Ultraman TV and Movie Licensed to Mill Creek for North Ameri

[kpa]

I am pleased to announce -- and honored to be working with Mill Creek on -- the first Tsuburaya Productions approved Blu-ray, DVD and streaming release of the ULTRAMAN film and TV library in North America! Over 1100 episodes and 20 movies!

http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2019 ... h-america/

[canofhumdingers]

That is so cool! I’ve still never finished watching my old dvd set of Ultra Q (maybe halfway or 2/3 through?). Welp, that’s going out the door and making way for this blu ray release! While it was great to have that dvd set, the video quality was pretty abysmal (stupid Chaiyo). Cannot wait to see these classic series in beautiful restored HD transfers!

One question, will there be any English audio tracks? I’d love to watch Ultraman with my kids, but at 3 and 5 years old subtitles are kind of a stretch...

[rortiz77]

[rortiz77]

I am praying right now for the discs to be region-free...

Please, please, pleeeeeeeaaase...

[Dr Kain]

I am in awe right now because I never thought I'd actually see it happen.

Now the question is, do I get the steel book or the regular set?????

Hopefully it doesn't take long for Seven to come out.

[Dr Kain]

[Gwangi]

[canofhumdingers]

I don’t mind just subs for myself, but it makes it a whole lot harder to share it with my kids. And I know they would absolutely love the original Ultraman show.

[jellydonut25]

I've never seen Ultra Q so if the set shows up for a reasonable price, I'm on board.

I marginally enjoyed Ultraman the only time I ever watched it, with one of my biggest complaints being the trash quality of the release and the print, so with that corrected maybe I'll like it more? I'm on board for that as well. beyond that...we'll see...Ultraman stuff isn't my jam so far.

[O.Supreme]

The Original Ultraman is the only series I have a nostalgic attachment to the English dub, so I'll be hanging on to my Navarre Corp. sets (unless by some miracle the English audio is included in the new one...)

But the Cinar English dub of Ultraseven is laughably forgettable. I'm satisfied with the digital files I have if I am ever that desperate. I'd love it if all the Hawaiian broadcast dubs resurfaced though. Also the Malay English dubs of all the other series aren't necessary due to extremely poor quality.

All that being said, I am excited to see where this goes, and will be supporting the releases of all these sets.

Finally, I noticed the thumbnail for the Youtube trailer for UltraQ is in Color, though the preview obviously has footage in B&W. I don't suppose there is any chance this release will have both as an option?

[lhb412]

I AM ECSTATIC.

This is an even more significant deal then whatever Criterion is cooking up in regards to Godzilla. Almost the entire series, shows and movies!? No wonder the simulcasts stopped, they were working on getting a real distributor here. I saw another comment from Keith at another site hinting that they may jump around the timeline with the releases, putting out some newer material soon. I think that's a super smart move.

... and all this on Ultraman Day!

Oh, and Mill Creek's Mothra release was so stellar I was thinking of shooting off some fan mail saying I loved their release and hoped they'd continue with more kaiju releases. What little I knew! Seems Mothra was like a dry run for these releases.

[Shokara]

I never thought I'd see the day. Here I thought that Tsuburaya Productions thought the market for classic Ultraman was dried up in North America due to Chayo saturating the retail with its shadey releases. Yet only a couple of years after Tsuburaya's American court victory, we now have a dedicated North American distributor for virtually the entire Ultraman franchise that's very eager to put out Tsuburaya approved/provided content. Yeah, I am a bit bummed that we're apparently not getting the English dub for the original Ultraman, but the fact we're now officially getting restored and English subtitled HD releases for Ultra Q, Ultraman, Ultraseven, and even the newer stuff like Tiga, Mebius, etc.? Wow. Just... wow! It's like we're all living in some little Kaiju/Tokusatsu Renaissance.

[Jinzo Ningen]

Awesome, but at the same time, absolute bullsh!t. Tsuburaya has all the materials from the United Artists adaption. There is NO EXCUSE to once again spit in the face of American fans by ignoring the excellent dubs from Peter Fernadez & Co. What a shame. It's my understanding that English dubs were created for Ultra Q as well. WTF? I'll pass on UQ & '66 UM if this is what we're getting.

[tbeasley]

Absolutely phenomenal news! Can't wait to finally experience the Ultra Series proper.

[canofhumdingers]

[kpa]

Everyone, please keep in mind that this just the first announcement and the product details are what has been 100% locked down at this time. Mill Creek wants to include the English dubs and is in talks with TPC to get them. I know everyone involved is working hard on this and I hope to have some good news to share soon.

And despite what Jinzo Ningen wrote, there are indeed reasons why any of these dubs aren't an automatic 'yes' for inclusion... there are all kinds of legal issues that have to be checked first. Just because you don't know about an issue doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

As for Ultra Q, TPC only has the dub for episode 3. That makes it a little difficult for them to hand over the English audio tracks for the entire series.

Regarding the colorized Ultra Q, its not available for international licensing at this time so the Blu-rays will just have the original B&W version.

[lhb412]

^ Awesome! Can't wait for further annoucements!

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Going to preorder this right now this was some awesome news today.

[TripMasterMunky]

Great news. I've only ever watched the original Ultraman series, and maybe about half of Tiga. Never got around to watching my Ultra Q DVD set when I had it. Always been meaning to check it out, so this is a good opportunity. I'll probably go for the steelbooks - seems like physical media copies end up going out of print quicker these days, so might as well keep them protected with a slick-looking case. I swear it seems like a handful of my tokusatsu blu-rays are already no longer available and are now all collectors items. I don't do as much figure buying these days, so I don't mind spending the money here instead.

I'm not sure how much interest I'll have for future releases, but I'll get Q and original series, start from there, and see if I want more. Original Japanese audio with English subs is all I need. Some bonus features would of course be appreciated as well as icing on the cake.

[rortiz77]

[The Shadow]

Oh wow -- this is going to be awesome! Looking forward to what MillCreek will deliver.

I know that many (probably most) of the Ultraman shows don't have English dubs and I don't expect new ones to suddenly be created (due to cost if nothing else). Hopefully the ULTRAMAN (1966) will have it's English dub -- if I remember right, we know Tsuburaya has the dub and rightly kept it off the market to prevent Chaiyo from being able to make full use of it. It would be great now that we're getting a Tsuburaya approved release of U'66 if the full English dub was there too.

[Dr Kain]

[Jinzo Ningen]

[Rody]

I don't think anything short of Criterion's eventual plans for for Godzilla will top this as the most exciting tokusatsu news in very recent memory for me. I can only imagine how long and hard Tsuburaya Pro. has fought to make something like this a reality. I'm flashing back to all the clips and episodes I could only watch through YouTube in 2008-10. This is truly, utterly phenomenal, and I'm grateful to everyone who made this happen!

[Dr Kain]