Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

For the discussion of any Ultraman related shows, movies, comics, video games, etc.
User avatar
Angilasman
G-Grasper
Posts: 1443
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:12 pm

Re: ULTRA-THREAD 2.0

Post by Angilasman »

Past the halfway point in Ace. Yuko being axed from the show is bull, but the episode where she leaves is cool - and the episodes immediately leading up to it (including the confrontation with Yapool) were real strong, maybe the strongest stretch of episodes in the series!

Now the series has settled into being a blander, more overtly kid-friendly retread of Return of Ultraman. Pleasantly entertaining, but definitely a step down.

User avatar
eabaker
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 13758
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:16 pm
Location: Portland, OR

Re: ULTRA-THREAD 2.0

Post by eabaker »

Angilasman wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:38 pm Past the halfway point in Ace. Yuko being axed from the show is bull, but the episode where she leaves is cool - and the episodes immediately leading up to it (including the confrontation with Yapool) were real strong, maybe the strongest stretch of episodes in the series!

Now the series has settled into being a blander, more overtly kid-friendly retread of Return of Ultraman. Pleasantly entertaining, but definitely a step down.
I agree with all of this.

But I will add that, for me at least, the show picks up again significantly near the end. And, of course, even among those more kid-friendly episodes, there's still just some pleasing weirdness that goes on.
Tokyo, a smoldering memorial to the unknown, an unknown which at this very moment still prevails and could at any time lash out with its terrible destruction anywhere else in the world.

daveblackeye15
EDF Instructor
Posts: 2524
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:45 am

Re: Mill Creek releasing ULTRA SERIES on Bluray!!

Post by daveblackeye15 »

I went back to try to figure out what episodes of Ace I haven't watched yet. I think my last episode certainly has one of the strangest monster creations ever. Dreamgillas who haunts a kid's nightmares which isn't THAT weird. But the kid wets his bed and it is habitually with each incident having the stain shape further and further into Dreamgillas' form. Until the form jumps out of the abused blanket and takes on a physical form. Like WTF!? Whoever thought that one was either super creative, on drugs or a pervert or all three.

User avatar
Angilasman
G-Grasper
Posts: 1443
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:12 pm

Re: Mill Creek releasing ULTRA SERIES on Bluray!!

Post by Angilasman »

daveblackeye15 wrote: Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:59 pm I went back to try to figure out what episodes of Ace I haven't watched yet. I think my last episode certainly has one of the strangest monster creations ever. Dreamgillas who haunts a kid's nightmares which isn't THAT weird. But the kid wets his bed and it is habitually with each incident having the stain shape further and further into Dreamgillas' form. Until the form jumps out of the abused blanket and takes on a physical form. Like WTF!? Whoever thought that one was either super creative, on drugs or a pervert or all three.
I think this is from a batch of episodes which are trying to zero in on, not just being more kid friendly, but basing the story on kids' issues. There's an "after school special" vibe to this one.

daveblackeye15
EDF Instructor
Posts: 2524
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:45 am

Re: Mill Creek releasing ULTRA SERIES on Bluray!!

Post by daveblackeye15 »

Yeah I get what you're saying. And I do kinda like these post Minami episodes though the kid sidekick is no Jiro and Go dynamic.
Someone in the Ace topic brought up they thought it was a bull how Minami was written out and I sorta agree...but the dynamic was kinda weakening out. I mean it's kinda hard to get them to come together even somewhat organically. I mean one episode Hokuto is flying a space rocket and I'm like 'how the hell are they supposed to transform!?' Oh apparently if they raise their hands to the screens it'll work. Hokuto always seemed to have a little more personality and focus to him anyway.

I feel like a strange team up of two people to make one Ultra could be done in the current era a little better. I dunno one host, Hokuto, has power and other host, Minami has speed? They can transform into an Ultra on their own but if they come together this fusion Ultra can utilize both powers? Maybe sometimes dividing ends up winning the day rather than combining? That and good character interaction and development along with drama could make this work.

...but seriously pee-stain monster!

User avatar
Tyrant_Lizard_King
Sazer
Posts: 12849
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 5:57 am
Location: The Planet Trade HQ
Contact:

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Tyrant_Lizard_King »

She was supposedly written out because if fan backlash at Ultraman having a female host.
Rocker, paleo buff, cryptid enthusiast, Dragonball fanatic, and lover of comic book, video game, manga, & anime babes!
Follow me on Twitter, if you dare! https://twitter.com/TLK_1983
Image

User avatar
LegendZilla
Sazer
Posts: 10355
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:57 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by LegendZilla »

Female Ultras need to be more common in general.

