083: SoraRabbit Watches: Ultraseven

The Year of Tokusatsu on the SoraRabbit Hole comes to an end with this post, which has been several years in the making! Not that it really took me that long to compile and write this… I just kept getting distracted from watching the show. But I finally buckled down and got through it so I could hit all of the “big three” of toku this year. I already did Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, so what’s left?

Yes, this post is about the third entry in the Ultraman series, Ultraseven. Here are the previous posts in my own Ultra series:

009: The Legacy of Ultraman

020: SoraRabbit Watches: Ultra Q

037: SoraRabbit Watches: Ultraman

Although I have also done three spotlight posts for individual episodes, these are the main entries. As you may know, my plan is to watch and write posts for every installment in the Ultra series, which will take me a very long time, especially considering I’m doing the same for Clone Wars, Doctor Who, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai. Oh well, I have content for the rest of my life!

Title card. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultraseven aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System from 1967 to 1968 and ran for 49 episodes. (One of which was banned… more on that later.)

Ultraseven is so named because he is the unofficial seventh member of the Ultra Guard. (Some translations call them the Ultra Garrison— an arguably cooler name— but my Mill Creek Blu-ray translates it as Ultra Guard, so that’s the name I’ll use for them.) They are the elite of the Terrestrial Defense Force, Earth’s last line of defense against the various alien threats that have started cropping up with increasing frequency. The TDF has branches all over the world and the UG are their specialists.

The concept for this series was to capture the spirit and popularity of Ultraman, but aim it more for adults than kids. (The network wanted more grownup viewers.) This explains the absence of the usual kid sidekicks that toku shows employ to appeal to younger viewers. This is also the reason for the seriousness of the plots and the focus on space travel and alien invasions. At the time kaiju shows were falling out of popularity and America was having great success with science fiction shows set in space. (Such as Lost in Space and Star Trek.)

While it was always considered a follow up to Ultraman, the original concept was for a stand-alone series with no plot ties to its predecessor. This is why there are so many differences in the two heroes, and no references to the events of Ultraman. We’ll talk about what ties there are and the possible reasons for the discrepancies later in the continuity section.

Ultraseven aired as the “kaiju boom” was declining in public favor. As such, the ratings dropped as the show went on, and this was intended to be the final installment in the Ultra Series. Thankfully, almost three years later, the series came back with The Return of Ultraman, which will be the subject of my next Ultra post. Even though the ratings dropped, Ultraseven has always been considered by fans to be one of the best Ultra series and they ended up bringing back the character, Capsule Monsters, and kaiju many times in future installments.

Ultraseven disapproves of your attitude. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

As I do with these posts, I’ll talk about the characters, elements, concepts, and cover the series as a whole, going in depth on key episodes to give you an idea of what the series was all about. This one will also have a continuity section, which I plan to add to all my future tokusatsu posts, to show how that entry fits into the overall franchise. As expected, spoilers follow. There are no content warnings, unless you’re triggered by kaiju beheadings… if that’s the case, this is absolutely not the show for you. There are a LOT of kaiju beheadings. Fair warning.

Dan and Anne. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Dan Moroboshi: The main character of the series and the alternate identity of Ultraseven. Dan is an alien who has taken the form of a heroic man. His only power in this form seems to be enhanced vision, which he can use to see through objects and illusions. To access his full power he needs to transform using the Ultra Eye. He cares about Earth and humanity, fighting for them at great risk to himself. As the hero, he is somewhat a blank slate as a character, with little being revealed about him over the course of the series. In one episode he showed an almost childlike enthusiasm for car racing. On another episode he was shown painting on a canvas, which may be a hobby of his.

Anne Yuri: She is the communications officer and nurse of the Ultra Guard. She is caring and empathetic and clearly has a crush on Dan. She gets to go on missions more often than Fuji did on Ultraman. She is shown to be a good pilot and marksman. Her hair style changes multiple times in the series. She says “Dan!” a lot.

From left to right, Captain Kiriyama, Amagi, Anne, Soga, Furuhashi. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Captain Kaoru Kiriyama: The Captain of the Ultra Guard. He is 38 and has been in service with the Terrestrial Defense Force for 10 years. He follows his intuition but bases most decisions on logic. He is shown to be a bit superstitious, believing in psychic phenomenon. He pushes his team to be better, but lets them make their own decisions and speak their minds.

Soga: The team’s marksman, 25 years old. He has a strong sense of responsibility and duty and cares deeply about his teammates. He is generally quiet, but has a tendency towards good-natured teasing. He believes in astrology. He has a fiancée who is only mentioned in one episode.

Amagi: The team’s strategist, researcher, and computer guy. At 24, he’s the youngest member of the Ultra Guard. (Except maybe Anne, but the narrator decided it wouldn’t be polite to reveal her age.) He is an expert planner and the smartest member of the group. However, he doesn’t have much combat experience, is afraid of heights, and has a phobia of explosions. Fun fact: He is played by Bin Furuya, the original Ultraman’s suit actor.

Shigeru Furuhashi: Strong and good with guns. Age 29. His family owns a farm, which his mother has always wanted him to take over. Although usually serious, we see a more playful side when he teases his younger sister. (And abandons her in a pasture.) He has been seen reading magazines about cars and boating, so those could be hobbies of his. He is played by Sandayū Dokumamushi, who played the trigger-happy Arashi on Ultraman.

Staff Officer Manabe: Above Captain Kiriyama in rank. He’s the main liaison we see with the TDF, although there are others that show up now and then.

Our new hero. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultraseven: Dan’s alter-ego and the newest hero from the Land of Light in Nebula M78, Ultraseven differs from Ultraman in many ways. The most obvious is his design. His costume focuses on the red rather than the silver. (His original name in the concept stage was Redman.) Instead of the Color Timer that Ultraman had, he has a Beam Lamp on his forehead which only blinks when he’s in extreme danger. One interesting thing about Ultraseven that contrasts him with his predecessor is that he can talk to his allies. While not used often, he was able to give them directions verbally, where Ultraman only talked to Hayata on the first episode and Zoffy on the last. Ultraseven’s big weakness is the cold. He is more susceptible to cold damage than humans.

Chief of Ultraseven: This is Seven’s superior, and only appears in the last two episodes. He looks just like Ultraseven and has not been given a real name or any further appearances in the series. (He was later officially dubbed Chief of Ultraseven by Tsuburaya Productions when fans started asking about him.) He can seemingly communicate over long distances, unless he was just a hallucination. More on him later.

Ultraseven is a scout instead of a warrior, but as with any Ultra being, he’s equipped with many weapons and abilities to help in the defense of humanity.

Cool shades bro. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultra Eye: This is the device that allows Dan to transform into Ultraseven. By placing it up to his face, he can transform, the eye apparently becoming part of his helmet/face. It mainly serves as a plot point that is easily lost or stolen to increase tension.

