The residents of chibi-M78... well, roughly half of them, maybe
Ultraman M78 Theater Love and Peace (more commonly referred to as M78 Love and Peace) is a 1999 Short Film anime released under the Tsuburaya banner, as part of the Ultra Series, featured as a double bill for Ultraman Gaia: The Battle In Hyperspace in theaters.
Set in an alternate chibi-fied version of Nebula M78, where Ultramen, kaijus, chojus, aliens and robots co-exists peacefully, the entire movie consists mostly of short gags and animated clips, although there are 3 segments that somewhat had a plot:
- M78 Domino Race Olympics
- Its the Annual Domino Race on Nebula M78, and the contestants - Ultraseven, Ultraman Zearth, Gandar, Alien Baltan and Gavadon - have to complete a domino obstacle course within 3 minutes. The race is made complicated when Gomora - trying to sneak in a closer look - accidentally screws up the course, but the participants manage to set the track straight before the time limit.
- MiniMini: Magic Show
- Ultraman performs a magic show for the audience, where he made fruits disappear... by eating them.
- MiniMini: Monster Graveyard
- Ultraman is a janitor cleaning up the Monster Graveyard, by sucking up ghosts with a vacuum.
- MiniMini: Balloon Animals
- Pigmon shows off his skills in making balloon animals.
- Bubbles
- Ultraman and Dodongo, while blowing bubbles in a field, accidentally gets swallowed by an oversized bubble and ends up in an underwater kingdom. After a series of misadventures, Ultraman and Dodongo manage to find their way back, and they wake up from below a tree where they're taking a nap... so was it all a dream?
- MiniMini: Fishing
- A short clip of Ultraman and Baltan going on a fishing trip.
- MiniMini: Weights
- Ultraman tries working out at a gym.
- MiniMini: Cave Music
- Baltan shows off his musical talents by tapping stalactites on a cavern. Ultraman tries to imitate Baltan, with hilarious results.
- Finale
- A meteorite containing Seabozu crashes on Nebula M78, near Ultraman, Ultraseven, Yulian and Ultraman Zearth. The Ultras prepare to defend themselves, but it turns out Seabozu is merely homesick and lost, whereupon the kaiju starts crying. The Ultras decide to get all the residents of M78 to throw an orchestra for Seabozu, but after a musical number, a UFO arrives to bring Seabozu back home. However, after making so many friends with the M78 residents, Seabozu chose to stay, at which point the UFO shrinks Seabozu down into chibi-form and leaves.
You can watch the show in two
parts on youtube. It's one of the most adorable things ever to come from the Ultra Series. The only voice actors in this animated special were Ikue Otani, Kiyoyuki Yanada and Yuji Ueda.
This show provides examples of:
- An Ice Person: When the domino race nearly gets disrupted thanks to Gomora accidentally knocking over the tiles, Gandar saves the day by using his ice breath to freeze a section of the tiles in place.
- Art Imitates Life: In the domino race, a series of collapsed domino tiles forms an image of Gavadon, which comes to life and moves along toward the finishing line. It then re-transforms back into domino forms, which collapses into a portrait of Ultraman.
- Balloonacy: The Balloon gag ends with Ultraman getting literally carried away by Pigmon's balloon.
- Big Eater: Ultraman is depicted as such in the Magic Show gag, making fruits "disappear" by eating them. He gets a Balloon Belly at the end though after performing the trick with a watermelon.
- Butt-Monkey: Alien Baltan is hilariously portrayed as such, being chased by Gavadon at the end of the domino race, nearly getting thrown off a whale thanks to Ultraman, and having a cavern of stalactites suddenly collapsing on him.
- Concert Climax: The movie's last segment, a massive musical number performed by hundreds of Ultramen, kaiju, aliens, robots, and assorted characters in the franchise to cheer up Seabozu. With the original Ultraman as their conductor, of course.
- Decomposite Character: Alien Zarab and his Imitation Ultraman disguise can be simultaneously seen in the orchestra in the Finale.
- Fishing Episode: A short gag had Ultraman and Baltan on a fishing trip. While Baltan gets a whole pile of fish, Ultraman seems unable to get any at all... until he accidentally hooks the whale the two of them are sitting on which they mistook for a pier, where both of them nearly got thrown off.
- Floating in a Bubble: The segment Bubbles had Ultraman and Dodongo drifting in one, which ends up in an underwater cavern where water-based kaiju lives.
