Ultraman Villains Popularity Contest
 

The Ultraman franchise has some of the most iconic villains of any tokusatsu franchise in its long history. With that said, I decided to do an...


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Rules are simple: Every round, I'll post a match-up between two Ultraman villains. All you need to do is vote for your favorite! The first villain to five votes wins and moves on to the next round.

I've tried to include a mix of villains from various Ultra-shows, and they include kaiju, choju, seijin, evil Ultramen, robots, chimeras, evil entities and everything in between. Obviously, this is a villain contest, so no good/neutral-leaning characters (e.g. Pigmon, Zandrias, Pegassa, your favorite Capsule Kaiju etc.).

Also, no Dinosaur Tank, because we all know he's too OP and would sweep.

Onward with the first round!

R1: King Joe vs. Alien Zarab

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King Joe, hands down. Always loved that design.

Joe is definitely cool for all sorts of obvious ressons, but Zarab has more personality (what with not being a robot) and I liked the latter's evil plan in his original appearance. And Fake Ultraman looks really cool! So he gets my vote.

Though King Joe does deserve points for being pretty menacing and threatening even though it looks like that. I think I liked his orgin in Max the most, where he's a toy robot turned monster.

King Joe has a hilariously awesome name, and in X he was portrayed as a combining super robot, which is like, the absolute quickest way to my heart, so he definitely gets my vote. Heck, I probably would've picked him over Dinosaur Tank. :lol

Sacrilege!

Anyway, I'll throw in a vote for King Joe as well. He was the Gomora of Ultra Seven, in that he totally kicked our hero's butt, and probably would've killed him if not for the Ultra Garrison's deus ex machina. His second fight with Seven in the Port of Kobe is still one of the most memorable Ultra battles for me. I loved that fight as a kid, and rewatching it now, it's still gold.

Also, wasn't King Joe portrayed as a combining super robot in the original Ultra Seven as well?

going with joe

I actually haven't seen Ultra Seven yet, but apparently that is indeed the case. For some reason I was under the impression that was something X came up with. I got into the franchise with Ginga, so my Ultra trivia game isn't always on point. I guess they just don't bust that feature out very often.

At any rate, that only further proves how awesome King Joe is.

I love King Joe~

I'll vote for King Joe. I don't especially love either of these two but not only does King Joe have a cooler design he's also one of the more iconic Ultra monsters for me personally.

And King Joe takes the first round with a 6-1 lead! Onto the next round!

R2: Eleking vs. Gan Q

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Ooh, now this is a tough one. On one hand, Gan Q has a delightful punny name (gankyuu means eyeball in Japanese), has arguably the creepiest appearance of any Ultra monster, and a starring role in the best episode of Ginga S. And I'm sure he was awesome in Gaia, too, obviously, but I still haven't seen that show.

On the other, Eleking is a monster from Ultra Seven, which means he has major street cred. Between that, the impressive design, being the basis for my favorite of X's armors, and the absolutely ~adorable~ baby version of him in Mebius, I have to give this round to him.

The real question is which was cuter?

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Eleking because it is less horrid than Gan-Q. :lolol

My vote is for Eleking. I like both of them but something about Eleking makes me feel really nostalgic. It helps that he's a really cool monster as well.

I think what really made me vote for eleking is that the way it is designed feels like it belongs in the Ultraman franchise and nowhere else for me whereas gan-q feels like just a creepy looking eyeball creature that could probably fit in other franchises as well. This doesn't mean that gan-q is a badly designed kaiju at all, but in comparison I can't help but think eleking feels more exclusively close to the Ultras aesthetically.

Aw gosh, both these things manage to be both really cute and also kinda creepy if the situation calls for it.

I'm gonna give my vote to Gan-Q because I have extra nostalgia of seeing him in video games when my little mind was just barely comprehending Ultraman as a concept.

Gan-Q. Simply for the Ginga S episode.

Eleking is an iconic Ultraman monster but I struggle to remember a single instance where it impressed me. It’s just the weird dinosaur thing that shoots electricity. I don’t dislike it but it just was never a part of anything special for me. The Cyber Eleking Monsarmor from Ultraman X is the only cool thing attached to the name for me.