Preparing to throw a space boomerang. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Eye Slugger: This is one of his main weapons. The fashionable blade on top of his head is detachable and can be thrown as a boomerang. It is very sharp and can easily decapitate most kaiju.

Head zaps. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Emerium Beam: This is a powerful ray of energy that fires from the Beam Lamp on Seven’s forehead. It destroys the atomic structure of monsters that it hits.

Hand zaps. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Being an Ultra Being, Seven has many energy beams and attacks he can use by doing different poses. There are the Wide Shot, the Ultra Shot, the Handy Shot, the Wedge Beam, the Shake Hand Beam, the Ultra Spiral Beam, and others that I can’t find the names for.

Zoooom. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

As with other Ultramen, Ultraseven has the ability to fly. He can grow or even shrink small enough to go into someone’s bloodstream. He also has many rarely-seen powers, including teleportation, telepathy, and some form of telekinesis. On one episode he was able to lift an alien into the air and rotate him with his mind. He’s basically like Superman, getting new powers as the plot calls for it.

Windom! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Another thing that makes Ultraseven differ from his predecessor is that he has allies. Ultraseven uses a technology called Capsule Monsters to assist him, usually when he’s unable to transform or just needs a little extra help. These are capsules that when thrown, summon a friendly kaiju into battle. (Something about that seems pretty familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…)

Windom: A metallic kaiju that is strong and good at combat. Windom has a powerful forehead laser. He is loyal to Ultraseven, but is susceptible to reprograming. While he appears to be a robot, my research shows that he’s actually a metallic biological alien. Windom is the only Capsule Monster shown to have died in battle, against the Alien Guts. He appeared three times in the series.

Miclas! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Miclas: The strongest of the Capsule Monsters, Miclas fights bravely no matter the odds. While he mainly uses physical attacks, he does have the ability to fire energy beams. He appeared in two episodes.

Agira. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Agira: Agira is small and not very strong. He’s a bit cowardly and not suited to fighting. He appeared in two episodes. In one of them he cowered until Dan called him back. Poor guy. (Okay, to be fair, he was facing an evil version of his master, so it’s understandable.)

Pew pew. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The Ultra Guard are not without their own defenses. As you’ll see, they’re quite effective even without Ultraseven’s help. Here are some of their weapons and vehicles.

Ultra Gun: A handheld laser, this is the Ultra Guard’s standard issue firearm. It can be modified to be used as a heat ray, a stun gun, or to fire projectiles.

They also have other guns that are seen now and then. The Spider Gun is a rifle that shoots lasers. The Paralyzer is a gun that fires red energy that numbs the enemy’s nerves.

Yeah, their car flies sometimes. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The Pointer: Numerical designation TDF-PO1, this is the UG’s car. Along with being super fast and armored, it has all the bells and whistles. It is equipped with guns, a rocket launcher, a smokescreen, and can even fly or hover over water. They may have a whole fleet of these, as they’re often crashed and a TDF-PO2 was shown in one episode.

The Ultra Hawk. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultra Hawk: This is their main form of air transportation and it is made up of three components that can separate and recombine as needed. It has lasers, missiles, thermonuclear bombs, and little bombs called Magnetic Sevens that drop on little parachutes and attach to metal surfaces. Hawk 01 is the base form and is designed for speed and combat. 02 and 03 can be used as backup when multiple crafts are needed, but are also the method the Ultra Guard uses for space travel. They resemble rockets.

The Magma Riser. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Magma Riser: This is the tank-like drill vehicle. It can tunnel underground and is equipped with a laser to destroy obstacles. They also store plenty of bombs in it for emergencies.

Hydranger 1 and 2: These are their submarines. Just as all their other vehicles, they’re equipped with weapons for undersea battles.

Although I didn’t get a shot of it, the TDF also has the Space Station v3, which orbits the Earth to detect alien threats. It is manned with members of the TDF and a full compliment of fighter ships in the case of invasion.

SCREAM! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

And where would we be without the kaiju and aliens? As I mentioned before, this series is mainly focused on the aliens and their plans to invade Earth. I didn’t catch any recurring aliens from Ultraman, although there were some that took inspiration from previous creatures.

So many aliens. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Like in the previous series, the aliens are named after their planet. Some examples are Alien Cool, Alien Pole, Alien Tepeto, things like that. Some aliens weren’t specifically given names in the show. Most of the alien’s motivation is to simply conquer Earth, the reasons not always given. Sometimes they want resources, or a place to live. A couple of times the invasion was posed as a preemptive strike to prevent any harm to themselves from humans, who they saw as a threat. Some aliens weren’t given clear motivations and were just there to fight.

In a few of the later episodes, we don’t even get to see the aliens, just their spacecrafts and kaiju.

Um, a spider crab thing? (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Of course, it’s not all aliens. The alien races often employ their pet kaiju against the heroes. On a couple of episodes, there were just kaiju and so we were led to assume they were the aliens and were just not humanoid in form. Unlike Ultraman and Ultra Q, the kaiju were never posed as being natural Earth life forms. This show was squarely focused on alien life forms.

Kaiju fight! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

So that’s the basics. What about the show itself? It plays out much like Ultraman in that there is a group of heroic Earth defenders who meet an alien hero that helps them out in dire times. As mentioned before, the organization is the Terrestrial Defense Force, or TDF. They have bases all over the world, but the one we see is the Far East Base centered in Japan. The elite of the the TDF is the Ultra Guard which is composed of our main characters and a rotating crew of nameless control room workers, pilots, and space station crew.

The theme song is slower and more lowkey than the one for Ultraman. It does continue with the children’s chorus theme and they repeat the word “seven” over and over along with the other verses.

Ultraseven appears! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

I think the best place to start, of course, is with the first episode. Episode 1: The Invisible Challenger concerns mysterious abductions. People keep vanishing unexpectedly. Investigating, Furashi and Amagi encounter a hitchhiker calling himself Dan Moroboshi, who seems to know more than he should about these events. Dan displays some strange powers, which the others don’t notice, like being able to hold their car in place and seeing the invisible spacecraft. He warns them that aliens are abducting people for research and helps them to escape an attacking ship.

He’s cool and he knows it. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The Ultra Guard are contacted by the Alien Cool, who are using the abducted humans as hostages and destroying things, demanding that the humans disarm their forces and surrender. Dan suggests they create an Atomizer that will make it possible to see their ship. Once they do, the Ultra Hawk is shot down.

To give himself time to recover from the crash, Dan throws out the capsule containing Windom who fights the alien saucers. Dan calls him back and transforms into Ultraseven, entering the ship and cutting the Alien Cool in half with his Eye Slugger. After saving the hostages, he flies the ship into space and destroys it, stopping the alien invasion. Due to his help, the Ultra Guard declare Dan Moroboshi as their sixth member.

