Know Your Monster: 27
ULTRAMAN
Ultraman is a Japanese superhero who first appeared on a 1960s television series battling new monsters every week. The series ran for 39 episodes in 1966 and 1967, sometimes pitting Ultraman against kaiju (the gigantic mutant monsters from our own planet) and other times having him square off against seijin, or alien invaders aiming to conquer the Earth. The central role played by monsters in the series is hardly surprising. Ultraman was created by Tsuburaya Productions, under the command of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects pioneer who brought Godzilla to life. He recruited many Godzilla veterans to take part in the TV show, notably monster suit actor Haruo Nakajima.
Tsuburaya recycled some of his most famous monster suits, including those for Godzilla and Baragon, in this series, but he modified the costumes to avoid legal conflicts with Toho Studios, which had released the original monster movies. Sometimes, the alterations were done on the fly, during production, with the actor still inside the suit. Nakajima once quipped that the staggering gait he used for his monsters had nothing to do with his acting style. He was simply reeling from the noxious fumes from the spray paint applied to the costumes.
Much like Superman, Ultraman poses as an ordinary mortal but when danger arises he can transform into a superhero — in this case, a gigantic monster-smashing Space avenger. In his everyday life, he’s no slouch either. As Shin Hayata, he belongs to the Science Patrol, otherwise known as the United Nations Scientific Investigation Agency. Its mission: To protect the Earth from all manner of monsters. Hayata secretly uses a “Beta capsule” to become Ultraman. He wears a warning light on his chest, the Color Timer, that signals his energy state. When it’s a steady blue, he can fight as Ultraman, but if it begins flickering and turns red, he must finish his business quickly and change back into Hayata, or else risk total energy depletion. In that event, a narrator warns, he “will never rise again.”
Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Monsters to see a complete list of all the monsters and aliens from the Ultraman series, as well as its countless sequels, spin-offs and copycat productions. For a little taste of Ultraman, watch this short clip.
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Tomorrow’s featured monster: Varan.
The Shobijin are not monsters, but rather high priestesses from Infant Island assigned to watch over one of the most famous monsters of them all — Mothra. A few things worth noting about the Shobijin:
Reptilicus is one of the few Kaiju who originate from a nation other than Japan. This serpent-dragon can trace his origins to Denmark, of all places. He’s the one and only Danish monster to star in his own movie. The 1961 release chronicles an attack by Reptilicus on the city of Copenhagen. AIP issued an American version of the movie, but deleted scenes showing the monster flying, supposedly because the special effects looked less than convincing. In place of the flying scenes, AIP added a sequence where the monster spews green acid slime from its mouth.
Besides gigantic monsters or Kaiju, one other recurring element exists in vintage Japanese sci-fi thrillers — mutant alien races that use the Kaiju as weapons in a quest to conquer the Earth. The Mysterians served as the prototypes. In a 1957 film called The Mysterians, this scientifically advanced race descends upon the planet in a dome they erect near Mt. Fuji. They issue two demands they want Earthlings to satisfy: Build them a small landing strip and give them the right to marry Earth women.
enduring fan base, especially among women. Perhaps this is because Mothra doesn’t seem as terrifying as other Japanese movie monsters. After all, she is a giant lepidopteran, part butterfly and part moth, summoned by miniature fairies to serve as a protector of the natural world. She is slow to rise up in anger, only going on the offensive if someone threatens her worshipers or one of her brightly colored blue and yellow eggs.
Minilla, also known as Minya or Minira, is presumably the offspring of Godzilla, based upon his introduction as such in the 1967 film Son of Godzilla. The funny thing about that movie: We never see Mrs. Godzilla. Minilla hatches from an egg, so we don’t learn anything about Godzilla’s mating rituals or whether Mrs. G also lives on Solgell Island, where Minilla is born.
Megalon has stirred more controversy than other Godzilla foes. On the one hand, he has an ardent following — his popularity leading to his appearance in a long string of Godzilla video games. But Megalon made only one screen appearance, in 1973’s Godzilla Vs. Megalon, and many Godzillaphiles sneer at that picture for good cause.
Just when the Godzilla franchise was running out of steam, Toho Studios devised an ingenious ruse to pump some fresh blood into the series. In 1974’s Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, the Big G battles himself. Actually, this clone is a mechanical robot made up to masquerade as Godzilla by an alien race of apes (the Simians) intent upon conquering the world.
