukai no Kanata

A bumbling monster hunter with blood powers meets an immortal via trying to shank him and ends up in an arrangement where she'll keep trying to kill him to boost her confidence while hunting monsters in what I hope is a monster-of-a-week show that came highly recommended by a friend as her favorite anime, or one of her favorites, so i have high hopes! Script's by the hibike euphonium guy and the power system seems quite interesting!

Air

A puppeteer (if he’s as good as Sakon will remain to be seen) stops his Road Trip To Meet A Golden Sun Jupiter Summon to stay for a bit in a town and, as happens to anyone who stops for too long, gets attached to the place and also meets a girl who might be said jupiteresque being. My friend informs me that it's gorgeous, sounds amazing (so I'll make sure to get clips), and has "nice sad vibes"!!! And it’s…listed in a “provincial horror” listing… hoho

Heike Monogatari

A child who can see ghosts and the future walks tirelessly through the tragedy of the war between the Taira and Minamoto families before the dawn of the first shogunate. It's wildly beloved by a friend of mine, and also centers a historical event i know some but not all about and definitely need to know more about the Taira side of. Seems like a beautiful drama, one I could lose my heart over.

SSSS Gridman

Digital kaiju! Digital hero! Digital amnesia! A monster of the week show about an unknown amnesiac summoning and merging with Hyper Agent Gridman to fight digital, possibly virtual monsters while making friends(?) in the real world! It's the one thing Tsubaraya Productions has that isn't Ultraman, and I expect some tokusatsu vibes from it along with the mecha stuff, i've also heard it has gay girl megatron??

Akudama Drive

It's a prison break and crime story set in a tech dystopia, starring a scene girl shoplifter, and featuring a bevvy of unpersoned convicts in what seems like an excellent ensemble clusterfuck!!! The Danganronpa crew made this thing! It's also beloved by a friend of mine, and I've heard it'll be a generally excellent tragedy of a time

Canaan

A reporter gets saved from assassins by a woman she might do yuri with, and the summaries I’ve found seem to imply a plot about terrorism and mystery! It’s a Type-Moon work that isn't part of the fate, tsukihime, OR melty universes! It might still have magecraft, but it's tagged sci-fi too, and a type moon take on scifi sounds interesting... it’s also based on. *checks wikipedia* a…perfect-Famitsu-score visual novel for the Nintendo Wii. So I might need to dig out some old hardware to watch this thing. For fun’s sake!

Killing Bites

A guy unintentionally becomes the underground wrestling promoter of a ?werewolf? Woman who murders his friends and wins him a shitload of money. The end goal? According to the summary, control of the economy!!! This was recommended as garbage and good lord I need garbage so much good god I need to put some trash inside of me.

[bluetomorrows]

Ultra Q is magical

Ultra Q is a weird show. And I don't mean that in the way some westerners do when they see something slightly Japanese and say "What drugs were they on???". No. Ultra Q was weird even by (maybe more so by) the standards of tokusatsu media in 1966. 

How do you even explain the premise of Ultra Q? A reporter and her two pilot friends repeatedly experience strange phenomena, sometimes manmade, sometimes alien, and sometimes just nature in unbalance, all illustrated through Eiji Tsubaraya's special effects, often reused and modified from past productions. 

It feels bizarre to watch Ultra Q removed from its original context. I am not a Japanese child who rushes through their dinner so they can make time to watch this show they've waited all week to see. To watch a show that despite being on a tiny tube TV, had effects that could rival the big-budget theatrical kaiju films of the era. I am instead a 19-year-old Canadian who bought the Blu-ray set, and can watch any episode at any time, all gorgeously and meticulously restored in high definition. Seeing it like this, I am often impressed with the amount of detail and care put into props that would have never shown in its original broadcast, and just as often I laugh at the obvious faults in the special effects that also would not have been noticeable in said original broadcast.

But the thing is, when I step back and look at this through the eyes of its original presentation, I am wowed. I think if I was a child watching this, I would just think that it's real. Seriously. So much effort has clearly been put in to sell this. More so than so many kaiju stories at the time, there's almost always a personal connection in the sci-fi/fantasy elements. Always a person who this story affects personally that we get to see in-depth. It goes a long way to make the unreal feel real. Almost every episode ends with a stinger about how "this could happen to you!". When a mysterious phantom train is taking people to another world in an episode, the narrator tells you to be careful boarding the train at night. There's an episode where Earth gets a warning from an alien guardian. Her people have designated her as Earth's protector and she warns us of a different alien threat. At the end of the story, she decides that she's fallen in love with our planet and our people, and wants to live here permanently. The narrator tells us that many of her people have made the same decision as Earth is a beautiful and peaceful planet. We then cut to a series of shots of people nearby, all wearing the same distinctive shoes as the woman in the episode. I can guarantee you that if I watched that as a kid, not only would I become convinced that aliens live among us, but I would start looking for them the next day. Ultra Q wants you to believe that you live in a beautiful and strange world and that might be my favourite aspect of it. 