Thoughts: As a first episode, I thought this was really done well. It gave time to all the main characters and served as an introduction to the premise, Dan, Ultraseven, and the Capsule Monsters. It showed from the start that the human characters were competent and skilled on their own, but outclassed by the alien forces they were encountering. I do think it’s odd that they so quickly inducted a mysterious drifter into their elite organization, but plot leaps like that are to expected in such a restrictive medium as television. As silly as they are, I did like the Alien Cool designs and appreciate that they chose such an otherworldly and non-humanoid design for their first episode. This episode really set the stage for the show and got it going on the right foot.

Sadly this is the best shot I could get of the alien. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

As I mentioned before there was a banned episode of this series. Of course I tracked it down and watched it... I’m a completist. It wasn’t on my Blu Ray collection, but it’s readily available online. Interestingly enough, on my collection the episodes are not renumbered to exclude the banned episode. They just jump from Episode 11 to 13. This episode was banned after its initial airing due to the alien’s appearance being perceived as being similar to hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors. This is due to the raised scars and what looks like bandages over his face. (The aliens were intended to be the survivors of a space war.) Due to public concerns, the producers pulled this episode and chose to never broadcast it again or release it officially on home media. It was released in other countries, and distributed as a bootleg. The episode I saw was poor picture quality and obviously taped off of television. It was dubbed in English (the Cinestar dub where some of the characters were given different names) and subtitled in Spanish.

Episode 12, From Another Planet With Love concerns the Alien Spell. They use watches to track girls and steal their blood so they can drink it. Then they realize that children’s blood is better. They’re super creepy about it all, too. Eventually one of the aliens grow huge and Ultraseven has to fight it while the Ultra Guard fights off the ship.

Sliced right in half. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

One cool thing to mention here is that Hiroko Sakurai played Anne’s friend Hiroshi (Donna in my dub). This is the actress who portrayed Yuriko on Ultra Q and Fuji on Ultraman. Another unexpected guest star from the previous series! It always makes me happy to see someone I recognize on one of these shows.

Thoughts: This episode was an oddity for me since it was dubbed and much poorer quality than the other episodes I had. The direction was a little strange too, with jerky camera movements, bad blocking, and tight shots. It was not the best episode, but I am grateful that I got to see it. Lost or banned episodes grate on me and leave me with an unfinished feeling… this is why I had to track down the movies for Kamen Rider, Gorenger, and Supaidaman. I can’t leave a series unfinished.

Robot components. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

A great spotlight for the series would be the first two-parter, The Ultra Guard Goes West, which spanned Episodes 14 and 15. An assassin is killing foreign tourists, who all turn out to be undercover TDF scientists. What spurred this on is an exploratory rocket which travelled to a place known as the “Dark Planet”. The inhabitants of that planet, the Alien Pedan, thought they were being attacked. Japan is holding an international defense conference and the Ultra Guard is tasked with protecting the American delegate, Dorothy Anderson. She is the scientist with all the information they need on the current alien threat. That’s right, there are Americans on this episode!

While the last two delegates from Antarctica are being transported by submarine, they are attacked by the Alien Pedan sub. This is the first time we get to see the UG’s submarine, the Hydranger. Unfortunately they were too late to save them. They start to suspect a spy because otherwise the aliens would never have known the delegates were underwater.

King Joe crashes the party. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The hitman manages to shoot Dorothy, who they left alone for some reason. She falls in the water, presumably dead. But it’s okay, because the hitman turns out to be a good guy. His name is Melvin and he explains that who he shot was an alien spy, transmitting messages through her chewing gum. Which is all the reasonable sort of stuff you’d expect a shady guy with a gun to spout.

Alien ships arrive at the base and assemble into a giant robot. It’s not named in the show, but my research reveals it’s called King Joe, and this won’t be the last we see of him.

He may look silly, but he’s tough. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The human’s guns are useless against King Joe. Ultraseven rushes to the scene to do battle with the giant robot. Soon he finds that its immune to his Eye Slugger and his energy attacks. Knocking Seven down, King Joe thinks he’s defeated and returns to destroying the conference site. Ultraseven tackles it and it splits back into four crafts.

While it retreats for now, Dan knows that they won’t stop because they think Earth is planning on invading them. The Ultra Guard decide to use this reprieve to study ways to defeat the robot and to look for the real Dorothy Anderson because her information could help them stop the Alien Pedans.

What a reasonable alien spy. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Dan confronts the fake Dorothy, who survived the previous episode’s attempted assassination. She first asks him to join their cause since he’s an alien as well. (Somehow all the aliens can just tell.) He declines, but brokers peace through her, explaining Earth has no intention to invade their planet and it was all a misunderstanding. She still doesn’t believe him, but as a gesture of good faith, she promises to return the real Dorothy.

Of course they turn out to be jerks. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

We see the shadowy figures of the Alien Pedan on their ship deciding to invade Earth after all. And while they did keep their word and return Dorothy, they first wiped her memory. They release a fleet of fighters and unleash their giant robot on a port, where it starts destroying ships.

The siege of King Joe. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

They send the Ultra Hawk out to fight it but can’t make a dent. Dan transforms and there’s a cool fight in the port. While this is going on, the scientists keep working on a way to stop King Joe. Anne gives Dorothy shock treatment to make her memories return. For some reason this bonkers plan works and Ms. Anderson manages to help them finish the weapon.

The fall of King Joe. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultraseven keeps fighting and the UG rushes the explosive shell to the port. Figuring out what they need from him, Seven holds the robot still so that they can hit him with the shell. It pierces King Joe’s armor and the robot explodes. A ship comes out of the wreckage containing the shadowy aliens. They call off the invasion and Ultraseven destroys them before they can escape. (No mercy!) The orbiting alien fleet turn around, afraid to attack Earth now. Dorothy muses aloud that the humans were partially at fault for this whole mess and they need to be more careful with their explorations from now on.

The Ultra Guard have their shit together. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Thoughts: And that was Ultraseven’s first two-part story. They only did three, sadly. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I really like the multi-part episodes because I feel like they have more room to expand on the story and give it a decent pace and conclusion. I wanted to include a spotlight for this one because I feel like it gives a great view of the series as a whole. In these episodes we saw the secrecy and technological advancement of the humans drawing the attention of the Alien Pedan, an alien spy, Ultraseven’s diplomatic attempts, and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the human members of the Ultra Guard. These episodes also featured the introduction of King Joe, a robot kaiju that would make many more appearances in future Ultra installments. I like that we never get to see the aliens clearly. They remained shrouded in shadow throughout, which added to the mystery.