User avatar
Mac Daddy MM
Xilien Halfling
Posts: 5045
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:27 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Mac Daddy MM »

LegendZilla wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:17 am Female Ultras need to be more common in general.
How about we expand this to say "Female Ultras need to be more common and not extremely obnoxious in general." Because Ultra Woman Grigio is probably the most obnoxious thing to come out of the New Generation.


Quote of the Year:
plasmabeam wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:03 am Hear me out on this. What if Godzilla is actually Suko’s father? In GvK when Godzilla defeated Kong and they were roaring at each other, what if Godzilla inseminated Kong at that moment and that’s why they were screaming?

User avatar
Saturndusk
Monarch Researcher
Posts: 320
Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:10 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Saturndusk »

Mac Daddy MM wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:22 am
LegendZilla wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:17 am Female Ultras need to be more common in general.
How about we expand this to say "Female Ultras need to be more common and not extremely obnoxious in general." Because Ultra Woman Grigio is probably the most obnoxious thing to come out of the New Generation.
I thought that was the obviously there for the toy weapon gimmicks that only get used twice in a series
There’s no point in being grownup if you can’t be childish sometimes.

User avatar
Mac Daddy MM
Xilien Halfling
Posts: 5045
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:27 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Mac Daddy MM »

Saturndusk wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 5:23 am
Mac Daddy MM wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:22 am
LegendZilla wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:17 am Female Ultras need to be more common in general.
How about we expand this to say "Female Ultras need to be more common and not extremely obnoxious in general." Because Ultra Woman Grigio is probably the most obnoxious thing to come out of the New Generation.
I thought that was the obviously there for the toy weapon gimmicks that only get used twice in a series
Not just that. Her character is super obnoxious in general. Everytime she yells "HAPPY!!!!!", I have to resist throwing something at my TV.


Quote of the Year:
plasmabeam wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:03 am Hear me out on this. What if Godzilla is actually Suko’s father? In GvK when Godzilla defeated Kong and they were roaring at each other, what if Godzilla inseminated Kong at that moment and that’s why they were screaming?

User avatar
LegendZilla
Sazer
Posts: 10355
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:57 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by LegendZilla »

^Being obnoxious knows no gender.

User avatar
StreamOfKaijuness
Monarch Researcher
Posts: 290
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2020 6:18 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by StreamOfKaijuness »

Where to begin with Ultraman Ace? I’ve watched the whole show and I like it a lot. It’s different from the prior shows in several key ways. The same budgetary limitations that affected the Godzilla film series in the early ‘70s are more apparent in Ace than they ever were in its predecessor, and overall I would rank this show in fifth place of the five original Ultra shows, but Ace is a worthwhile and thoroughly delightful series in its own right.

After Ultra Q, Ultraman and UltraSeven were each distinctly set in their own separate continuities, Return of Ultraman then pioneered the concept of having multiple Ultra characters meet up onscreen. That retroactively roped the prior shows into the same continuity as Return, and it seemed like they were still deciding how to go about that as the series went on. The title of that show certainly implied that it was meant to be the original Ultraman returning to Earth, and the first crossover episode (#18, Here Comes UltraSeven!) doesn’t contradict that approach. It isn’t until episode 38 (When the Star of Ultra Shines) that the show actually depicts the first Ultraman and the new Ultraman as separate onscreen characters alongside UltraSeven, with inexplicable cameos from Hayata (Susumu Kurobe) and Dan Moroboshi (Koji Moritsugu) to boot. After that, the rest of Return doesn’t make any reference to other Ultras until the very last episode. That show stood very much on its own.

Ultraman Ace goes all-in with the crossover approach right out of the gate, with even more retroactive changes. Whereas the last episode of Ultraman featured Zoffy introducing himself to Ultraman like they hadn’t met before, and the narrator in Return episode 38 said that the first Ultraman and Seven were the new Ultraman’s friends, the first episode of Ace immediately posits that all of them are actually brothers, with Ace being the youngest brother. The show also introduces the Father of Ultra in episode 27.

