There's something about the series
Ultraman Taro that's hard to put into words. It adheres to the franchise's core elements and formulaic tropes, with a style like a live-action cartoon, and the production values were clearly far removed from the shows of the '60s, and yet the show brings such a unique determination to everything that it all just works. It's almost magical.
The original
Ultraman had just a single 2-part story during its run.
UltraSeven bumped that up to three 2-parters, then
Return of Ultraman had four of them, and then
Ace had just three again.
Taro takes it to the next level with five 2-parters and even a 3-parter! For the previous shows, TPC often seemed to intentionally end a 13-episode production cours on a cliffhanger with the first episode of a would-be 2-parter, presumably to nudge the TBS network toward renewing the show for another cours so they could deliver the cliffhanger’s conclusion to their viewers.
Ultraman’s second cours ended with
The Monster Highness (Part 1). The third cours of
UltraSeven ended with
The Seven Assassination Plan (Part 1). The first cours of
Return ended with the first part of the Seamons/Seagorath 2-parter.
Ace ended its first cours with the first part of the Varava 2-parter with the Ultra brothers, and then it ended its second cours with the first part of the Alien Hipporit 2-parter with the Ultra brothers. It’s an interesting ploy, a fail-safe to try to prevent the network from canceling the shows prematurely despite their huge viewership.
Taro is the first Ultraman series in which TPC didn’t feel the need to end any cours on a cliffhanger. They had five 2-parters and a 3-parter and they concluded each of them during their respective cours.
Episodes 33 & 34,
Five Seconds Before the Big Explosion of the Land of Ultra! and
The Last Day of the 6 Ultra Brothers! feature the return of the lead actors from every prior Ultra hero series, all reprising their roles and interacting together onscreen. These episodes also mark the return of writer Mamoru Sasaki, who wrote the teleplays for all six of the
Ultraman episodes that Akio Jissoji directed along with two episodes of
UltraSeven, including the Jissoji-directed episode 12 which has long since been pulled from circulation. Sasaki went on to create the 1972-1973 Senkosha-produced series
Iron King, for which he wrote all 26 episodes, before returning to write these 2-part episodes of
Ultraman Taro. They’re unique from other 2-parters because the first episode actually ends with Taro victorious, the cliffhanger provided only by the dialogue from the toy monkey and the narrator. Rather than one long conflict spanning two episodes, it’s more like a standalone episode followed immediately by an episode in which most of the same things happen again in slightly different ways. It’s a lot of fun, especially with all of these returning actors performing together, although it plays very loose with what the prior shows had established about these characters and their alter egos. UltraSeven was previously the only Ultra hero who simply transformed himself into a human disguise, having created his identity of Dan Moroboshi after he arrived on Earth. The first Ultraman, the new Ultraman and Ace had all been depicted as merging themselves with existing humans. In these episodes, though, they’re all depicted in the same way as Seven/Dan, as if the first Ultraman simply transforms himself and goes by the name Hayata on Earth. It kind of makes sense for the new Ultraman and Ace, as each of their shows ended respectively with Hideki Go and Seiji Hokuto seemingly accepting their Ultra hero mergers as permanent.
Return of Ultraman ended with Go transforming into Ultraman and departing into space, rather than Ultraman separating from Go and leaving him behind to live on Earth as had happened to Hayata at the end of the original
Ultraman. Hokuto transformed into Ace in his last episode knowing that he would never be able to change back again, and they likewise were still merged when Ace departed Earth. Never mind how this
Taro 2-parter contradicts the ending of
Ace by having him transform back into Hokuto without addressing his alleged inability to ever do so again; it nonetheless makes sense that Go/Ultraman and Hokuto/Ace would seem to coexist with their alter egos more like Dan/Seven at this point. Hayata’s presence, though, is still as much of an unexplained retcon as his presence in outer space in
Return of Ultraman episode 38, beyond the obvious reason that it’s just great to see Susumu Kurobe reprise the role. Where these episodes really get crazy is with the Ultras’ apparently limitless ability to keep merging with additional humans! To provide unseen support to Taro, his five older brothers decide to merge themselves with four of the men of ZAT and a visiting scientist. Neither the first Ultraman, nor the new Ultraman, nor Ace separate themselves from their existing human alter egos before they begin this process. Hayata, Go, and Hokuto instead transform themselves into their respective Ultra heroes, each of whom then merges himself with one of the ZAT members in a sequence that is deliberately reminiscent of Ultraman’s initial merger with Go in the first episode of
Return. Then toward the end of the second part, after these already-merged Ultras have merged with the ZAT members, they spot a random volleyball team that’s been rendered unconscious by the Alien Temperor and they just decide to merge themselves with the players on the spot, by faceplanting themselves into the players’ unconscious bodies while still in their ZAT bodies. What the hell?! Could the Ultras absorb all of humanity like that? Just by going around and merging themselves with every unconscious person they encounter, no matter how many people they’ve merged with already?
Shigemitsu Taguchi was the head writer for
Taro. He wrote 21 of the show’s 53 episodes himself, or about 40% of the whole series, including the first episode, three of the five 2-parters, the Birdon 3-parter, the clip show with Tyrant, the Christmas and Setsubun specials, and the finale. After previously writing six episodes of
Return of Ultraman, Taguchi was one of three writers, along with Shozo Uehara and Shinichi Ichikawa, who wrote for the first cours of
Ultraman Ace, and he was the only writer who contributed to every cours throughout
Ace’s run. After
Taro, he went on to be the head writer of
Ultraman Leo and he also wrote one episode of
Ultraman 80.
Toshiro Ishido wrote 11 episodes of
Taro, having previously written for nine episodes of
Return and 13 episodes of
Ace. While he joined each of those prior shows during their respective second cours, he wrote for
Taro from its first cours. He went on to write two episodes of
Leo, and he wrote eight episodes of
Ultraman 80 starting with episode 34.
Taro also marks the introduction of writer Bumpei Ai to the Ultra franchise. He started writing for this show with episode 26 and his workload only grew as the series progressed. He wrote 10 episodes in total, including half of the show’s 14-episode final cours. Ai would go on to be a mainstay writer throughout
Leo’s run and he seems to have been the most prolific writer from the beginning of
Ultraman 80 although he stopped writing for that show after episode 33.
Like
Seven,
Return and
Ace before it, some of the best and most interesting episodes of
Taro came along in its fourth and final cours, including a quartet of episodes based on Japanese nursery rhymes (45-48).
Monster Doll Festival,
Sing! Monster Big Match,
The Monster Sign is V,
Steal the Life of Ultra! and the finale,
Farewell, Taro and Mother of Ultra! are some of my favorite episodes of this series. The finale is particularly memorable, with
It's a bold way to end the series.