The most important part of this episode, in my opinion, is that it shows Ultraseven’s less black and white view of interstellar experiences. Rather than being a rote alien invasion story, the Alien Pedans were not initially setting out to conquer Earth. They felt they had to defend themselves against what they perceived to be hostile overtures in the form of the exploratory rocket. This flips the expected trope by making the humans the potential alien invaders in the alien’s eyes. Whether the Alien Pedans actually meant this, however, is never explored, as once they convince the humans to let their guard down, they decide to invade anyway. Maybe this was always their intention and they used morality to mask their intentions. Or they meant it and their decision to conquer Earth was actually just defensive.

My favorite aspect of these episodes is the fact that Ultraseven, who is usually the ultimate answer to the Ultra Guard’s problems, was outclassed from the beginning by King Joe and all he could do is delay the robot’s attack. It was up to the human members of the team to come up with the answer. Ultraseven was in more of a supportive role this time. They couldn’t have won without him, but he couldn’t beat King Joe on his own.

Dan is born. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Now we’ll cover some other key episodes. In Episode 17: Deep In the Earth, Go! Go! Go! we learned some of Ultraseven’s origins. In this one, strange earthquakes are happening and some miners have to abandon the mine due to a cave-in. One of them, who looks suspiciously like Dan Moroboshi, runs back in for his pet mouse Chukichi. It turns out that the man is named Jiro Satsuma and he is the first human Ultraseven encountered upon arriving on Earth. While scaling a cliff with a friend, Jiro had slipped and to save his friend, he cut his own rope. Ultraseven saved him as he fell to his death and impressed with his courage and selfless act, he decided to model his human form and personality on the man.

Through the course of the episode, they fight robots, manage to destroy an underground alien base which was causing the earthquakes, and Ultraseven once again saves Jiro. None of the Ultra Guard comment on or seem to notice Jiro’s eerie similarity to Dan. (Jiro was temporarily blind, so didn’t see him.) This episode is also notable as being the first appearance of the UG’s drilled tank, the Magma Riser. At the end of the episode, the narrator (channeling the mood of the Ultra Q narrator) questions if these were alien invaders or if they had lived underground on Earth all along.

It’s not easy being… holy crap, what’s wrong with them?! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Episode 22: Human Farms, shows an alien crashing a party thrown for Anne’s friend, kills a dog, and kidnaps the friend. In this one we learn the Pointer can hover over water. “I don’t see anything unusual,“ says the guy driving a flying car.

Alien Baraco, a lumpy gray alien with a face in his crotch, has been abducting one of every animal on Earth. Women are found returned with spores growing in them and it’s determined the aliens are growing their food in female humans, who for some reason are the best hosts for the nutritious and fatal spores. (This is why the episode is called Human Farms.) They figure out the cure is the experimental Radioactive Ray Alpha 73, which honestly is one of the best names for anything, ever. Dan has to crash his plane as an excuse to turn into Ultraseven, defeat a whole fleet of ships, and then quickly fly off to Saturn to get the ore to power the ray.

This one had some weird unexplained color tinting on some scenes. I think the director was being experimental.

Oooh, right in the face. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Episode 24 was called Return to the North and was a Furuhashi spotlight episode. His mother is putting pressure on him to quit his job and take over the family farm. We see a bit of his personality here as he ditches his sister in the middle of nowhere and signs on for a dangerous mission to avoid having a difficult conversation with his mother. Alien Cannan are taking control of aircraft and making them crash, and Furuhashi’s jet is taken over too. He’s on a collision course with a passenger plane and the plan is to self destruct his jet to save the passengers. They bring his mom in to the base to talk with him, but he hides just how much danger he’s in, saying it’s a routine mission. While she’s there, she gets to see how important the work really is that her son does with the Ultra Guard. She changes her mind and goes home. Furuhashi is saved when Ultraseven destroys the control tower and defeats the aliens.

Seven had to smack down Windom. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

In this one, Windom was taken over also, since he shares qualities with machines. He’s turned against Seven, who fights him defensively, not wanting to hurt him. He tricks Windom into running in circles until he gets dizzy and is able to regain control of himself.

Haha, puppets. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The very next episode keeps with the cold setting as the Alien Pole have created an unnatural blizzard around the Ultra Guard’s base and their generator has gone out. This episode is actually a bit of a turning point. Here we learn that Ultraseven, originating from the Land of Light, is weaker to cold than humans are. The Alien Pole explain that their plan is to cause a third Ice Age. (They caused the other two.) The aliens are little marionette-looking creeps who stay in the shadows.

Seven powers up. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Although Ultraseven doesn’t have a Color Timer like Ultraman had, he still runs on solar power and there’s a limit to what he can store. The Beam Lamp in his forehead starts flashing like a Color Timer. The aliens have released Gandar, a kaiju who can breath frost. Ultraseven has to use the remains of his strength to fly close to the sun and recharge in a hurry.

What a cheerful alien monster. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Utraseven returns to Earth and defeats Gandar. The Alien Pole give up their plan, but they mock Seven, saying that he now has less energy than before. He will become strained from too much exertion. I liked this, because it gave permanent stakes to the series and actually foreshadows the end, but you’ll see when we get there. I feel like this was done to bring him a bit more in line with Ultraman, giving him a limit to how long he can battle. All good heroes need some sort of weakness to overcome.

He’s not so good at dodging. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Episode 26, Super Weapon R1 is an interesting one for the more complicated themes of the series. The scientists of the TDF have created a super weapon with the power of 80 hydrogen bombs. Dan is very concerned about this, worrying that it will start an intergalactic arms race. Just having the biggest weapon solves nothing. In a particularly poignant line, he says that it’s a sad marathon that you keep running as you cough up blood. To make things worse, the scientists are already saying if the tests are successful, they’ll make Super Weapon R2, which will be 10 times stronger. They’re testing it on Planet Gyeron, which their investigations show has no life.

Well, they were wrong. The show takes a dark turn here. The weapon mutates and agitates a lifeform there and it flies straight for Earth. It’s called Star Bem Gyeron. (If you recall my post on Thunder Mask, we determined “Bem” stands for “bug-eyed monster”.) Gyeron is immune to rockets and able to split a meteoroid with its beak. Once it reaches Earth they manage to blow it up. Although the scientists show some remorse for what they’ve done, they continue talking about developing R2 and then moving on to R3 and R4.

Seven takes care of business. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The goo and fragments of Gyeron reform and now it’s even stronger. It’s also radioactive from the R1 explosion that mutated it and can spit radioactive ash. It attacks Tokyo and the scientists have finally realized just how mistaken they were. Still, the dumbass head scientist believes R2 is their only hope for stopping Gyeron. The other scientist worries that R2 will just make it worse. (And destroy a chunk of the Earth? They didn’t consider that!)

Ultraseven does battle with Gyeron and hurts his wrist. He manages to rip off Gyeron’s arm and hit it with the severed limb. Getting it down on the ground, he removes his Eye Slugger and slits Gyeron’s throat with it. It’s brutal.

