Last year Netflix announced that it was increasing its production and licensing of anime series, and this is indeed continuing into 2019 as Netflix is dropping even more interesting looking series than ever. One of the most promising new additions is a joint effort with Tsuburaya Productions, and a full anime overhaul of the class tokusatsu hero Ultraman. Now, after much waiting, fans can finally check out the series for themselves.
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Ultraman‘s big anime debut is now streaming on Netflix. The series’ first season runs for 13 episodes, and is available in both English dub and Japanese with English subtitles.
The series’ first four episodes impressed us at ComicBook.com. Here’s an excerpt from our review, and you can read the full spoiler-free review here:
“Thanks to the help of motion-capture animation, ULTRAMAN absolutely shines in its monster fights. The smaller Ultraman presented in the series’ first four episodes brings the fights to a more grounded level, and thus emphasizes each movement. Fights flow with an incredible amount of physicality as it’s easy to picture the same fights playing out in live-action. It’s important for Ultraman to nail its fights, and the new anime certainly passes this test with flying colors.
ULTRAMAN is a glorious new showing for this classic franchise. You don’t need intimate knowledge of the franchise to enjoy this new spin, so there’s very little barrier to entry too. ULTRAMAN is a blast of nostalgia straight to the heart that’ll make you act out your own transformation poses in the comfort of your home.”
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.
This new Netflix anime series in particular is based off of Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shiguchi’s ULTRAMAN manga, which is a sequel to the original 1966 Ultraman television series. 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.”
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