Ultraman Zearth 1 & 2

[o.supreme]

Greetings All,

Well it's come to this. MC finally released on DVD this past Tuesday, Ultraman Zearth 1 & 2 for the first time officially in North America. Now while fans of Ultraman and Toku have no doubt had access to fansubs for quite a while this was somewhat new to me.

The only reason why I say Somewhat is because back in the 90's when we in the west were starved for Ultraman content, I'd literally buy almost anything. I got a bootleg VHS of the first Zearth film about a year after its initial release. I knew it was a comedy, but I literally watched it once. I dont even remember what happened to that tape. It was probably tossed in the trash with a bunch of other VHS tapes years later. Needless to say I was unimpressed, and never bothered to watch it again, or the sequel even once, in an age when they were so easy to find online.

Fast forward 20+ years to this week. Now maybe I've gotten a bit softer in my old age but, I watched BOTH of the Zearth films this morning, and thoroughly enjoyed them. The FX were standard fare for the 90's; not prefect, but still respectable. Also I think where Zearth works is because they are short films. If this comedy had been stretched out to a whole series...well it wouldn't have gone well probably. In fact, I just realized Ultraman R/B is basically what would happen, and probably why I dislike that series so much. Whereas with the Zearth films, you know they are parody right form the start. R/B tried to be a legit Ultraman series, and was just dumb.

I never thought I'd feel this way, but I almost wish they had made a 3rd Zearth film, now that I know how Zearth 2 ends. A final battle between Zearth and both Benzen, and Lady Benzen to tie things up. In the first film, Zearth/Katsuto had a fear of getting dirty. In the 2nd film his fear was a lack of confidence in his own abilities. In the 3rd film, he could have felt lonely/overwhelmed by the presence of BOTH aliens attacking him at the same time. They could have maybe introduced "Lady Zearth" and had Toru be the host, as a companion for him, and to show that he wasn't truly alone in the universe.

Anyway, in conclusion, while the Zearth films I dont think will ever be considered in anyone's top list of favorite Ultraman content, I think they have a bit more respectability now; 25 years on. Also a brief cameo in the Destined Crossroad earlier this year was nice to see. Speaking of cameos, there are a TON of veteran Ultra Series actors in the 2 films, making them live up to the 30th anniversary celebration that was going on at the time. I'd encourage anyone who is an Ultraman fan to at least give them a chance. Each film is only about an hour, so 2 hours total, not bad at all.