Gyeron is finally down, but it contaminated the area of land it was in. The scientists have finally decided to stop pursuing super weapons and Project R2 is cancelled.

I really liked this story, as it placed the human scientists squarely in the villain role, but their intentions were good. They couldn’t see the consequences of their tampering with nature until it was too late. Good storytelling, more nuanced discussion of scientific advancement, and it was all very well done.

Things look bleak. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The second two-part story, Episodes 39 and 40, is called The Seven Assassination Plan. The Alien Guts have studied Ultraseven and have a plan to defeat him. They ambush Dan. He uses Windom to try and fight them off, but the aliens blow him up, killing him before Dan can recall him. The Alien Guts can split into two and reform when he uses the Eye Slugger. They can disappear and reappear unharmed when he uses energy attacks. They wait for his energy to start to run out and reflect his beams back on him.

For me, this is the most memorable image in the series. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The Alien Guts have captured Ultraseven in a glass cage, crucifying him so that everyone can see. They announce their intention to invade the Earth after executing their defender at dawn. The Ultra Guard intercept a signal mimicking that of Space Station v3 and determine it’s Ultraseven’s only way of communicating with them. He says he needs Magnelium energy which can only be synthetized from a Diamode ore found only in Africa. They realize that this is exactly what Furuhashi’s sister’s friend Natsu (who obviously has a crush on him but he’s too embarrassed to talk about it) sent to him last episode! But that’s not enough to do the trick. They need the piece she has too. This starts a long subplot where the Alien Guts try to get to her first and capture her, only to find she’s wearing a fake. The real ore is safe at her home.

After they synthesis the Magnelium, they realize the crucified Ultraseven is a hologram (did they have those back then?) and have to use Natsu as bait to follow the saucer to the Alien Guts base. Once they find the real Ultraseven, they fire the energy straight into his Beam Lamp. He breaks free, shoots down the saucers, and charges up with the sun so he can shoot down the mother ship. He did an interesting finishing move where he suspended the Eye Slugger in front of him with his telepathy and charged it with energy to fire it at the mother ship.

This is what I think of when I think of Ultraseven. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Although I typically love the two part stories, I do feel like this one had a lot of padding and probably could have been compacted into one episode. I love the imagery of Ultraseven suspended in his cross-shaped cage. (It’s currently my desktop image.) I love that they killed Windom off. You need stakes like that to show that there are permanent effects to the stories. This one was an interesting way to show the human’s dependence on— and independence from— Ultraseven. They think they need him more than they do. Although he told them how to power him back up, exactly how they did it was all up to them and they pulled it off with no further help. Of course, once he was free, he whipped the Alien Guts and stopped the invasion, but he couldn’t have done it without the rest of the Ultra Guard.

Seven has so many powers. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Here’s a few shorter spotlights. In Episode 2, a TDF member visiting from the space station is taken over by a plant-like alien that wants to spread across the globe. In Episode 3, aliens take the form of identical girls and steal the Ultra Eye, which as I’ve mentioned is a common plot point in the series. Many of the aliens are somehow aware of Dan Moroboshi’s alter ego and his dependence on the Ultra Eye.

Episode 6 involves an alien shadow who calls on Anne’s empathetic nature to befriend her. His technologically-advanced planet is on a collision course with Earth and the UG are forced to destroy it because they don’t answer the requests to evacuate. The shadow alien, not knowing he’s now the last of his people, tries to drill through the core of the Earth. This one reflected the common plot point of the dangers of technology as well as the tough decisions the Ultra Guard are forced to make in defense of their planet.

Alien Muppet? (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

In Episode 19, Project Blue, scientists are building a wall around Earth and the moon. The head scientist is kidnapped by the Alien Bado who hate the idea that intelligent life other than them exist. To live in peace, they feel they need to deactivate the wall and blow up the Earth. (So there’s a motive there!) In this one, Ultraseven showed a rarely-seen ability to teleport.

Episode 28, Sprint 700km! shows how much personality and humanity Dan is achieving during his time on Earth. While seemingly on a date with Anne (it’s not specifically called a date, but come on) he sees a car race and gets really excited by it. They go to an amusement park after and ride some rides and he’s still jazzed by the action of the race, making car sounds and everything. Anyway, in this one Dan volunteers to drive a rally car with an experimental explosive in the trunk to avoid saboteurs. Amagi, who is deathly afraid of explosions, is forced to go on the mission by Captain Kiriyama, who wants him to face his fears and grow as a person. I mainly wanted to mention this one because I feel the show (and Ultraman as well) could only have been enriched by lending the main character more personality.

Kappa whacking. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

In one memorable episode, the Ultra Guard is on the trail of aliens that look like Kappas. They run into a crazy group of Kappa fans who get in their way and one of them dies. The aliens are hiding in a lake and a giant Kappa kaiju hatches from a huge egg.

Episode 42: Messenger of Nonmalt is another episode where the threat and conclusion are not so black and white. An undersea research center explodes and a weird little boy predicted it, claiming to be a messenger from a race called Nonmalt. These are supposedly beings that live underwater and predated humanity. Dan is concerned because “Nonmalt” is the word on his world for “human”. How would they know that if they weren’t aliens? They have to battle a giant squid monster and the Ultra Guard lays waste to the underwater city, assuming the little boy is a liar and these are actually alien invaders. Anne and Dan both have their doubts, however. Especially when they encounter the little boy’s mother, who says he drowned two years before. (A very odd addition to the story, but maybe the aliens had the technology to save him? He wasn’t really implied to be a ghost.)

This episode poses the question on whether humanity has the right to harvest the oceans and if they’re even the original dominant species of Earth. The UG never questioned their actions, only Dan and Anne thought twice about if what they were doing was right.

Two notable things about this episode: Dan and Anne are seen hanging out at the beach together without the other team mates. Possibly another date? Also Masanari Nihei appears in a minor role. He played Ide in Ultraman. It’s always nice to see returning actors. Even if they only have a couple of lines before they’re blown up.

In Episode 45: The Showdown of Dan vs Seven, Alien Salome captures Dan to learn the secrets of his Beam Lamp in order to finish their giant robot Ultraseven. The Ultra Guard briefly think Seven has gone crazy, but after an embarrassing showing by Agira, the real Seven appears and defeats the duplicate. This one makes pretty good use of the common tokusatsu trope of an evil duplicate of the hero. Those stories are usually pretty fun.

I think he’s in space jail. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Other stories include a criminal alien who drinks gasoline straight from the pump and enjoys strangling humans. Aliens disseminating cigarettes made from Space Opium Poppy Seeds. Let me just say that again: Space Opium Poppy Seeds. An attempt by an alien toymaker to conscript kids into a child army using free working ray guns. A big-ass space dragon that was actually a spaceship. Amagi and Soga are lost in a mysterious place called Pseudo-Space, where monsters and killer vegetation roam free.

