The Men Who Made Ultraman

Ultraman (ウルトラマン, Urutoraman) is a Japanese superhero introduced in the 1966 TV series Ultraman. He is the first tokusatsu hero launched by the Ultra Series and by Tsuburaya Productions. The character produced the Kyodai Hero genre with shows such as Godman and Iron King. Following Ultraman's success, Tsuburaya created another Kyodai hero series still as part of their Ultra Series project, Ultraseven. While both series shared the same genre with very similar heroes, there was originally no relationship between the two. It was not until Return of Ultraman was created four years later in 1971 that both Ultraman and Ultra Seven came together into the same story. This event cemented Tsuburaya Productions' decision to have the Ultra Series continue to follow the trend of focusing on an Ultraman with each new entry. The original red-and-silver giant hero himself enjoyed a long series of popularity and has continued to appear in various works in the Ultra Series. Apart from that, he also has a lot of popularity trademarks that make him memorable to this day: his Color Timer, the Spacium Ray stance, and his famous cry "Shuwatch" (シュワッチ, Shuwatchi). In the series, Ultraman's grunts and his iconic shout "Shuwatch" were provided by Masao Nakasone (中曽根雅夫, Nakasone Masao), who would later voice him as an actual character in episode 33 during his fight with Alien Mefilas. His dialogue in episodes 1 and 39 was provided by Hisashi Kondō (近藤久, Kondō Hisashi) while in episode 15, he was voiced by Koji Ishizaka (石坂 浩二, Ishizaka Kōji), the narrator of episodes 1 to 19. In subsequent appearances, Ultraman reuses Masao's grunt while his voice is provided by Susumu Kurobe (Shin Hayata's actor) or just simply speechless during the screen time. Ultraman's suit actor was Bin Furuya (古谷敏, Furuya Bin) during the original season. He would later go on to portray Ultra Guard member Amagi, one of the characters in the later series, Ultraseven. Ultraman appeared in later works of the Ultra Series played by various voice and suit actors. Although Susumu Kurobe did reprise his role as Hayata or provided the voice of Ultraman himself at times (though his grunts were still reused from the late Masao Nakasone) but there are other occasions where he was voiced by other voice actors. In Japan, the Ultraman brand generated $7.4 billion in merchandising revenue from 1966 to 1987. Ultraman was the world's third top-selling licensed character in the 1980s, largely due to his popularity in Asia.