The amount of creativity on display here is insane. It's always pushing itself to come up with new and creative stories. Some of my favourite episodes here are Mammoth Flower, a story where a strange plant monster takes root beneath Tokyo and sprouts out to destroy buildings (the main inspiration for the villain in one of my favourite kaiju films Gamera 2: Attack of Legion). Peguila is Here!, the only episode that doesn't take place in Japan as it sees our protagonists venture to the south pole to meet a woman searching for her missing fiance, the only lead being his journal warning of the monster Peguila. Space Directive M774, the previously mentioned episode with the alien woman. They get very creative with the ways she communicates with our cast, and the alien threat is a giant stingray which hatches from an egg on the ocean floor. Very cool stuff. Metamorphosis is another episode that sees a woman searching for her fiance. This time he's been infected by a strange species of butterfly that caused him to grow to a giant size. They have to appeal to his emotion to get him to shrink down. Open Up!, the series finale. This is about the aforementioned train. It takes away those who are fed up with their lives and wish to escape them. Some realize that they didn't appreciate what they had and leave. Some leave and then come back again because they're the problem in their lives, not other people. One of the few episodes with a real moral message and it's surprisingly complex. It also forces our protagonists to reflect on their lives

My absolute favourite episode of the series is Blazing Glory. A fighter nicknamed Dynamite Joe has been on a spectacular rise in the world of boxing. Throughout it all, he's been caring for his pet alligatorsaurus Peter. Peter has the ability to change size based on temperature, and also telepathically tells Joe the outcome of his matches ahead of time. Before his championship fight Joe disappears and the gang finds him washed up as a clown that performs at a motel, drinking himself away in shame. Peter had told him that in the championship he would be knocked out in the third round. They fail to convince him to return to boxing, but eventually, Peter breaks loose, starting a large fire and disappearing from Joe's life. After his near-death experience and loss of Peter, Joe decides to return to boxing. He realizes that knowing the outcome of every match killed his ambition to better himself, and the true beauty of life comes from its unpredictability. For me, this is Ultra Q at its best. It pushes the envelope to tell new and exciting stories with its medium that try and make you believe in a wild and wonderful world. It's truly a show that has never been truly replicated, partially because of the wild success of Ultraman, but also just because it is a one-of-a-kind joyous celebration of Eiji Tsubaraya's life and career.

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

On the Kaijin Noises thing if I recall in Tsubaraya's productions their reuses of Toho sounds was an inside joke for the production crew (the iconic SSSP phone buzzer sound is actually King Ghidorah's roar)

that is SO funny... i should watch king ghidorah at some point

[discipleofmothra]

Happy Ultraman Day!

Looks like Tsubaraya is celebrating with its English audience with a teaser and October release date for the Ultraman Card Game.

I guess it's kind of cool that we have a tiny bit more info on it, but there's so much going on with Ultraman right now that I was hoping for something more exciting. I've been burned by too many bandai card games that only get support for a year or so. I don't have a lot of faith that this will go any better. Also the product name is not very searchable, so I'm sure that won't help it across multiple languages.

I was kind of hoping we'd get some news in further Netflix collaborations, or maybe a new manga, or something fun.

[teragames]

Confirman la fecha de estreno para "Ultraman Blazar the Movie: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown"

La nueva imagen promocional de @TsuburayaGlobal para "Ultraman Blazar the Movie: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown" (@ultraman_series) confirmó el estreno de la película para febrero del 2024.

