YMMV / Ultraman: Towards the Future

• Anvilicious: This show is essentially the Ultraman equivalent of Captain Planet and the Planeteers in its delivery of environmental issues.
• Awesome Music: The instrumentals for this series are very well done and mood-appropriate. Special mention goes to Ultraman's own theme, which somehow manages to be both majestic and campy at the same time.
• Complete Monster:
  • Gudis ("Evil Life Form") is the primary villain of the first six episodes. Gudis is a parasitic monster responsible for destroying many worlds, absorbing all the life from those planets into its being. On Mars, Gudis kills Stanley Haggard and nearly kills hero Jack Shindo. Thought destroyed by Ultraman Great, Gudis's cells land on the Earth, mutating various innocent life forms and turning them into monsters, leading to their deaths and the deaths of the monsters' rampages. One of Gudis's plans involved brainwashing a little kid and his newly mutated lizard to be used as weapons for its invasion. Taking control of the body of Stanley Haggard, Gudis infiltrates the UMA base, killing many crewmembers and kidnapping and infecting Jean Echo with its cells. In its final episode, inside a volcano, Gudis attempts to deplete the oxygen of the entire Earth, which would make the planet unlivable. When the military comes in to try to stop Gudis, it mercilessly kills most of them. When Gudis captures Ultraman Great inside its body, Gudis starts to physically and mentally torture him.
  • Nemesis comic book sequel:
    • Cogem is a sapient A.I. who views humans as inferior life-forms, and decides to kickstart a Robot War by hijacking various industries and producing legions of robots loyal to his command, including several mechanical monsters. Annihilating entire cities, Cogem took over most of the world until Ultraman Great's return. As Great takes on Cogem's robot army, Cogem reveals it had converted the Earth's core into a nuke and will detonate the whole planet should Great attempt further retaliation, forcing Great to stand by helplessly in the face of the onslaught. As Ultraman Great and his human allies try sabotaging Cogem's core only to be caught, Cogem delivers a beat down on a weakened Ultraman Great while taunting the Ultra over his love and care of his human friends and how Cogem will enjoy eliminating Great's allies; when Great eventually defeats Cogem, it transforms into a Virtual Ghost and leaves with a We Will Meet Again threat.
    • Gudis is resurrected in a stronger form and is even more sadistic than before. Employing a human thug, Raptor, as its enforcer, Gudis converts Raptor into an Evil Doppelgänger of Ultraman Great and sends Raptor to invade Earth's cities in an attempt to draw his nemesis, Ultraman Great, out of hiding. When Raptor fails to deliver Ultraman Great in time, Gudis decides to unleash a powerful alien virus across the globe to eliminate all humans; when an injured and badly-handicapped Ultraman Great tries fighting Gudis, Gudis delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Great while gloating about the many other worlds it is going to conquer after destroying Great.
    • Raptor starts off as a human mass murderer and escaped convict, who got himself mutated to a stronger monstrous form after exposure to radiation. Introduced trying to kill a woman and child before he's beaten off by Ace Kimura, Raptor, coveting more power, breaks into a bio-lab to steal a piece of Gudis' tentacle while brutally killing security guards with his bare hands. After assimilating with Gudis and becoming an Evil Doppelgänger of Ultraman called Evil Ultraman Great, Raptor gleefully wipes out entire fleets of jets sent to stop him and goes on a destructive rampage lasting for several days, trampling civilians underfoot and takes pleasure working with Gudis to brutally beat down Ultraman Great. When Gudis decides to exterminate all humans with a poisonous cloud, Raptor is more than willing to support Gudis' plans, excited at the prospect of conquering entire planets while uncaring about the fate of mankind.
• Creepy Awesome: Some of the monsters may qualify, seeing as how the costumes are quite lavishly detailed.
• Common Knowledge:
  • A lot of people when they discuss the series say that it was a failure in terms of ratings and interest. The series actually did relatively decent when it came out, especially in Japan where it kept the franchise relevant. It was actually going to get a second season and the only reason it didn't was because of the failure of Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero forcing Tsuburaya Productions to cancel many of their projects including further seasons of Great.
  • A lot of people (as well as the main page, for the longest time) believed that the series, despite being produced and set in Australia, never aired there, whereas it actually did, broadcasting on the Nine Network in 1993.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Majaba has proven to be the most popular of the show's kaiju with fans on both sides of the Pacific.
  • Great himself is a very beloved Ultra amongst fans, and his return in Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy has been met with open arms.
• Fridge Logic: Just how did UMA get the idea to load the prophecy disc into one of their laser cannons and use it against the Kodalar and Kilazee?
  • And before that, Colonel Grant tells General Brewer that his time (i.e. the use of More Dakka) is over, and yet goes on to use the prophecy disk as a weapon in its own right.
• Funny Moments: A lot of the show's humour comes from the human characters' Deadpan Snarker banter amongst themselves.
• Heartwarming Moments: The end of episode six, after Gudis is finally gone for good, Jack and Jean share a huge, relieved hug.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Gudis was a virus-like alien entity that sought to corrupt all life on Earth. About 10 years later the Japanese producers would create a villain of the exact same nature in the form of Chaos Header.
  • Before that; the last monsters of the series were created by the Earth itself, come Ultraman Gaia and the eponymous Ultra Hero is created by the Earth as well.
• Moment of Awesome: The climactic fights of both story arcs, in episodes six and thirteen respectively.
• Narm / Narm Charm: It is a 90s TV series featuring men in rubber suits, after all.
• Nightmare Fuel: Gudis has a face only a mother could love. Its second form, more so.
  • The bizarre backwards talking and reverse explosion of Ultraman's appearance when Kodolar defeats Ultraman is suitably disturbing as well.
• Nightmare Retardant: Ryugulo's face may look fearsome, with his oversized bulging blue compound eyes and his vertical mouth containing More Teeth than the Osmond Family, but his Jerk Jock voice just clashes with his appearance. The suspiciously vagina-like look of his mouth doesn't help either.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The Ultraman: Towards the Future SNES game is notorious for its poor graphics and unfair difficulty levels, often ranking among the worst video games ever.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Some of the Japanese dub's voice actors would go on to play other Ultra Series characters, notably Shingo Yanagisawa (voice of Charles Morgan), who later played Officer Shibukawa in Ultraman Orb.
  • Gia Carides (Jean Echo) is Robin Swallows!
  • Several of the names in the writing staff include Shō Aikawa, Satoshi Suzuki, and Chiaki Konaka.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general fandom consensus is that while Towards the Future did have its interesting perks, it was weighed down by its preachiness and being rather forgettable.
• Special Effects Failure: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, when Ultraman lays the smackdown on Kodalar in their second fight, the monster's spiky shell briefly comes detached from the rest of the costume.
  • Also, after Ultraman's first fight with Gudis on Mars, a brief glimpse of the original Gudis costume can be seen as the creature begins to turn itself into a swarm of microbes.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The show's theme song sounds like a combination of the main themes of Star Wars and Superman: The Movie, both composed by John Williams.
• The Woobie: The children and their caregivers who get caught up in the monster attacks, particularly Jimmy in episode three, and Jenny in episode seven - though Jenny is much better-adjusted overall.
• Ugly Cute: Kodalar can qualify, mostly because of how chubby he is, as well as his huge, expressive eyes.
• Unfortunate Character Design:
  • Game Grumps has pointed out how Bogun's head placement makes it look less like it's a creature with two heads, and more like it is suffering from some disease that turned its genitals into a heavy dinosaur head.
  • Ryugulo's vertical mouth also counts too considering that his mouth resembles a toothy vagina more than a mouth.

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