There are some standout episodes featuring the various Ultra brothers alongside Ace, particularly the two-parters (13-14, 26-27) that bring them all together. For the most part, though, the presence of the additional Ultras is superfluous. It’s clear that Tsuburaya Productions wanted to inject them into the show as much as possible in the competition for kids’ viewership, as the other Ultra brothers will often appear briefly as no more than a deus ex machina to get Ace out of a jam, even in episodes with titles that tout their appearances such as episodes 31 (From UltraSeven to Ultraman Ace) and 35 (A Gift From Zoffy).

Although Tetsuo Kinjo was the head writer for the first three shows and Shozo Uehara was the head writer on Return, there doesn’t seem to have been one head writer on Ultraman Ace. The first 15 episodes were written by a rotation of Uehara, Shinichi Ichikawa and Shigemitsu Taguchi. Ichikawa wrote the first and last episodes of the series and he wrote seven episodes in total but most of those were among that initial batch of 15 episodes. After episode 14, Ichikawa didn’t write for the show again until episodes 48 and 52. Uehara likewise wrote seven episodes of Ace but he stopped writing for the show after episode 22. It looks like Ichikawa stopped writing for the Ultra franchise after that, while Uehara went on to write just two episodes of Ultraman Taro and then only returned to the franchise later to write select episodes of Ultraman Tiga, Ultraman Dyna, Ultra Q Dark Fantasy and Ultraman Max.

Taguchi wrote 14 episodes of Ace in total and he kept writing for the show all the way up to episode 42. After that initial run of 15 episodes, Toshiro Ishido became the show’s fourth writer with episode 16 and he ended up writing for 13 episodes in total. Taguchi went on to be the head writer for both Ultraman Taro and Ultraman Leo and he also wrote one episode of Ultraman 80, while Ishido wrote 11 episodes throughout Taro’s run and he also wrote episodes in the latter halves of both Leo and 80.

As fun as Ultraman Ace is, the writing is a considerable step down from previous Ultra series. The interdimensional villains called the Yapool are derivative of the evil organization Shocker from Toei’s series Kamen Rider, which debuted on the same weekend as Return of Ultraman in 1971 and became so popular that it was still airing new episodes throughout Ace’s run. Like Shocker on Kamen Rider, having the Yapool as a singular group behind the Terrible-Monsters attacking Earth allowed the writers on Ace to avoid coming up with entirely new backstories behind each creature. The similarities don’t end there, with scenes involving motorcycles often appearing in Ace, even as early as the second episode in which Hokuto & Minami shout “Rider Touch!” as they each launch into the air on motorcycles to transform into Ace.

Having a man and a woman jointly serving as Ace’s hosts is the most obvious way in which the show’s premise differs from its predecessors but it does often come across as more of a forced gimmick than an inspired creative choice. While Hideki Go’s MAT teammates on Return of Ultraman had to have been blind to miss seeing him transform in front of them on so many occasions, Hokuto & Minami don’t even act like they’re trying to hide their transformations. There are times when one or both of them will leap hundreds of feet into the air to join up, in broad daylight in the thick of battle, and their TAC teammates still never notice. I can understand why the show’s writers would have eventually gotten tired of stretching the story to bring two characters together before Ace can arrive, but if having just one human host for the rest of the show was the way to go, it would have been more interesting if they had instead written out Hokuto and kept Minami as Ace’s host. Once only Hokuto remains, he’s essentially just filling the same role as Go in Return, complete with the introduction of a young boy character who looks up to him. Hokuto also frequently gets paired up with Mikawa on TAC missions from that point, which only highlights the show’s scarcity of female characters. The episode in which Minami departs the show is a memorable and refreshing break from the standard episode structure, although the explanation for her departure reflects this show’s general disregard for any kind of narrative logic.

To the show’s benefit, that lax approach to internal logic does make for some very memorable episodes with some very weird ideas. While Return of Ultraman did feature a monster with inexplicable buzzsaw hands in one episode, the monsters in that show were mostly more traditional, with designs and abilities usually rooted in nature-based origins. In contrast to that, the Terrible-Monsters in Ultraman Ace have cybernetic enhancements and unpredictable attributes as a matter of course. That doesn’t just mean stuff like exploding projectile eyeballs, it means that the giant creatures on this show are often able to transform and disguise themselves as all sorts of things, from people to hot air balloons, and sometimes they’re able to possess animals and objects to use as hosts for their natural giant forms. Even past the halfway point of the series, after the Yapool have been written out of further appearances, the show uses some vague references to their lingering influence to lean into even weirder stories with more bizarre premises. This series embodies what Japanese sci-fi zaniness is all about.