But Gan-Q? Gan-Q will forever live on through the greatness that is "The Tears of Gan-Q".

#TeamEleking.

Eleking simply because it has a chibi form.

Also, how come Dinosaur Tank never makes an appesrance again nowadays?

The awesomeness of Dinosaur Tank-sama can only be witnessed by human eyes once lest we be incinerated by his godly presence.

Although, I do think Dinosaur Tank showed up in Orb Chronicle?

Anyway! I'll cast my vote for Gan Q, partly because of Tears of Gan Q, but partly because I think Gan Q is one of the few "iconic" kaiju from the Heisei era of Ultraman.

Eleking wins with a 5-3 victory! Moving on...

R3: Mefilas vs. Baltan

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Baltan, mainly because it'the closest ultraman ever got to having an arch villian ala The Joker or Hreen Goblin.

Gotta go with the ninja lobster on this one. That laugh is also tied with Zetton's... whatever you even call that sound for most iconic monster noise in the franchise.

This is basically my response as well. Balton gets my vote.

Mefilas gets my vote because honestly he just left a pretty big impression on me. I was already enjoying my watch of the original Ultraman series quite a lot, seeing the red and silver giant beat down on the newest monster of the week. But then came this wombat-looking alien who operated on an entirely different level, using mind games to mess with kids and then Hayata himself.

And the reason for all this wasn't just to take over the world. Of course that was maybe the main goal, but I found it so interesting that he wanted to win the Earth fairly (by his own weird standards, anyway) by challenging people's character.

And then he goes and fights Ultraman to a standstill and then leaves peacefully. "Wow, this guy is cool!" was all I could think. And I'm especially happy that his appearance in Mebius was sort of a retelling of this concept (and that it featured the return of the original Ultraman telling him politely to bugger off was great).

The TV show host version of Mefilas from R/B was really great too.

I might as well talk about Baltan too. I consider these guys to be the quintessential example of the 'evil invading aliens' in Ultraman, kinda what the Daleks are to Doctor Who (I've never seen that show so don't ask me to elaborate). They fill a rather basic role in any story they show up in, but they always do it well, and they're iconic for a reason. Also the episode of Max where they show up was the most ludicrous thing (in a good way).

I'm honestly surprised Baltan coming to Earth to take over isn't like a standard tradition, like every year would have one episode where they show up and do their usual thing.

Baltan. Everything about it is just so iconic.

Baltan. I really thought he was the first Ultraman villain and his archnemesis. That laugh alone is iconic.

I'm actually going to throw in a vote for Mefilas. Like FreshToku said, his debut in the original Ultraman series was actually a really great episode. I loved how he seemed to be more of a Machiavellian trickster, a trait which seems to have vanished in later appearances. Plus, Mefilas also gave us Giant Fuji!

Anyway, Baltan takes the crab-cake with 5-2! Next up...

R4: Dada vs. Alien Guts


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I know the Guts are probably pretty famous for that time they put Seven in a cross, but other than their freaky bird-like appearance, I'm struggling a bit to think about what else I really find memorable about them.

Certainly, they came across as scarily competent and came very close to conquering the Earth, but Ultraseven fought alien invaders trying to take over the Earth almost every episode, so they needed just a little more to stand out to me.

Is it weird if I think the modern Alien Guts looks kinda cute?

I love Dada though. His plot from the original Ultraman was already kinda wacky to begin with, but something about him seemed particularly... pathetic to me? Like the humans were outwitting him pretty well, and when Ultraman showed up, things just kept getting progressively worse for him. His three faces gimmick felt like him having exaggerated anime reactions to everything happening around him. I was kinda feeling bad for him by the end of the episode.

I do have a bit of a nostalgia bias because my first exposure to Dada was actually as a little kid, when I happened upon an episode of Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero (one of those American series that for some reason aired in my region at the time) and I caught the episode of the Dada-lookalike that came out of people's computers and zapped them. It was pretty creepy to little me!

