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This marks the third installment in the “Ultra Series” while also being the first full-fledged domestic space opera produced by Toei as part of its “Space Special Effects Series,” serving as the studio's inaugural television production.
00:21Captain Ultra is the third installment of the Ultra series, following Ultra Q and Ultraman, and was Toei's first full-scale space opera or space special effects series in Japan.
00:42Now, let's take a look at this work.
00:45Captain Ultra was produced by TBS and aired for a total of 24 episodes in 1967.
00:59The story begins when a space transport ship is attacked by the Bandel aliens and explodes due to the dangerous substance it is carrying, atomic nitro.
01:10The space station Silver Star notices this anomaly and attempts to stop the entire fleet, but is unable to communicate in time.
01:21At that time, the space transport ship carrying Officer Akane, special trainee Kenji, and the Bandel aliens attack.
01:30This spaceship, like the space transport ship that had lost contact earlier, was also carrying atomic nitro, so it sent an emergency call sign to Silver Star.
01:44In response to this distress signal, Captain Ultra, Joe from Cicero Alien, and the all-purpose robot Hack of the Space Police Patrol make an emergency launch along with the spaceship Spiegel.
02:00Meanwhile, the space transport ship carrying Officer Akane is being chased by the Bandel aliens and makes an emergency landing on the planet where the mining site is located. They ask for help from the local base, but they have already been attacked by the Bandel aliens.
02:18Officer Akane and the others are being chased by the Bandel aliens, but Captain Ultra arrives in the Spiegel and defeats the Bandel aliens.
02:29However, during the battle, Officer Akane and Kenji are kidnapped by the Bandel aliens, so they decide to return to Silver Star and translate the recorded conversation between the Bandel aliens.
02:44According to the translation, it becomes clear that the conversation was about kidnapping Officers Akane and Kenji as guinea pigs to investigate and analyze the functions of Earthlings with the goal of conquering the Earth.At the same time, their current location is confirmed, so Captain Ultra rushes to their location in the Spiegel.
03:07When they arrive at the site, a sea star beast, Bandelaar, suddenly appears and attacks them, but through Officer Akane's Morse code, they discover that he and Kenji are being held captive inside the body of a robot, Bandelaar.
03:25Afterwards, they use Hack's rocket launcher to tear the Bandera apart and successfully rescue Officer Akane and Kenji.
03:35However, after this, as the space exploration era began, Captain Ultra and his friends became embroiled in further battles.
03:47Now, let me start by introducing the main character, Takehiko Hongo, also known as Captain Ultra.
03:54I am 25 years old and my family separated when I was young.
04:01He is usually an instructor at Pioneer School, a space school for boys located on the Silver Star space station. He has a calm and collected personality, and possesses excellent intelligence and physical abilities, with a skill level of 6 in judo and 5 in karate.
04:18As for weapons and equipment for the mission, it flies using a backpack or jet propulsion system on its back, and has an ultra laser gun that can be equipped with missiles, and an expeditionary space fist.
04:34The laser gun case is called the Ranger Case and has an object investment scope and wire ejection function.
04:43Additionally, from episode 12 onwards, he is equipped with a miracle beam, a deadly beam that is fired from the top of his helmet.
04:52In an emergency, Captain Ultra can be called by launching a signal flare into space called an Ultra Sign.
05:03Captain Ultra also has a partner named Jorgan from Cicero.
05:11When he was a child, he was left alone on a planet and was rescued and raised by an Earthling scientist, so he feels a deep sense of gratitude towards Earthlings.
05:24He then joined the Space Police Patrol Unit and is currently serving as Captain Ultra's aide.
05:32Its unique feature was that it could curl up into a shape similar to a rock, and then from that rock state it could shrink like a seashell.
05:43Unfortunately, in episode 12, after destroying the Bandel aliens, they return to Planet Cicero.
05:50Captain Ultra's other partner, the all-purpose robot Hack, is a high-performance robot that, as its name suggests, can do anything from translating the languages of space creatures and aliens to piloting spaceships and fighting.However, there were many scenes where he was teased by children such as Kenji.
06:14As for weapons and equipment, it has an incredible output of 500 horsepower and its arms can be replaced with rocket launchers.
06:23Among the other characters, there is one good point: Officer Akane.
06:30He is 20 years old, and like Captain Ultra, he is a teacher at the Boys' Space School and Pioneer School.He is also a brilliant astrophysicist and a weapons expert.
06:45After Joe, a Cicero alien, returns to his home planet, he becomes the pilot of the Spiegel's second unit.
06:56Kenji, who becomes Akane's student, is a 13-year-old boy with a strong sense of curiosity, and because of his strong curiosity, he often acts on his own and causes trouble for those around him.
07:10In addition, there was Dr. Munatomo, the director of the space station Silver Star, who supported Captain Ultra and his crew.
07:23First, let's talk about Captain Ultra's weapons and equipment, including the Spiegel.
07:29The Spiegel is a high-speed spacecraft designed by Dr. Munatomo. When combined, it has a total length of 50m, a top speed of Mach 100,000, or about one-tenth of that speed, is equipped with nuclear power and a powerful lattice rocket, and can separate into three units in combat.
07:53It is also capable of autopilot, and when using its ultra-high directional cannon, it can also navigate the component ships.
08:02When separated, Unit 1 is piloted by Captain Ultra, Unit 2 by Ultra, and later by Officer Akane, and Unit 3 by Hack, and their weapons include laser cannons, missiles, and fire.
08:19The name Spiegel comes from the German word for mirror, and as its name suggests, the entire spaceship is shaped like a shining silver mirror.
