I can only agree wholeheartedly. Compared to other Toku-shows I've seen of its time, Ultraman certainly aged well. Some episodes were amazingly shot. The one with the mummy comes to mind, the camerawork was fantastic, like the shot in the empty warehouse. The show is just a joy to experience on all levels, suspenseful stories, amazing visuals, but most importantly - the characters.

I really enjoyed all the performances, they work beautifully together.

As a complete and utter Showahead, I also like Ultraman more than just about anything I've seen from Showa with only KR Black giving it competition! I daresay it's my favourite Ultraman series, even, though there's some strong competition from that.

I'm very happy to see something I hold dear to my heart being enjoyed so much by so many other people :)

The Original Ultraman. My gateway into Tokusatsu shows as a whole outside of Godzilla. It's certainly one of my favorite Tokusatsu shows out there, heck, it's one of my favorites, period.

It's a delightful show, and it's why I adore Ultraman in the first place. Glad you enjoyed it!

Now I just have to find time to watch Shin Ultraman.

This is how I rank all the Ultra shows I’ve seen a significant number of episodes for (Return of, The, Nexus and MMB are excluded, since I haven’t seen them) https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...AF6BF35E39.png

You might be like, the first person I've seen to rank X that low-- myself aside.

I've actually just started watching the original Ultraman show myself and am enjoying it quite a bit! It's funny seeing all these Kaiju make their debut appearances knowing how much more common they would become in New Gen shows or would make random appearances in later shows just to remind you they exist.

Also I think the stylized intro of some New Gen shows comes from the stylized OP for the original show?

And Akiko is the same actress as Yuriko from Ultra Q, right? I always thought that was funny. I keep expecting to see Jun or Ippei show up.

I still have no idea to this day why the SSSP had Hoshino just randomly there or interacting with everybody. Was he a trainee the whole time?

I would totally watch an Ide and Arashi buddy cop show.

Personally, it seemed to me that Ide was the real protagonist of this team show, and Hayate just turned into Ultraman. At the very least, Ide definitely got the most character development.
Speaking of kaiju from the original show, I wish Wuu would come back more often. I remember that the mystical yokai doesn't really fit in with the sci-fi backbone of the franchise, but I still feel like there are a lot of interesting stories to come up with this kaiju.

Yup!

That's another thing that's fun about watching Showa; I recognized a lot more references in my favorite scenes from newer shows. Especially sound design, like reused transformation sounds for the New Generation fusions.

Or how the "fourth gate open" from Ultraman Z when they get their mecha out of the base is directly inspired by the same line from Ultra Seven when they open the base to let the planes fly out.

Random kid, they later make him an "official" member. I don't think they ever explain why he tags along. As for the real world purpose, it's obvious, they wanted a kid character for the children watching the show to identify with.

Definitely the best comedic moments and reaction faces come from Ide. As does Arashi being a bull in a China shop and talking about his Spider Shot.

I wish they'd do a bit more with Hayata...

Yeah, Ide is easily the best character in the entire show. I also have to agree regarding Hayata. He's not a bad character but he sadly does fall rather short compared to the rest of the cast in the series and especially in comparison to most of the Ultra human hosts and/or Ultra Heroes that came after him.