Courtesy of Shout! Factory, Tsuburaya Productions iconic “Ultraseven” series from 1967 is available on DVD in a fully restored edition with all episodes present and accounted for. With subtitles options and a crisp picture and color scheme, “Ultraseven” is about as good as it’s ever been, a truly interesting and entertaining icarnation of Ultra Man that promises to keep audiences watching.
“Ultraseven” focuses on the Terrestrial Defense Force establishes the Ultra Guard, Earth’s six guardians who act as enforcers for the planet, protecting citizens from extra terrestrials and monsters with the use of high tech machinery and vehicles.
On the force is Dan Moroboshi, a valiant officer who is secretly an alien and fights on the side of good. Hiding his persona and keeping with his duties, he constantly finds himself at the mercy of a powerful foe, and with the use of his high powered goggles, he transforms in to Ultraseven, a robotic superhero with amazing powers who battles the foes and saves his friends on more than one occasion. Given the dilemma of keeping his identity a secret, Dan has to constantly find a way to transform in to Ultraseven without being spotted, and find the right windows of opportunities to battle the aliens that threaten to destroy Earth.
Rather than stomp around Japan and wrecking monuments, the alien foes are often devious and cruel, and find ways to infiltrate the Terrestrial Defense Force in an effort to destroy their morale and allegiance. In the very first episode entitled The Invisible Challenger, Dan and the force have to confront a toy maker who is appearing in random villages and supplying boys and girls with war toys that look incredibly realistic. Given a special badge with their purchase, Dan begins to notice that the toys seem almost too life like for simple games and begins investigating. When he and his team discover is that the toy maker is planning on using the children as an army to destroy the world and, knowing adults would never kill children, use them to fight and kill anyone in their paths.
The foes in “Ultraseven” are ultimately revealed as alien monsters by the end where Ultra has to fight them with his laser beams and ability to grow to enormous size, but the plans by the alien foes are often somewhat reliant on moral dilemmas that Dan and his team have to mull over, before confronting. Though the show is primarily targeted to kids, “Ultraseven” is played with a straight face, with actor Kohji Moritsugu providing a very strong performance as Dan who is tasked with defending the Earth as the Defense Force and as Ultraseven. The series is still rather exciting, offering some very entertaining dog fights and well choreographed kaiju battles in the mountains that keep the pace moving quick without ever being disorienting. “Ultra Seven” comes in a 6 DVD set, along with a wonderful poster of Ultraman on the inside of the DVD sleeve. Inside there’s a twenty four page booklet featuring a detailed essay by August Ragone about the history of the series, how it dominated the ratings on television, and its eventual second life on syndicated cable, along with stills and rare photos from “Ultraseven.”