On Friday, Tsuburaya Productions uploaded to their YouTube Channel a promotional video for their upcoming Blu-Ray sets. These Blu-Ray box sets feature the foreign produced Ultras series, Ultraman Great and Ultraman Powered.

Ultraman Great is the first live-action foreign Ultra series, a 1990 co-production between Tsuburaya Productions and South Australian Film Corp. Now, while it was produced in 1990 the series did not receive a television broadcast until 1992. Originally titled Ultraman: Towards the Future, the series follows Jack Shindo who’s also the host for Ultraman Great and fights Kaiju as a part of the Universal Multipurpose Agency (U.M.A.). The series is 13 episodes long and features original kaiju, with the first half focusing on the Gudis Threat Arc. Noteworthy is that the series an environmentalist theme due to eco-awareness in the 90s. Consequently the environmentalist theme also helps to provide a better explanation for Ultraman’s Color Timer.

 

The second series Ultraman Powered or Ultraman: The Ulimate Hero is a 1993 co-production with Major Havoc Entertainment. The series stars Kane Kosugi (Jiraiya/Ninja Black of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger), Kenichi Kai, a member of Worldwide Investigation Network Response (W.I.N.R.) who becomes Ultraman Powered. Like Ultraman Great, Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero consists of 13 episodes and rather than being an original series it serves as a remake/ reboot of the original. Several can expect episodes to feature many iconic kaiju, and in addition a re-telling of their stories. The best example is “A Quartet of Creatures” which retells the iconic episode “The Lawless Monster Zone”, featuring Red King and Pigmon as well as guest stars Jeffery Combs. 

 

The Blu-Ray Box set for Ultraman Great (Ultraman: Towards the Future) will release this month, on January 27th. The Ultraman Powered (Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero) Blu-Ray box will release this spring on March 24th. In addition these box sets will feature a high-definition remastering, dual audio (Japanese/English), and their sale price is 18,900 yen. Maybe with these Blu-Ray releases it will lead to the series being simulcast onto Crunchyroll, because at this moment the only way to view these shows is via YouTubers uploading old VHS copies.

Source: Hero Club