Tetsuo Kinjo, acclaimed playwright and screenwriter, helped Eiji develop these strange new visions into the living rooms of unsuspecting families in Japan. Over the course of 28 episodes, the trio investigated blood-sucking flowers, giant spiders carrying the reincarnated spirits of little girls, and meteorites that gave birth to adorably disgusting baby monsters. The storyline of the series followed the weird adventures of renowned pilot and author Jun Manjoume, his apprentice Ippei Togawa and journalist Yuriko Edogawa. Toho was cranking out the equivalent of one short special-effects heavy blockbuster a week, something practically unheard of during the black and white era. Ultra Q turned out to be the most expensive television series ever produced for its time. Originally titled Unbalanced, the show was renamed Ultra Q partly due to a parallel bar technique called Ultra C that won gymnast Yukio Endo three gold medals (plus a silver one too) at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Bunya Suzuki, a sports announcer for NHK, would shout “Ultra!” each time Endo scored high marks, and thus the word became an ear meme. The Q suffix was Tsuburaya’s idea to designate “question” and “quest”, but this was most likely influenced by the suits at TBS, since Ultra Q’s lead-in was the immensely popular anime Obake no Q-tarō, affectionately known as Obake Q at the time. He dedicated the rest of his life to inspiring that same sense of wonder in others, which lead to the creation of Godzilla, Mothra, and an entire film genre. As a child, his life was changed by seeing King Kong on the big screen. His work has influenced everything from disaster flicks to B-movies to hand-drawn animation to popcorn blockbusters to Saturday morning TV shows. The creation of the Ultramantelevision series was overseen by former head of Toho Studio’s Visual Effects department, Eiji Tsuburaya, who reshaped the landscape of special effects-heavy cinema. (Are you listening, Insight Editions?) So consider this my attempt at chronicling the major details from each installment in the Ultraman TV and film franchise until something more comprehensive comes along. This kind of topic deserves a coffee table book at the very least to do it justice. Realistically speaking, it’s not feasible to publish a full account of Ultraman’s history in an online article such as this. And for good reason: he’s arguably the most recognizable pop culture icon from the land of the rising sun that wasn’t originally an manga character, since his legacy spans half a century at the time of this writing. Whenever the phrase “Japanese super-hero” is mentioned, Ultraman is usually the first thought that comes to mind.

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