An alien robot harvests sunken ships to create a bomb. A different alien robot sucks up cars to provide materials for the aliens from a barren world. A psychic is being hunted by aliens and the only one who believes him is Captain Kiriyama. Soga’s friend is made into a cyborg bomb to destroy the UG’s base. A hotshot UG prospect attempts to one-up Dan and inadvertently causes several deaths, including his own after saving Dan’s life. What a dumbass. A girl nearly dies from alien bacteria and to save her, Ultraseven shrinks down small enough to fly up her nose. (Really gets right up in there.) A genetically-created creature that’s like a werewolf but an ape instead. Oh, and two words: ghost zombies.

There’s lots more than I didn’t mention, but these are the ones I found most notable. And, come on, you can’t beat ghost zombies and were-apes as concepts.

Hey, he has a boss! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

And now we come to the final climactic two part finale. Episodes 48 and 49, The Biggest Invasion In History, Part 1 and 2. We get a nice little reveal at the start, seeing Dan’s quarters. It took them 48 episodes before they revealed that they all live in the headquarters, like the SSSP did in Ultraman. Dan wakes from a nightmare, bathed in sweat. He seems sick, having trouble moving and breathing. He fights a ship in space, but his vision is blurry so he screws up the fight and crashes. Anne is worried about him, but he won’t listen to her advice. The Ultra Guard is on high alert, anticipating a large invasion.

While he sleeps, Chief of Ultraseven contacts him telepathically, calling him “No. 340”. (Are there that many Ultra Warriors or is this his numerical designation?) He says Dan’s body has taken too much damage in the battles he’s endured. We see a cool montage of selected battles from the series to underline this. He tells Dan he’ll die if he doesn’t get home to Nebula M78 right away. Dan refuses, concerned that there are still invaders he needs to defend Earth against. The Chief reminds him that he can only return to his original body if he returns home, and if he expends more energy, he may not have enough to make the trip.

Interestingly enough, Chief of Ultraseven looks just like Ultraseven himself and is not given a proper name. He’s also never shown or referenced again in the franchise. I find it strange that he would be able to contact him from so far away and looks just like him, so it begs the question… was he really there or was he a feverish hallucination? Was it Dan’s subconscious warning him? This is never made clear, but it’s an interesting possible angle.

Bubbled! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Later, Dan is on monitor duty, but nods off and misses a communication from Space Station v3 about an alien ship. When he realizes, it’s almost too late. The Ultra Hawk battles it, but it’s too heavily armored. They land to battle, but the alien fires a beam that encases Amagi in a bubble. They take him prisoner.

Some of these aliens are just weird-looking. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The aliens are called the Alien Ghose and have launched a full-scale invasion bigger than any the Ultra Guard have dealt with before. They have the ability to disappear and reappear, and their ship is too heavily armored to get through. They also release a giant red spiked kaiju with two mouths that can breathe fire. The monster’s name is Pandon.

This guy’s a badass. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Dan remembers the Chief’s warning and throws down the Ultra Eye, but his teammates are burning. Literally covered in fire at that moment. He transforms and fights the monster, but is clearly off his game. He struggles against it while Anne pilots the Ultra Hawk to put out the fire and save her teammates.

Yet another beheading. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultraeven is so weakened that he can’t even fire his Emerium Beam or throw his Eye Slugger. Before Pandon can finish him off, Anne distracts it with shots from the Hawk 2 and Seven manages to behead it with the Eye Slugger.

After turning back into Dan, he collapses, his face bloody. Dan is in critical condition, being tended to by Anne and a doctor. While he lies in bed, Kurata, a pilot from Space Station v3, notifies Captain Kiriyama that Dan’s mistakes caused all this. (Kurata has been riding Dan’s ass this entire episode, taking down the ship Dan missed when he crashed.) Kurata is angry, saying the Ultra Guard is not everything everyone says if they allow someone like Dan to be a member.

The world burns. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

In the second part, Dan has been left in Anne’s care, but when he overhears that they’re planning on X-Raying him, he slips away. Apparently if they looked at his insides, they’d see he’s an alien. The Alien Ghose have attacked the UG’s base and have hooked Amagi up to a machine so that they can communicate through him. They explain that if the humans surrender, they will be allowed to live in an underground city after the Ghose take over the planet. If not, they will attack every human city at once, wiping out all of humanity. (How’s that for stakes?) The top brass at the TDF order the Ultra Guard to find the underground missile bases and put them out of commission.

Meanwhile, Dan has taken one of the Pointers and sits in it at the roadside, barely conscious. He is found by a mother and son who take him home despite his protests. The mom calls a doctor and Dan tries to sneak off, but the kid, Akio, finds him and takes him to his clubhouse. Akio understands, since he hates doctors too. He’s also a huge fan of the Ultra Guard and wants to be a member when he grows up.

The aliens start launching their missiles and destroy several cities, including Moscow, New York, London, and Paris. The devastation is terrible and they threaten to attack Tokyo next. The Ultra Guard have tracked down the alien base to an active volcano and the plan is to strap bombs to the Magma Riser and remotely control it to blow up the base and the rest of the missiles. They want to wait and save Amagi first, but Kurata tells them there’s no time and Amagi would be willing to sacrifice his life for humanity.

A touching moment. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Overhearing all this on his wrist transceiver, Dan is ready to transform again, but sees his Chief again. The Chief says if he transforms, this time he’ll surely die. Anne arrives, having been called by Akio. She asks why he ran away, and with a slight hesitation, he tells her the truth.

I really didn’t expect this. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Dan reveals that he’s actually Ultraseven. There’s a pretty cool effect here where they’re shown in silhouette with a crackling sound as she takes in this revelation. Not missing a beat, she says that the fact he’s an alien changes nothing. He’s still Dan.

He tells her that he has to go save Amagi and then needs to return home or he’ll die. She tries to stop him, but he can’t be dissuaded. He says that in the morning a star will shine and she will know that’s him. Dan uses the Ultra Eye and flies off to the volcano. They’ve already launched the Magma Riser, so he has to hurry.

You thought a volcano full of explosives could stop Ultraseven? (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

He gets Amagi out just before the explosion. The invasion is averted and Amagi is safe, but the Alien Ghose have reconstructed Pandon and it attacks. Ultraseven grapples with it, showing more focus and determination than in their last battle.

They had another one! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The rest of the team (and Kurata) are there and Anne arrives. She tells them that Dan is actually Ultraseven and this is his final battle. He has to go home or he will certainly die. Everyone deals with this quickly, shocked but not upset. They’re professionals. Even Kurata feels bad for how harsh he was to Dan. They all now know what he was struggling with.

