Air Dates: January 2nd until July 3rd, 1966 though episode #28 didn't air until December 14th
Sundays at 7:00 pm on TBS, 28 total episodes that were 25+ minutes in length. Created by Eiji Tsuburaya, directed by his oldest son Hajime.
Subs by Tgwoe, screenshot dimensions 1436 x 1076(4:3). This classic series also has a color version but I prefer older shows/films in Black and White as that seems to give off a more creepy vibe which the subber also thought.
Ratings: **** Didn't find the ratings until the ninth episode but did update the first eight shows. This series had such high ratings but back in 1966 there were only a few regular stations and no cable. This drama ran opposite another sci-fi show called "W3" which was very popular and before this series began had an average rating of 23%. However "Ultra Q" was much more popular and the other show slipped below 10%!!!! The average rating for these 28 episodes was 32.4%, the rating for this 24th episode was 30.1% and will update this section for each show.
In the middle are the main three characters, who they are will be revealed below. The man on the left end is Eiji Tsuburaya and he is the #1 special effects man/director of all time in Japan. He did all of the special effects for the classic TOHO films such as creating the costumes, sets, etc. and of course most reading this have seen the "Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan" and other movies. This TV series was the first of it's kind in Japan and Tsuburaya had created this series where he didn't want the focus to be on monsters but the story which was the format for the old American series "Outer Limits". But TOHO wanted his unique monsters and there will be a different one in each show, will update this top section now and again with more trivial tidbits. Tsuburaya had access to all of his old costumes so would often mix them up such as the head from a 1965 film, the body from a 1961 movie and so on.
**** This is a new feature that was added for the eleventh episode and will update it every other recap. This mini section will have the monsters/creatures that we have seen to date and you can see more of them as a bit further down are the links to all of the episodes. Did have just two screenshots of the monsters but now that I'm caught up with them will have four of them for the remaining shows. So the first four below are from episode 19 and the first one isn't of a monster. But of some slime from outer space which did transform into the monster in the next three screenshots. It never had a name but kept growing until his death as fire was it's weakness and it came from the planet Kemur. The second monster is the one I really enjoyed and isn't it so similar to the Creature from the Black Lagoon? It certainly was though this creature was a female who lived in an underseas empire called Ragon and somehow the egg of her baby had floated up to the top of the ocean!
**** Skipped adding in any from the past two shows as for episode 21 it was just a huge Manta Ray like creature and in the 22nd show it was a man who grew to be a giant.
Main Cast: Though it appears this had nothing to do with the "Ultraman" franchise in a way it does as this series is considered to be it's forerunner. The first "Ultraman" series began a little bit after this show ended in it's same time slot and there's not enough time to talk about that show and it's movies which I do recommend. Hiroko Sakurai who plays the reporter Yuriko in this show is quite known for her "Ultraman" work as she was in the first series plus a few more after that along with being in many of the movies. Will do some editing and adding as we go along though not as much as other dramas, the top three are by far the main characters. There will be many monsters in this series, perhaps one per episode! Won't give any details about them at the top but will talk about them during the recap.
**** Not sure how to explain this and perhaps it doesn't need it. But when the show opens a narrator tells us what we are about to watch will be something extraordinary, is what we view real or just a part of our imagination? A screenshot of that is above and that's how the American series "Outer Limits" also opened and at the end the viewers were asked to think again with about what we viewed, to date this show hasn't done that. Every episode has it's own title, this episode's is....
The Statue of Goga
Kenji Sahara as Jun Manjome.... Don't think any actor was in more of the classic TOHO monster films than Sahara was between 1954 to 1975 and also in four "Ultraman" series! Jun is a pilot for Hoshikawa Airlines, he can fly both planes and copters. Though a pilot Jun does dream of becoming a best selling sci-fi writer, he's also adept with guns and how that came to be is a mystery. Plus Jun is a master with cars and could have been a racer, one last thing is that Jun loves science which is how he and his mates are friends with Professor Ichinotani.
Yasuhiko Saijou as Ippei Togawa.... Jun's assistant at Hoshikawa Airlines but Ippei doesn't have any licenses yet but is close to getting one for flying helicopters. Bit of a goofball but seems to be much more intelligent than others think, Jun must see that too as he does trust Ippei fully. In episode fourteen did learn Hoshikawa Airlines was along the Tama River, that's 15 or so miles west of Tokyo.
Hiroko Sakurai as Yuriko Edogawa.... On the left below, will have a different pic in the future. 21 year old reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun(daily news) paper. Yuriko is the youngest at the newspaper but her editor Seki believes fully in her and sends Yuriko out on the harder stories such as the mysterious and unexplainable....
Ureo Egawa as Professor Ichinotani.... We finally met this older professor in the third episode. Know very little to date about him such as how did Jun and his mates come to be friends with this man who is ultra intelligent. Though him and the next character Seki are important to the drama each will only be in about half the episodes.