08:32The space station Silver Star, where the Space Police Patrol is based, is under the jurisdiction of Dr. Munetomo as its director, and is equipped with ray cannons, solar beam cannons, barriers, and more.
08:48Although he is the enemy that Captain Ultra faces, there is no enemy from the previous episode, and the first 12 episodes focus on the battle with the Bandel aliens, who are plotting to conquer the solar system and Earth.
09:04The latter 12 episodes changed direction to feature many monsters.
09:11Therefore, in each episode, the story unfolds with the captains defeating monsters that appear along with strange phenomena.
09:21Also, unusually for a superhero show at the time, the opening theme songs were Captain Ultra for the first half and Space March for the second half.
09:34As an aside, in episode 12, Joe returns to his home planet.
09:41In fact, it is said that the sudden change to a police box was due to a popularity poll for the show's characters conducted by children, which revealed that the character was unpopular due to his creepy appearance, as well as other adult reasons.
09:57In later years, the Tunnels' popular show was made possible thanks to you all.
10:01When Captain Ultra's comedy episode, Captain Urtoka, was broadcast, Toshiaki Kobayashi, who is now a popular actor, performed Cicero's Treaty in the costume of the time.
10:15On the other hand, Yuki Shirano, who plays Officer Akane, was extremely popular, in contrast to the unpopularity of Cicero's Treaty. There was also an article reporting that she was pulled off the stage at a department store event after children swarmed onto the stage due to her popularity.
10:37Now, finally, it's the final episode.
10:43Captain Ultra is flying through space, but suddenly his backpack stops firing, causing him to spin and descend in a mist.
10:53Suddenly, the scene changes to the inside of the space station, Silver Star, where Kenji picks up a broken Captain Ultra doll that has fallen to the floor.
11:06Apparently, Kenji and Sayuri were using space models and the dolls to play a game of interplanetary flight.
11:16At that moment, Sayuri's beautiful older sister, Miyuki, appears, and Kenji suddenly becomes lovey-dovey. Wanting to impress Miyuki, he uses a space model to explain about the Milky Way galaxy.
11:31However, when it comes to the edge of the universe, we are stuck for an answer, so we will use a symbol to indicate infinity to explain that the universe is infinite.
11:44Kenji took this story further, forming the Mugen Research Society and unveiling to its members a children's rocket called Gulliver, which resembled a rhinoceros beetle.
11:56At that moment, Captain Ultra, Officer Akane, and the robot Hack entered the room as people hoping to become members.
12:07Kenji gives an entrance test only to the robot Huck, but he teases Huck with the test questions and answers.
12:16Then the scene changes and Kenji and Miyuki enter the spaceship, the Gulliver, and the three of them, along with Sayuri who has tagged along, enjoy an unauthorized space trip.
12:31As they pass a traffic light that is only available in space, Sayuri begs to go to infinity, but they explain to her the dangers of the journey to infinity and head to Mars instead.
12:43After arriving near Mars, the three were enjoying a spacewalk when Sayuri touched an unidentified asteroid object, causing her to spin, cutting her lifeline and blowing her away.
12:58He hurries back to the Gulliver and contacts the captain, while Kenji, feeling responsible, pilots the Gulliver to search for Sayuri, ignoring the captain's attempts to stop him.
13:12After that, Kenji and the others lost contact, so the Silver Star assumed that the Gulliver was heading towards the edge of space.
13:22The captain decides to travel to the edge of the universe via a shortcut to infinity, something no human has ever attempted before.
13:30Around that time, Kenji's spaceship crashes into a celestial body, but from the window he discovers Sayuri floating in the pitch-black space and realizes that they have gotten lost in the Infinity Zone.
13:47Meanwhile, the Spiegel arrives at Planet Prometheus, and the Captain, Officer Akane, and Hack land on the super-cold earth.
13:59So, when we find dinosaur fossils from 200 billion years ago, we realize that this point is where the past and the future coexist.
14:10Then, the Captain and Huck accidentally find a crack in the earth and fall into it, and Kenji and Miyuki witness their fall.
14:21Afterwards, the fallen Captain discovers that he is at the entrance to the Infinity Zone, while the Captain Ultra doll thrown by Kenji draws an infinity symbol in the darkness of space.
14:34After confirming that Kenji is safe, the captain orders Akane to ram Spiegel No. 2 and No. 3 into the beacon wall, generating a light of 100 million lux.
14:51After the light appears, the Captain searches for Kenji, but the backpack on his back stops propelling and falls.
14:59While falling, he discovers a pink object and destroys it with a beam attack from his helmet.
15:08The scene changes and Kenji calls out to Sayuri, who is unconscious.
15:13When Sayuri came to her senses, she found herself in a flower field with Miyuki, Kenji, and the captains standing there.
15:22When Sayuri asks where they are, Kenji replies that this is the place of infinity.
15:32The Captain adds that humanity has only just reached the threshold of infinity, and that human exploration of space will continue.
15:43The program then ends with Kenji and Miyuki, the Captain and Officer Akane, and Hack and Sayuri holding hands and running through a flower field.
15:57Now, let's take a look at Captain Ultra in action.
16:02Let's take a look at Captain Ultra in action.
16:32Let's take a look at Captain Ultra in action.
17:02Let's take a look at Captain Ultra in action.
17:32What did you think?
17:36Even after watching the final episode again as an adult, I still couldn't understand it.
17:42Now I think that this content is so incomprehensible that it can only be thought of as a fantasy dreamed by the Captain or the other characters.
17:55What do you all think?
17:58So, I'll see you around here again this time.
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