Ultraman Blazar the Movie: Tokyo Kaiju Showdown, la película que continúa las aventuras del superhéroe tokusatsu Ultraman Blazar, se estrenará el 23 de febrero de 2024 en Japón. Este año, Netflix anunció también una producción. Su película de Ultraman, en co-producción con Tsubaraya Productions, se estrenará en el 2024. La cinta fue confirmada en el 2021 como una producción de Netflix,…

[personarider]

Ultraman Zett 01 (DUB) Review |GU

Ultraman Zett 01 (DUB) Review |GU Tsubaraya Productions has made an English dub for Ultraman Z! Join MJ as he discusses #UltramanZett 01. #Ultraman #Tokusatsu #Toku #Dub

RSS Feed | Podcast Index | Spotify | Amazon Music | Samsung Podcasts | Listen Notes Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pandora | Tune In | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | Deezer Join MJ as he discusses Ultraman Zett 01. TOPICS Quality of the dub Should there be more toku dubs? Haruka and Zett as mirrors of each other LINKS Ultraman Zett Official Dub Official North America HP Ultraman Official…

[simeonscott]

Chant. His. Name.

[memoriesofkyoto]

Ultraman (1966) Illbleed (2001)

Michael Reynolds' stiff and unnatural animations and poses even mirror those of the Zetton Seijin. I'm surprised it's deliberate, considering the fact that most Dreamcast cutscenes look like that to begin with.

[redsnerdden]

ULTRAMAN: Netflix Anime Series

Here They Come! Our Ultraman! ULTRAMAN: Netflix Anime Series Review: A Fun and Interesting Approach To A Beloved Hero. #ウルトラマン #ULTRAMAN #anime #manga #Netflix

[kevynthedevylman]

Ultraseven confirmed!!!!!

[godzillajuniorreborn]

Thoughts on Ultraman (2019)

Negatives: 

The motion capture animation takes a bit of getting used to. I mean, it feels a lot more natural and fluid than just cel-shaded CGI animated at the same frame-rate of a 2-D anime like in the Urobutchi Godzilla trilogy, but at times, the movements give me Foodfight flashbacks. 

It doesn’t feel like Ultraman. It feels more like a Guyver/Iron Man/Kamen Rider/Men In Black hybrid using the Ultraman brand. I mean, when I think of Ultraman, I think of a giant guy in silver and red spandex with a Kabuki mask throwing down with giant monsters. Maybe in the manga, we could get an arc that brings back the really big Kaiju and the Ultras have to go giant-sized in order to fight them

Some of the character interactions feel a bit too repetitive like Rena stating how much of an Ultraman fangirl she is. I mean, yeah, okay, we get it, you like Ultraman! Unless this is setting up a possible plotline of her becoming an equivalent to Mother of Ultra, dial it back. 

I did NOT like how they handled Pigmon... If you can even call him that. Give him a balloon or SOMETHING! 

The inspector character is frustrating in that he doesn’t see Shinjiro as the “real” Ultraman. Like, seriously, dude, the guy saved your daughter from certain death more times than one and is clearly ON YOUR SIDE! Take what you can friggin’ get. 

Positives:

The action sequences were extremely well done and take full advantage of the motion capture animation. 

While he’s not the same valiant character we know and love, I like how Dan Morobishi (AKA Ultraseven) is the type of jerk who, while I wish he could word what he says with a bit more tact, does have a point. I also like how he and Shinjiro have a bit of an Agent K/Agent J chemistry going on. 

I like how this is both a reinvention of the Ultraman franchise while still maintaining itself as a sequel. I especially like how they incorporate the color timer from the original show.

Speaking of the original show, it’s nice to hear some of the classic sound effects such as the transformation noise and color timer sound. 

The English Dub is rather good and the dialogue feels a lot more natural than most action anime... though that’s probably more because this was made as a Tokusatsu series first and an anime last. (Are you taking notes, Hiroyuki Seshita? This is what you should’ve done with Godzilla.)

The reinvention of Ultraman Ace was both different and faithful at the same time.

There are references to classic Ultraman rogues such as Zetton Seijin, Yapool, Bulton, Black King (replacing Red King from the manga), Ace Killer, Dada (now named Adad), and a blood-sucking insectoid who seems to combine aspects of Cicada Man from Ultra Q and Baltan Seijin. Heck, in the opening thirty seconds of the first episode, there’s a cameo from the OG!Zetton. 

[professor-ry]

Psst, Mirrorman and The Ultraman on Toku.

[toku-action-figure-news]

Ultra Action Figure reveals Ultraman Trigger Multi Type, Sky Type and Power Type

As Tsubaraya Productions prepares to start airing Ultraman Trigger, the newest entry in the Ultraman series celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ultraman Tiga; the first three figures of its Ultra Action Figure line have been revealed -- Multi Type, Sky Type and Power Type; Trigger's three main forms based on the typical powerset started with Tiga.

Ultra Action Figure Ultraman Trigger Multi Type, Sky Type and Power Type release at general retail in July 2021 for 2200 Yen each.