Every Version of Ultraman

The Giant From Nebula M78

Ultraman began not as a book or a comic but as a television concept, created by Eiji Tsuburaya and his production studio Tsuburaya Productions. Tsuburaya was already the special-effects architect behind the original Godzilla (1954), and when Fuji TV wanted a follow-up to his 1966 series Ultra Q, he delivered something more ambitious: a human who merges with a giant alien hero to battle kaiju threatening the Earth. Ultraman premiered on Fuji TV on July 17, 1966, and ran for 39 episodes.

The formula was radical for its time. A member of the Science Patrol, Shin Hayata, fuses with the alien Ultraman after a collision in the sky. When monsters attack, Hayata raises the Beta Capsule and transforms, growing to 40 meters. The show was shot on 35mm film with practical suits, miniature cities, and wirework that set the visual language of the entire tokusatsu genre. It was also, despite its monster-fighting surface, deeply invested in its human ensemble and in the ethics of power and sacrifice.

From that single 1966 series, Tsuburaya built the Ultra Series: a franchise of interconnected and occasionally rebooted TV shows, theatrical films, manga, prose novels, stage shows, and eventually anime. Dozens of distinct Ultraman characters now exist across the continuity, each with their own host, home region, and visual design. The franchise has run almost without interruption for six decades, making it one of the longest-running superhero properties on the planet.