Speaking of the Terrible-Monsters, why is that how this series transliterates the Japanese term 超獣 (choju) into English? I understand that 怪獣 (kaiju) is a portmanteau of Japanese characters meaning strange beast or mysterious beast and that has always been commonly transliterated as monster in English. Every source I’ve checked indicates that 超獣 (choju) is a portmanteau of Japanese characters meaning super beast, so I wonder why that term in Ultraman Ace was officially transliterated as Terrible-Monster in English. It’s not even a modern interpretation, it’s right there in the show in the defense team’s name, as TAC stands for Terrible-Monster Attacking Crew. That’s clearly the intended transliteration in this case, but… why? Toho’s series Zone Fighter, which began airing shortly after Ace concluded, even uses the same term, 超獣 (choju), for its monsters, but their official English term for those monsters is Terror-Beasts. It’s hard to wrap my head around the logic behind all of that.
Image

User avatar
Cryptid_Liker
Xilien Halfling
Posts: 5794
Joined: Wed May 22, 2019 8:53 am

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Cryptid_Liker »

I'd say there needs to be more female Ultras that aren't support. All we have in that department is Beth and Aura but the latter doesn't even have a suit! On the other hand, Marie's a medic, Amia's useless, Yullian is just an assist, and Grigio (in her main series appearances) is literally just a device to become Groob.

User avatar
LegendZilla
Sazer
Posts: 10355
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:57 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by LegendZilla »

Cryptid_Liker wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 11:30 pm I'd say there needs to be more female Ultras that aren't support. All we have in that department is Beth and Aura but the latter doesn't even have a suit! On the other hand, Marie's a medic, Amia's useless, Yullian is just an assist, and Grigio (in her main series appearances) is literally just a device to become Groob.
Why not have a female Ultra who’s the superior commanding officer to the main Ultra?

User avatar
Cryptid_Liker
Xilien Halfling
Posts: 5794
Joined: Wed May 22, 2019 8:53 am

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Cryptid_Liker »

LegendZilla wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:44 am
Cryptid_Liker wrote: Sat Jan 16, 2021 11:30 pm I'd say there needs to be more female Ultras that aren't support. All we have in that department is Beth and Aura but the latter doesn't even have a suit! On the other hand, Marie's a medic, Amia's useless, Yullian is just an assist, and Grigio (in her main series appearances) is literally just a device to become Groob.
Why not have a female Ultra who’s the superior commanding officer to the main Ultra?
That would be nice.

User avatar
Angilasman
G-Grasper
Posts: 1443
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:12 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Angilasman »

^I was thinking that: a female Ultra who could serve the role of a Zoffy or (these days) Zero. If they're still gun shy about having a female ultra hero (I imagine this is from the merch side, as the shows are filled with human female heroes) they could start by introducing a character and building her up in a supporting role before anything else.

User avatar
Terasawa
Xilien Halfling
Posts: 5841
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:06 am

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Terasawa »

Sexism and gender inequality are still big societal problems in Japan. I think that might be a reason why Ultrawomen haven't really broken the ultra glass ceiling.
Last edited by Terasawa on Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
寺沢. He/him/his, etc.

daveblackeye15
EDF Instructor
Posts: 2524
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2014 12:45 am

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by daveblackeye15 »

Not to come off as super duper sexist or something but...I kinda agree the two-person Ultra host seemed kind of like a forced gimmick. I mean if they were two guys I'd still find it forced for the record. I think it CAN be a neat idea but I dunno they didn't seem super into it.

I got an idea of drama: maybe in a modern show the hosts can be sweet hearts. However near the middle they get into a nasty fight and can't Ultra up for an episode or two and their relationship is well developed.

User avatar
Angilasman
G-Grasper
Posts: 1443
Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:12 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Angilasman »

^ The two host gimmick is potentially very interesting, but to make it work you have to totally commit to it, and Ace only intermittently did that. I would like to see a series try it again, and wring all the dramatic potential out of it.

User avatar
Saturndusk
Monarch Researcher
Posts: 320
Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:10 pm

Re: Official "Ultraman Ace" thread

Post by Saturndusk »

I think the main drawback to exploring that is the modern episode count right now not including just more fleshing out in general.
There’s no point in being grownup if you can’t be childish sometimes.

Post Reply