- Ghosts Abhor a Vacuum: One of the short gags sees Ultraman working as a janitor in the Monster Graveyard, where he proceeds to suck up a whole ton of ghosts using a vacuum cleaner. He then noticed one last lonely ghost still around, which he quickly sucked up, only to result in said vacuum overloading and exploding, where all the ghosts in the vacuum merged into a giant-sized super-ghost and proceeds to chase Ultraman off-screen.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The Ultramen and kaiju are no longer enemies in this episode, and are able to co-exist without killing each other. In fact the Ultras and monsters are shown playing football, tug-of-war, baseball, hanging out at the beach, having snowball fights, and generally just hanging out like chums. To drive the point home, Ultraman Ace and Ultraman Leo are seen respectively playing football and baseball with Vakishim and Red Giras; in their home series, the former was possessed by Ace's arch-enemy Yapool, while the latter was controlled by Alien Magma, the alien responsible for the destruction of Leo's home planet.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Dodongo keeps running off a cliff while he chases after Ultraman and doesn't fall down until Himala and Alien Metron point it out to him.
- Hurricane of Puns: The opening theme, Ultra Mambo, is filled with lyrics that are puns on the names of kaiju.
- Ironically Disabled Artist: Bemstar, a kaiju with hooks for hands (both of them), can play the piano.
- Kaiju: But are they the most adorable kaijus ever, or are they not?
- The Last Straw: In Weights, Ultraman tries to lift a barbell, only succeeding after he removes all the weights from the bar. Then a butterfly lands on one end, and the bar immediately tips to one side.
- Mundane Utility:
- Jirass is depicted as a chef, where he uses his fire breath to light a stove.
- Alien Baltan apparently works as a hairdresser, at one point he's seen using his pincers to give Woo a haircut. He also uses his Me's a Crowd abilities to quickly set a domino track straight after Gomora accidentally causes a portion to fall over too early.
- Mythology Gag: As a nod to Episode 49 of Ultraman Tiga where Tiga shook hands with the original Ultraman, Tiga appeared at the end of Bubbles to wake Ultraman up.
- No-Dialogue Episode: There's no dialogue throughout the entire show, just occasional grunts, roars and some classic Ultramen "shwatch, shwatch" every now and then.
- Non-Standard Character Design:
- M78 Domino Race Olympics has statues designed after the non-chibified versions of Ultraman, Ultraseven and Alien Baltan as part of the domino course.
- Seabozu in the Finale is depicted as a massive kaiju, although he turns into chibi-form after choosing to stay in M78.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Ultraman and Dodongo's underwater trip in Bubbles. Both of them are later woken up by Ultraman Tiga, and thinks they dreamt the entire adventure, but they didn't notice the glowing branch Ragon gave them during their adventure just nearby....
- Renaissance Man: Alien Baltan is characterized as one. He works as a hairdresser using his pincers, is talented at fishing to the point of amassing a pile of them in a short time, and can even play music using a row of stalactites in a cavern.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Due to the chibi art style, everyone counts as this, even kaijus who are normally potent sources of nightmare-fuel like Alien Baltan, Dada, Vakishim, Yapool and Kyrieloid.
- Show Within a Show: This very movie implies that the entire Ultra Series, is simply staged, and the Ultras and monsters are just actors. This means every fight in the series are All Part of the Show.
- Super-Deformed: Everyone, Ultra or kaiju, is drawn in a chibi art style. The only exception is the giant Seabozu in the Finale until he gets subjected to a Shrink Ray.
- Synchronization: The giant Gavadon formed from dominoes is connected to the regular-sized Gavadon in some way, as Alien Baltan stomping on the sleeping small Gavadon also causes the giant Gavadon to wake up and scream in pain.
- Visual Pun: Eleking, a kaiju known for its electric powers, is seen playing an electric guitar in the opening and the Finale.
- Wings Do Nothing: The Bubbles short pretty much confirms the audience's suspicions that yes, Dodongo's wings are indeed useless, and no, he cannot fly with them.
- You Don't Look Like You: Whilst most of the kaiju are simplified in a way that makes them still recognizable, some of them have altered color palettes or overly-simplified designs that make them look nothing like their normal appearance. Compare Dodongo◊ as he appears in the original Ultraman to how he looks here◊.