Yoshifumi Tajima as Seki.... Yuriko's editor at Mainichi Shimbun(daily news), older man who acts tough though is a softie and often gives Yuriko the stranger/mysterious cases. Not a huge role but an important one and in the second episode Seki was the Hero!
Previous recaps: There is no ongoing storyline but all of the shows have been entertaining so here are the links to all of the recaps done.
There aren't many but a few videos of this show on YT, mostly short scenes. Did add in a new video two posts ago though it sadly doesn't show any scenes as ones I did find in that vein you couldn't embed. But the below video is still worth playing as it's the opening theme music for each episode which I thought was very good and it does have a creepy vibe....
No ultra cutie female guest star for this show but the above woman on the right was okay looking but not in the league of the past few. Her name was Hisako Tahara and say was for in 1970 she changed it to Yuki Asasuna. She was 27 in age for this appearance and under the name of Yuki was in quite a few 70's films and even doffed her duds in at least one of them. She also did quite a bit of dubbing of foreign films but seemed to disappear in 1981 at the age of 42. In this episode she played a spy named Aleen but actually her name was Liang Ming from Hong Kong, that will all be explained in the recap. This was the era of spy dramas and movies, for the first time that was part of a story and while I prefer episodes in the ~25 minute range at times it would help being a few minutes longer and that's been the case a few times in this series though all episodes to date are worth viewing.
That woman above plus in many more screenshots was using an alias name at first which was Aleen and as it turned out she was a SPY! I had that impression early on and so didn't the man on the left below who is Hachi, he's the main henchman to the person he was talking with. Whose name was Iwakura, he was extremely wealthy and have no idea how he got that way, he also owns a very secret underground art museum and perhaps by stealing and then selling those object is how Iwakura got rich. Aleen stole that miniature statue from Tami at the airport for Iwakura, for now the little girl Tami was being held hostage but no harm came to her. You can see this mini object above and below, it's called the Goga statue and according to Aleen has had a 6,000 year curse on those who possess it! For instance she told the story of how it brought ruin to an Empire and you wouldn't think there was anything special about the statue by viewing it. To make sure it was real Iwakura had it x-rayed, it did appear to be authentic but also it seemed to somehow be growing! Once again that info was from Aleen who Iwakura had presumed was a professor from Aub University in Hong Kong and it's museum is where the statue was stolen from. That was true however he didn't realize that Aleen was also a spy but will soon discover she was. In the third to last screenshot the Mainichi Shimbun editor Seki was telling Yuriko about the Goga statue robbery, but it wasn't just that robbery Seki talked about but many other priceless objects that had been nabbed from numerous museums worldwide the last two months..... those robberies were courtesy of Iwakura and his gang!!!!
As Liang Min had said earlier to Iwakura this monster(statue at the time) was growing, was the 6,000 year old curse actually a Snail?! Its growing will continue and for now no one at Iwakura's hideout aka secret art gallery had noticed what happened to Cat but soon will. In the first batch of screenshots was the man who barely escaped that warehouse explosion in Yokahama, his name was Ono and was the partner of Liang Min. He had been tailing her since she stole the Goga statue and don't think the pair had come up with a plan on how to arrest Iwakura and his gang. That didn't matter as Hachi knew this man had been staking out their hideout, above you can see that Hachi aimed his rifle at Ono and shot him as he was driving in his sports car. Who hadn't been mentioned until now was the drama's main star Jun, he finally made an appearance along with his assistant Ippei and with the pair was of course Yuriko. Somehow Yuriko's editor Seki had some inside info on the art thefts so had her, along with Jun and Ippei, stake out Iwakura's place. So they saw Ono getting shot and in a nifty move Jun jumped from his car into Ono's just before it crashed into a wall! However that heroic effort was to no avail as the shot that hit Ono was fatal, at this time Liang Min didn't realize her partner had been killed. Watching that scene had been Hachi and some others of Iwakura's gang, they grabbed Jun, Ippei and Yuriko immediately and dragged them back to their hideout... makes you wonder why weren't the police staking out Iwakura's lair?
She was an expert at ancient archaeology and said the only way to eliminate the curse of Goga was by Fire. So with the help of an army soldier that group headed to the streets of Yokohama, there wasn't one other person or vehicle around! Liang Min had mixed some special chemical with dynamite, it was loaded into a bazooka and with Ippei as the shooter he hit the creature right in one of its tentacle eyes which was its weak point. Goga was hurt badly but managed to escape and slithered around underground but the army by now had their sensors on the very huge monster. It resurfaced in a different part of Yokohama, though it put up a valiant struggle what Liang Min had concocted finally affected Goga to the point of no return, it ended dying on an empty street so once again Jun and his mates saved Japan... and the world! But of course the spy Liang Min played a huge part and in the last few seconds we learned she was part of a secret organization that protects worldwide cultural properties. Whew(!), a lot did happen in 25+ minutes and while not the best episode more may have happened in this show than any other one which is why I thought an extra few minutes would have helped out.
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