Category: Everyday Life

So, it was that kind of story!

When I was a little kid, I watched ‘Ultra Q’ on TV, but I only remember the title and the music. I really liked it.
I didn’t remember the stories, but only the names of some of the monsters: Tarantula, Garamon, Kanegon.
However, we visited the Ultra World Exhibition in the summer of 2004, and since then we’ve been hoping to watch it. And it came true! We rented the DVD.

There was no DVD player at our home until a few days ago. We happened to need a region free DVD player, so we decided to buy one; we’re about five years behind everyone else. The player was very reasonable (I could say cheap) and I guess some DVDs themselves are more expensive than this player. We were afraid that we were turning penny wise and pound foolish, but so far it has been all right.

Anyway, about ‘Ultra Q’. For me, ‘Ultra Q’ is more attractive than the Ultraman series.
It was a monochrome special effects program for TV made by Tsuburaya Productions in 1966. Of course, for we who are used to seeing current CG stuff, the monsters are clearly just guys in rubber suits; the movements are unnatural and the miniature landscapes are cheesy. But at the same time we feel the enthusiasm of the people who made it. This is just my guess, but it looks like it was fun to make.

So far we’ve only watched volumes 1 and 2.
Unexpectedly, the drama is for adults more than kids: the themes are about a world out of balance, like a cautionary tale for the times, about things like environmental problems. We don’t know why, but the 6th story has a different atmosphere: suddenly the story became one for kids. (Even so, the kid who played the princess from the Dragon King’s undersea palace was still appealingly weird.)

Vol.1: 1–Knock Out Gomes!, 2–Goro and Goro, 3–A Present from Space, 4–The Mammoth Flower
Vol.2: 5–Pegira is Coming!, 6–Grow, Turtle!, 7–SOS Mt. Fuji, 8–Horror of the Sweet Honey

We plan to watch volume 3 and beyond, and I also feel like I want to watch ‘Sanpei the Water Imp’, too. (This is also a 1960s TV program about Japanese monsters.)

– YS, 20 April 2007

20 April 2007