New ‘Ultraman’ Anime Shares First Poster

Ultraman is one of the most popular tokusatsu series of all time, and is often credited with being one of the major franchises to bring the “suitmation” techniques to television.

The series will soon make its grand anime debut on Netflix, and you can check out the first poster for the series below.

Along with the first trailer for the film teasing the new series’ CG look, the poster gives an indication of what to expect. The series adapts a manga that works a sequel to the original Ultraman series. As fans can see by the shadow of the original Ultraman in the poster, this new incarnation will carry a lot on its shoulders literally and figuratively as the son of the original Ultraman comes to grips with his family legacy.

Debuting worldwide on Netflix’s streaming service on April 1, 2019, Ultraman will be directed by Kenji Kamiyama of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Shinji Aramaki of Appleseed Alpha for Production I.G and SOLA Digital Arts. Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi will compose the music for the series, and the initial voice cast for the series includes Ryohei Kimura, Takuya Eguchi, Megumi Han, and Hideyuki Tanaka.

Netflix officially describes Ultraman as such, “Several years have passed since the events of Ultraman, with the legendary “Giant of Light” now a memory, as it is believed he returned home after fighting the many giant aliens that invaded the Earth. Shin Hayata’s son Shinjiro seems to possess a strange ability, and it is this ability, along with his father’s revelation that he was Ultraman, that leads Shinjiro to battle the new aliens invading the Earth as the new Ultraman.”

For those unfamiliar with Ultraman, it’s a tokusatsu series created by Eiji Tsuburaya and produced by Tsuburaya Productions. Running for a total of 39 episodes, the series aired from July 1966 to April 1967. The second series of the Ultra Q franchise, it has since led to many sequels and spin-offs, inspiring a whole host of new series featuring giant heroes.

The new Netflix anime series is based off of Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shiguchi’s ULTRAMAN manga, which is a sequel to the original 1966 Ultraman television series and began running in Shogakukan’s Monthly Hero magazine on November 2011. The manga has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release, and is currently rated fifth in the “Best New Manga for Kids/Teens” category.