Captain Kiriyama says "We humankind have to protect Earth with our own hands". They separate the Ultra Hawk and all fight alongside their seventh member, firing on Pandon.

The final battle! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Pandon manages to catch the Eye Slugger in midair and threatens Seven with it before being distracted by the ships. It throws the Slugger, but Ultraseven takes a defensive pose and redirects it back at the monster, beheading it.

The final battle had to end with a beheading. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The battle won, Ultraseven immediately takes off, flying into the sky towards Nebula M78. The Ultra Guard watch him go, tearfully. Dan’s last words to Anne replay… in the morning a star will shine and that will be him.

Furuhashi wonders aloud if Dan will die before he reaches home. If so, it will be humanity that killed him. No, he decides, he’ll make it and watch over Earth from space, coming back some day, healthy. Anne, crying, nods at this. The theme song plays with overlaid images of a happy, smiling Dan Moroboshi and the series ends.

Ultraseven isn’t much for goodbyes. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Thoughts: And with that, Ultraseven’s adventures end… for now! I love that they ended with a solid, well-paced two-parter. I really liked this as an ending. It checked all the boxes— the threat was dire, the monster overpowered. The hero was in danger and near death but risks it all for humanity. It all came down to the Ultra Guard’s skill and teamwork, and Ultraseven’s determination and selflessness.

It’s a bit of a shame they created some nameless boss for Ultraseven and didn’t bring back Zoffy (Ultraman’s superior.) That would have been a nice link to the original series. (But, hey, they probably work in different departments and have different supervisors.) I do appreciate that they never make it entirely clear if the Chief of Ultraseven is real or a hallucination. Kurata was an interesting addition to the cast. It was weird to have someone calling Dan out and pointing out his failures… after an entire series of everyone praising him and him always being on top of everything, to see Dan fall so low was disconcerting and added to the tension of the episode. I suspect Kurata will take Dan’s slot on the Ultra Guard after this. (Even though he barely gave a thought to Amagi’s life.)

My favorite part of these episodes, though, is that they let Dan reveal his identity. It was fitting that it was to Anne, since there was a slight (mostly subtextual) romance building between them. (This was in the original concept for the series for them to end up together. Some of the crew and the actors for Dan and Anne were in on this, but not every writer or director bothered working in the subplot, so it didn’t really come to much.) Having him finally reveal his identity and having everyone just instantly accept it since he’d proven himself to them time and again is amazing. It shows a hope for humanity that wasn’t evident in any of the previous episodes. If they encounter aliens that are not actively trying to conquer them, there could easily be peace and cooperation between them. My face when he admitted the truth to Anne was probably pretty funny. I recall saying, out loud, “What? Finally!“ The decision to reveal the truth to everyone really set it apart from Ultraman and makes for a very memorable conclusion.

Before we get to my review and analysis, as I like to do, here is a montage of the cool or amusing monster designs for this series.

Montage! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Let’s hear it for the aliens and kaiju! A huge variety of creatures appeared in this series, some being reminiscent of those from Ultra Q and Ultraman, but none of them really being recycled fully. (At least not that I caught.) Extra care was put into the Capsule Monsters, making them seem a bit friendlier, but still imposing. (Except for Agira. I liked his design but that poor beastie had no business being a Capsule Monster.)

Powered up! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Continuity: Most of the links this series shares with the Ultra series as a whole are retcons from later series, most notably the next one, Return of Ultraman. Ultraseven will go on to become the father of one of the most powerful (and popular) Ultra Warriors, Zero. But we’ll get into all that further on in my coverage. Many aliens and kaiju from this series return later on, and Ultraseven/Dan Moroboshi himself is revisited multiple times. (And, although it’s not part of canon, he also reappears in the Marvel Ultraman comic book series as a supporting character.)

But is it all retcons? Sadly there isn’t much connective tissue in this series specifically, as it was originally meant to be a stand-alone story. The most obvious continuity nods are the mention of the Land of Light in Nebula M78 and the fact that Ultraseven, for all his differences, is one of the Ultra Warriors and works similarly to Ultraman.

One question I was left with is why Ultraseven doesn’t have a Color Timer. Production-wise, this is easily answered by the fact that this was meant to be a stand-alone series and so they weren’t thinking about direct relations to the previous Ultra hero. Story-wise, the only thing I could come up with is that Ultraseven, being a scout, must have better defenses against Earth pollution than Ultraman. Later in the series his Beam Lamp occasionally acted as a Color Timer, but this was after Seven had taken critical damage and had been permanently weakened.

Continuity is just going to get more confusing from here. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

The retcons placing this firmly in the same timeline and universe as Ultraman and Return of Ultraman bring up lots of problems a continuity-obsessed fanboy like me must wrestle with. The biggest one is what happened to the Science Special Search Party? In Ultraman, the SSSP were a worldwide organization that battled threats both terrestrial and in space. You would think there would be some cross-over with the Terrestrial Defense Force since they handle related issues. Everything I can find states that this takes place one year after Ultraman. This would mean both organizations existed at the same time since Captain Kiriyama is stated to be a 16 year veteran of the TDF. The most obvious conclusion would be that the SSSP eventually becomes or is absorbed by the Terrestrial Defense Force. (And possibly more time has passed.) Failing any better explanation, I think that’s the working theory until we learn more in the next series.

I can accept that Ultraseven takes place in direct continuity with Ultraman since it’s been stated to be canon. I’m really good at rationalizing the things that I love. But a serious problem in my mind is that when Ultraseven first showed up, the members of the Ultra Guard didn’t immediately say, “Hey, this is like that big red and silver guy that helped out the SSSP last year!” The only thing I can think of is that they managed to keep Ultraman classified, only known to higher-level members of the organization. We never did get any public perspective in Ultraman like there was in Kamen Rider and Gorenger, so we really have no idea how much the public knows about what the SSSP went through and that they had a giant hero helping them. So I think we’re left with the conclusion that the general populace knows nothing about Ultraman and the threats that are narrowly averted in every episode.

Going with the theory that the SSSP was rebranded as the TDF, it would make sense… losing Ultraman they would need to expand their roster to make up for the loss of their giant secret weapon.

Action! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Continuity questions aside, Ultraseven was an interesting ride. Despite what you may expect, the show actually has a refreshing amount of variety to the stories, alien designs, and battles. You would think it would be formulaic, but beyond the premise being locked into alien invasions and every episode ending with a battle between Ultraseven and the current threat, the way the episodes play out is different every time. It made it easy to keep watching, wanting to know what was coming up next.

It took me several tries for me to properly get into Ultraseven. That’s not because it wasn’t good or I wasn’t enjoying it… mostly it was because I kept getting distracted by other things. Although I liked the first episode, it did take several episodes for the series to properly hook me, which is understandable. I had grown so attached to the characters and plot of Ultraman. I had to learn all new characters and rules for this one… a new Ultra, a new organization, a new focus. It was well worth the attempts, however, because I ended up really enjoying it, especially by the end. I’m hoping the ramp-up will be a little easier with each consecutive series.