And of course, a Dada was the star of R/B's Halloween episode which was a special experience.

So I'd say my vote goes to Dada. This fight was stacked against Guts from the start though, since of the two of them, only Dada has ever been in a fashion commercial.

I have to go with Dada on this just because the manga/NETFLIX anime of the spinoff sequel boosted up the badass cred for me.

I vote for Dada, it's so weird and fun. I quite like the changing face gimmick too.

Guts is apparently iconic as hell because Ultraseven but I never watched that so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This kind of disproves my own point about the Ultra Seven street cred, but there's simply no way I can give my vote here to anyone but Dada.

I mean, come on. An Ultraman villain modeled after an avant-garde art movement. That's just too amazing, and between that fact and the neat face-changing gimmick, I honestly think we could have a Dinosaur Tank tier competitor here. Strictly in terms of visual appeal, I don't think there are many guys out there as immediately impactful and memorable.

I'm gonna throw in my vote just to keep this moving but yeah, much as I enjoyed the Guts two-parter (which features the first use of the recurring Ultraman gets crucified! trope), Dada for all his incompetent mishaps, is simply the more iconic baddie.

So Dada takes it with 5-0! Moving on...

R5: Dark Mephisto vs. Red King

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I'm curious as to how you go about deciding these brackets, if there is any system behind it. Never thought I'd see these two mentioned together in one post.

Red King is pretty iconic, especially since they keep bringing him back. Something about him is inherently comedic. Like, no matter what kind of plot he's featured in, even if it's a dire one, I can't take this guy seriously. That's not necessarily a complaint though, he kinda makes me think of Bowser from the Mario series.

That being said... I don't think I'd miss him if he showed up less? I mean it's always need to see Red King and go 'hey it's you. there you go spitting rocks and making bowser sounds again' but he's also hardly the coolest or most interesting-looking monster out there.

Anyhow, regarding this bracket, I feel like the villains who are recurring antagonists with defined personalities are always going to have an advantage over the various monster species. The latter show up across the series' histories and can be used in any variety of roles, but the former inherently have more meat to them.

As for Dark Mephisto himself, he's maybe my favourite of the villains from Nexus? It's been a very long time since I saw the show, but I remember he was a particularly evil piece of work. And the mid-season finale of sorts featuring his climatic battle with Jun still has a special place in my memories.

Also his design rocks. And his claw weapon almost doesn't look like a toy (Sorry, Geed).

So yeah, my vote goes to Mizorogi.

He may look like Godzilla and a corncob had a baby, but I have to vote for Red King. I'm a big Max fan and Red King was one of the biggest bads on that show.

The matchups are entirely random to make the contest fair. I just feed a list of the most popular Ultra-villains into a tournament generator, and it creates a list of randomized brackets for me.

My vote is for my favorite dumb corn on cob dinosaur, Red King. How are you going to do variants of the same monster?

Well all variants are folded into the most general iteration of the character.

E.g. Red King would include EX Red King, and Alien Dada would include all portrayals and members of the alien race across various Ultra-universes.

For special cases where a "variant" could be considered an individual character, I will include them as a separate contestant, but if they're not important enough they're probably not showing up. A good example of this would be Dark Mephisto Zwei.

I'm going Red King, but just barely, mainly because I'm not sure which Mephisto that is, if it Mizarogi then I'm leaning that way, the other guy who had it for like one episode then Red King all the way

Argh. This one is hard.

The only two things I can ever think of when I see Red King are corn and "why is his name Red King?", but he's also undeniably classic.

Dark Mephisto has an awesome name, and I love evil copies of heroes, which he more or less is, but I also have extremely fuzzy memories of most of what happened in Nexus, and frankly I always thought Faust was cooler.

So basically, this is the first matchup where no matter who I pick, I simply can't be enthusiastic about it.

I guess I'll go with Dark Mephisto just to even up the score. That way we can all further appreciate that Dada just won that last round with no resistance whatsoever. :p

This is the original Dark Mephisto, aka Mizorogi. Dark Mephisto Zwei is the other guy you're thinking of, who I believe was a clone?