YMMV / Ultra Q

• Genre Turning Point: It cannot be understated how much Ultra Q influenced the kaiju genre, despite its possible Sequel Displacement to succeeding series like Ultraman to modern viewers. Its massive success on 60s Japanese television proved it was completely possible to create movie-level special effects work on a TV budget and schedule, allowing the path to be paved for many Toku shows (including the rest of the Ultra Series) to come. And for ordinary viewers, it had opened up a golden opportunity. As Eiji Tsuburaya recalled in an interview, he had overheard two children walking home from school and they were talking about how with Ultra Q, it meant they could just see kaiju whenever they wanted instead of having to go to the movies whenever a new flick came out — something that made Tsuburaya very happy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Try watching Kemur-Man outrun the police in "Challenge from the Year 2020" and then watch Falco's Der Kommissar music video and not laugh. Did Falco watch the show growing up?
  • Related to the above, Kemur-Man caused multiple disappearance cases, one of which, a man lost in Higurashi Highland. Fast forward to year 2002, we got a visual novel named Higurashi: When They Cry, dealing with a mass disappearance cases.
  • Has anyone still remember Jun Manjome here? A whopping 38 years later, another Jun Manjome was introduced in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (also known as Chazz Princeton in the English version) who is more well-known, so anyone mentioned his Japanese name will be always be the latter. Considering their names being almost close (with the kanji on their names being slightly different), this may cause some confusion. At least the former was mostly called by his first name rather than his last name.
• Nightmare Fuel: Exaggerated (as expected in many horror films), especially when you watch alone.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Eiji Tsuburaya wanted the series to be family-friendly ("Remember, children will be watching", he instructed to the writers), so it can be quite tame in comparison to some later work, especially the two sequels/remakes.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A young Ryūsei Nakao and Tōru Furuya appear in "Garadama" as some of the kids who find Garamon's meteor.
  • Several of the main cast in Ultraman appear in bit roles throughout the series. Masanari Nihei appears in "Kanegon's Cocoon" and "Goro and Goroh", Akiji Kobayashi guest stars in "Challenge from the Year 2020", Susumu Kurobe appears in "Terror of the Sweet Honey", and Akihide Tsuzawa guest stars in "I Saw a Bird".
• Once Original, Now Common: In retrospect, compared to other tokusatsu, it may not seem like much, but at the time it was one of the highest rated, most expensive shows on Japanese TV. It was shot in 35mm, which was the format for feature films in Japan, and it used a very expensive optical printer-so expensive that only Toho and Disney had one.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: A big part of Ultra Q's success. Eiji Tsuburaya had produced the quality of suits, miniatures, and puppets found only in his Toho movie work on a TV schedule and budget.

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