I did think it was a little silly that every alien seemed to know who Dan was and that they needed to target his Ultra Eye. I guess he wasn’t as good at keeping his secret identity as Ultraman was.

They tried to do some artsy stuff with this series at times that didn’t always work out. Like the color tints in that one episode. For a couple of episodes near the end they did some odd, disruptive transitions between scenes. This consisted of thumping discordant drum beats with the image flashing a few times as it changed scenes. I’d seen transitions like this before in one of those Thunderbirds-adjacent puppet shows from the 60s. (Thunderbirds was one of the inspirations for this show.) Thankfully this was abandoned after a couple of episodes.

And as a side note, the first time Dan threw out a Capsule Monster I made Pokémon jokes, but my research shows that Satoshi Tajiri has stated that Pokéballs were indeed inspired by Capsule Monsters.

“I’m HUGE.” (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

While every work should be viewed on its own merit, since this is part of a series, it’s hard not to compare and contrast. I did enjoy Ultraseven, and there were things it did that I appreciated. Its story content and violence are very much in keeping with the more mature slant they took. I liked the practical effects and the designs of many of the aliens and kaiju. I think the ending was excellent. However, I feel it really lacked in character development.

Where Ultraman took the time to fully develop and focus on each character, Ultraseven rarely did character focus episodes. We barely got to know who these characters were. (This is why I mentioned Furuhashi’s magazines in the character section. Normally that wouldn’t be a detail I would bother sharing, but we were given so little to work with.) I was halfway through the series before I could even tell Amagi and Soga apart. And we never even got first names for either of them! Even Soga’s fiancée referred to him as Soga-kun. By the end of Ultraman I felt like the members of the SSSP were friends, with each of them getting fully developed personalities and voices— aside from Shin Hayata, who remained pretty much a blank throughout. By the end of Ultraseven, I really didn’t know any of these characters aside from the little scraps they gave us or what I was able to deduce from context clues.

Ewww! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

While Ultraman had its moments of brutality and explicit violence, Ultraseven goes much further. You see blood bubbling from alien’s mouths. People get vaporized, cities destroyed, aliens fall and convulse on the floor as they die. One race bursts into flames when fatally shot. If an alien ship tries to escape, Ultraseven gives chase, flying after them and destroying the ship to make sure they can’t come back. Many aliens and kaiju are beheaded, foam or other substances bubbling from their neck holes.

Think he’s okay? (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

One alien is reduced to a skeleton by Seven’s energy beams and then revives, having to be vaporized completely.

Sweeeet! (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

In one memorable scene, you see Star Bem Gyeron dismembered, its throat slit and its precious jugular fluids spraying out all over Ultraseven’s face. It’s very graphic and incredibly cool and effective. (Made all the more gruesome by the circumstances around his appearance on Earth and his mutation being caused by a human bomb testing.)

Yeah, basically. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

One big way in which the two series differ is in the human group. Where the SSSP was shown as being earnest but ill-prepared for the increasingly dangerous threats they faced, the TDF has much more experience and man-power behind them. Sure, the SSSP had branches all over the world, but the Japan Branch was a compact group of five members.

Whereas, the TDF’s Far East Branch is composed of more than 3000 members. The Ultra Guard is a smaller group of six (seven counting Ultraseven) but they have an entire organization behind them. They have scientists, weapon development, and an entire space station (likely three… the one we always see was v3. In Episode 32, v2 was destroyed.)

Many times the Ultra Guard manage to stall the monster so Ultraseven can defeat it. They often take on the ships while Ultraseven focuses on the alien or kaiju of the week. They never wait around, hoping Ultraseven will show up, unlike the SSSP.

The human cast. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

You get the feeling that regardless of how much Ultraseven helps, now that he’s gone, the TDF and the Ultra Guard will be just fine without him. In this way he’s much more a member of their team than the crutch Ultraman eventually became to the SSSP. It’s clear they’ll miss Dan and Ultraseven, but they’ll manage. The Ultra Guard and the Terrestrial Defense force continues on!

Think it’s a trick? (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Ultraman was all about good versus evil, humanity versus the unknown… so in its way, it was black and white. You could say Ultraseven is about the grays. Often there are questions on if the aliens or humanity are in the wrong. There are philosophical debates, doubts about their courses of action, and sometimes the humans are the cause of the conflicts. Other times, they’re the prey of more technologically advanced and predatory races. The series takes on the concepts of philosophy, militarism, responsible technological advancement, and the downsides of human technological growth. They have to make harsh choices in the defense of the Earth, such as when they had to wipe out an entire civilization to prevent their planet from intersecting their orbit.

This series was certainly a bit more focused than the two that preceded it, being altogether about aliens and invading races. There is a downside to that, however, as it gives the stories a bit less variety. Practically every episode is about aliens attempting to invade and conquer Earth. Are the Ultra Beings the only good aliens out there? (I mean, there was that female alien on Ultra Q who wanted to defend Earth, but where that series fits is always up for debate.) But still, the way the plots played out was different each time, so it helped them get around their self-imposed plot limitations.

Just like with Ultraman, the fact that Dan keeps his identity a secret necessitates plot devices to get him alone in order to transform. Teammates are knocked out, Dan is presumed lost in the field, he runs off to do missions on his own, things like that. They don’t waste a lot of time on it, but it gets awkward at times.

The Capsule Monsters were an awesome addition, but I do wish they had been used more often. I suspect their infrequency was a cost-saving measure, though. I’m sure it got pricey to pay an extra suit actor for the times they did show up. I liked Ultraseven as a character and that Dan had a few moments to show his personality, but like I mentioned before, the rest of the team should have gotten more development.

Flying off into the sunset. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

So, as with everything else, Ultraseven had its positive and negative aspects, but overall I really did enjoy this series. It brought a more adult tone, darker plots, and more brutality to the series, and those are all qualities that lend it a feeling and personality that sets it apart from Ultraman. Ultraseven will remain a memorable show for me as I continue to add more Ultra series to my experience, learning about new teams and new Ultra Beings. Watching through this just stokes the fires for me to continue my journey and see what the next iteration of Ultraman brings to the table.

I liked this shot from the banned episode. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)

Thank you so much for joining me in this newest chapter of my Ultra journey. We have a long ways to go, but with this, we are three series and 116 episodes into my quest. It will be a bit before we get to Return of Ultraman, because I’ve decided to alternate tokusatsu series, at least for now. That means our next toku post, which should be out next year, will cover J.A.K.Q., the second Super Sentai series. I appreciate you all and hope to see you then!

Ultraseven died for our sins. Especially yours. (Credit: Tsuburaya Productions)