How did Tsuburaya manage to drop the ball so badly w/ Ginga?

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

It was supposed to be an anniversary show right? And it has no budget and a tiny cast and basically one boring location?

How? Makes no sense to me.

Then they follow up with Ginga S which actually was pretty good and had some interesting characters, locations and fights.

I've seen and finished:
Ultraman
80
Gaia
Nexus
Max
Mebius
X
Ginga
Ginga S
Geed (ongoing)
Ultraseven (ongoing)

And I can definitely say Ginga was the absolute worst of the bunch. I didn't even really care for the Human who was Ginga, he had almost no personality.

Jean-Nine the robot was sort of an interesting addition but that's about it.

It really blows my mind that Ginga was supposed to be a celebratory anniversary show and was so awful. The running gag of Taro going, "I just want to be big again", was probably the best part of the whole show.

Even the transformation device being a lame little dagger looked cheesy. And it was obvious the hilt flipping open was done by him squeezing the lower hilt section to open it,..it wasn't even spring activated. Which at least would've looked a little bit better. (and they didn't fix that in Ginga S either, it still looked like a really cheap dollar-store toy.)

I just finished Ginga and Ginga S this weekend and just can't believe how cheap and almost just 'bad' Ginga was. Such a cool design too. Though the constant color changing, (he's orange, he's yellow, he's pink, buy them all!) ..was also sort of lame.

I liked the Ginga Strium mode in Ginga S where he had the little green forehead jewel like Ultraseven and the chest and shoulder studs like Zoffy. But I can't get over how weak Ginga was for what was supposed to be an Anniversary celebration.

At the time it was new and airing I bet fans were pretty disappointed. And I looked up trying to find out how and why this happened and all I can find is, "they had no budget." How can they have no budget for an Anniversary show?

Oh well I guess out of 10 Ultraman series I've watched so far, one of them sucking isn't really a terrible ratio. The other series were so good though it was very surprising how cheap Ginga seemed in comparison.

And Crunchyroll doesn't separate Ginga and Ginga S, it's all under the title of Ginga for some reason. So Ginga S the better part of the series is almost hidden there behind that borderline awful Ginga.

idk,..maybe I'm taking it too seriously. But it was hard to finish Ginga. It was so cringey at times.

[lhb412]

Tsuburaya was just coming out of dire financial straits. Ginga was their attempt to make something new with sparse resources, and it did well enough that they were able to invest more money (and higher episode count) in the subsequent series, then the series after that - and now Ultraman is quite successful in Japan again.

It may not have been much, but it was probably a necessary stepping stone.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

Ah I didn't know they ever had problems. Seemed like they were always successful. That's some of the backstory I was hoping to hear.

Does that have anything to do with Chaiyo owning the rights to the first few series?

Wasn't Bandai throwing money at them?

[klen7]

Yeh, by most accounts Ginga was a thread-bare gamble that brought Ultraman back from the brink

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

this is that "behind the scenes" stuff that's so interesting.

...you don't read it in the Wiki though, generally.

[klen7]

It seems like Wikis tend to care more about fictional things like power levels over factual things like production. It's a shame there aren't more modern reliable historian types. I tried updating wikizilla at one point but was quickly dismayed to find my citeable changes reverted literally in favor of easily disproved fan fiction theories...

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

so far this is really the only real behind the scenes Documentary I've been able to find. And it doesn't pertain to anything new. Though it is interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnyuQLbJ_q8

It references a movie made called The Men of Ultraman (or something along those lines, it's been a little while since I watched it)..but I can't find that movie. Even if I did I doubt it has subs.

But yeah the real history and behind the scenes stuff seems hard to find.

[lhb412]

^I'd check older threads in this very forum. If I recall, Mebius was only finished because a pachinko(?) company gave them the cash necessary to complete it.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

Wow that's crazy!

well hopefully Tsuburaya gets some money from all these Spark Doll/Ultra 500 figures I've been buying.

[klen7]

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

Next, 80, Nexus and the original '66 Ultraman are what got me into Ultraman, in that order. Though to be fair I was watching the original while I was watching the other stuff too. A couple episodes at a time.

And that CGI Trailer I found on Youtube that started the journey. I spent a day trying to find the movie that trailer went to (that doesn't exist),..but found Next instead and watched that. I liked it and that led to Crunchyroll and 80. Then I watched 80 and the original at about the same time. Then Nexus I thought was so good I pretty much binge watched it. Wasn't crazy about the final few episodes and the change in tone, but by then I was hooked on Ultraman. Then I watched the Zero Trilogy. Then just kept going.

Nexus, Mebius and Max really sucked me in though and I pretty much binge watched those 3 series.

I thought Ultraman was always popular I had no idea they'd had so much money troubles. I got the impression Kamen Rider and Ultraman were just huge and incredibly popular in Asia and everyone loved them. Which is why I was surprised that Ginga was so cheap.

[Dai]

There are some fascinating stories behind the rise and fall of various tokusatsu shows. If you ever pick up the BCI version of the Super Robot Red Baron DVDs, they come with an excellent booklet penned by these forums' own August Ragone, which covers the production side of the early tokusatsu era in great detail. Despite that show's popularity, it ultimately died because its main sponsor was in financial trouble and withdrew support. In other words, Red Baron was mothballed because people couldn't afford to buy air purifiers...

[RichCo]

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

yeah that is a good write up. I wish there were more behind the scenes info available.

I'd love a good modern documentary. Or even that 'Men Who Made Ultraman' movie being available and subbed would be really interesting.

[lhb412]

We've had several well researched books on Godzilla in the US, but we're really starved for a good one that covers Ultraman or the Daiei movies or the kaiju/tokusatsu genre as a whole.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

yeah it seems that way. I've seen some interesting Ultraman and Kamen Rider books on eBay but they seem more like art-design photography books.

..they're all in Japanese too, of course.

I really wish I could find that The Men Who Made Ultraman movie,..and find it subbed.

[sentaison]

I wonder how much the costs of the ongoing lawsuits with Chaiyo had to do with their financial problems?

[RichCo]

[lhb412]

^Oh, yeah: I have that one, and it's great, but since the focus is on Tsuburaya it only covers the '50s and '60s, and the projects Tsuburaya wasn't directly involved in are tertiary, so they're not covered in detail.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]