Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

I picked up Tsuburaya's Blu-ray release of Ultraman Great/Ultraman: Towards the Future. As speculated earlier in this thread, yes, much like Star Trek: The Next Generation the final visual effects for the thirteen episode direct to video series were created and edited on video rather than film. Some of these effects were upgraded for the two movie compilations of the show. I'm uncertain whether any live action practical footage was also shot on video rather than film, but there are numerous uses of stock footage that was shot on video.

Yes, both the Japanese and English versions of the show are available on this set, but only for the thirteen episode series. The two movie compilations on the set are in Japanese only. However, rather than using interchangeable audio tracks, the Japanese and English versions are separate video sources, and you select which version you want to watch from the main menu.

The title sequences are edited differently using different music and video generated text. The English version has non-removable Japanese subtitles. This is because the masters used for this Blu-ray set are likely from Tsuburaya's domestic Japanese laserdisc release upscaled to 1080i, and Tsuburaya previously released the English version in Japan on VHS and laserdisc with Japanese subtitles before removable subtitles were invented for DVD.

dare I ask...Were you able to get them at an affordable price? (basically anything less than the approximately $150.00 I saw on Amazon Japan to import them).

^ Nope.

So the subs are burned into the print? Yuck. I was most likely never going to buy them, but that cinches that decision.

Well, I picked up Tsuburaya's Blu-ray set of Ultraman Powered/Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero. As I mentioned in my earlier post for the Ultraman Great Blu-ray set, this series was filmed and edited almost completely on 35 mm film rather than on video in the case of Ultraman Great. Thus, this series set is in full 1080p HD unlike Great which was upscaled to 1080i from a VHS or laserdisc source. Like on the Great set, the Japanese and English versions are separate video files, and you pick which version you want to watch from the main menu.

Thankfully, as I speculated before, the Japanese subtitles for the English version of Powered are removable and not burned into the film like on the Great Blu-rays. There are a handful of special/visual effects shots that look like they are created on video rather than film, so the picture quality briefly lowers during those shots. Otherwise, the picture quality on the Ultraman Powered set is excellent and very far away from the inherent video blurriness of the Ultraman Great discs.

That's really unfortunate about the burned-in subs on the Great/Towards the Future set. In all likelihood I'd probably never be in a position to pick it up either way, but this kinda makes me less enthusiastic about even trying, especially given the price. That sucks about Tsuburaya not having access to the original masters or non-subtitled prints, but yeah, still disappointing to hear given that we know they are out there.

Still, thanks for letting us know! At least now if I ever do get my hands on that set I'll know to be prepared for them.

So GorijardTV (or something like that) has released Towards the Future for download:

https://mega.nz/#F!jBtlVLZR!GKf5_8aFg9GOI3_Ft6BEYQ

Yeah he's been putting the episodes and behind-the-scenes features from the Blu-ray up on Youtube of late too. I watched a little bit of a couple of them just to see how distracting the burned-in subs were and yeah, they're pretty distracting. Definitely a shame.