Ultraman: Towards the Future
All these developments finally bring us to 2021: how is Ultraman faring now? The franchise has returned to a yearly schedule with a new show each year. The numbers also do not lie, as toy manufacturer and entertainment giant Bandai Namco’s sales figures for the IP show a rising trend for the past five years, even under the global pandemic. In 2020, sales numbers for Ultraman even finally surpassed those of the similarly long-standing superhero franchise Super Sentai.
In other avenues, attempts to bring more Ultraman content to the masses seem to be succeeding. The year 2013 marked the start of the Ultraman Festival, an annual summer event for all Ultra fans in Japan, featuring exhibitions, cast appearances, and live stage performances. In 2019, Tsuburaya worked with streaming giant Netflix to produce ULTRAMAN, a CG-animated adaptation by Production I.G of the manga with the same name by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi. Not to be outdone, earlier this year Tsuburaya also launched its own subscription streaming service in Japan named TSUBURAYA IMAGINATION, fully utilizing its fifty-plus years’ catalogue of shows and content. That’s on top of the Ultraman Official Youtube Channel (boasting a whopping 1,8 million subscribers at the time of writing) where it uploads free episodes of shows weekly with English subtitles, as well as a Chinese channel and a presence on the streaming platform Bilibili.
Perhaps it’s quite indicative of the franchise’s ambitions then, that the official social media channels for it are all named “Tsuburaya Global”. Attempts to bring Ultraman to the world aren’t new to Tsuburaya; the Chaiyo films in the 70s could be seen as one of them, with other examples being Ultraman Powered (1993) released for home video in America, the 2002 4Kids-produced English dub of Ultraman Tiga, and not to mention the various Ultraman shows that aired all over the world on local TV networks, including in Indonesia. Having already sown the seeds of a global fanbase, it looks as though Tsuburaya Productions is finally free to reap the benefits unabated, and for the most part even seems to be doubling down on its efforts.
The work that has been put in this past decade to further strengthen the Ultraman brand all around the world already feels quite extraordinary, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In Malaysia, Tsuburaya collaborated with Les’ Copaque Production of Upin & Ipin fame to debut the pencak silat fighting Ultraman Ribut. In Singapore, Ultraman was appointed as an “Ambassador of Light” for the Singapore Tourism Board, coinciding with the 55th anniversary of Singapore-Japanese relations. In Thailand, Tsuburaya has asserted its official status through events such as marathons and stage shows. In the United States, a collaboration with Marvel Comics brings Ultraman to readers there in the form of an ongoing comic book series. Meanwhile, other collaborations have brought Ultraman media to big-box stores such as Walmart, and Ultraman events stateside. In Taiwan, the baseball team Uni-Lions has frequently collaborated with the franchise, sporting Ultraman-themed jerseys and bringing Ultra heroes out to the field. Meanwhile, in mainland China where copyright problems persisted before, key partnerships have enabled Tsuburaya to successfully hold official events for charity, as well as stage shows and toy exhibitions. Tsuburaya also collaborated with global fashion retail giant Uniqlo last year to bring Ultraman T-shirts for all.
In Indonesia, Ultraman has historically enjoyed a robust presence on the airwaves since the early 2000s, popular enough to warrant an Ultraman stage show featuring Ultraman Cosmos held in 2014, and Ultraman Ginga coming as a guest star for the Countdown Asia Festival in 2015. However, the recent airings of the newer Ultraman shows on Indonesian channel RTV have caused another massive surge in the franchise’s popularity. The arcade game Ultraman Fusion Fight was localized into English, initially made available for the Indonesian market. Hideo Ishiguro, star of 2016’s Ultraman Orb that also aired on RTV, made an appearance as a guest star for the toy show Battle of the Toys 2019. This May, RTV announced the broadcast of the 2020 show Ultraman Z, on a special talk show featuring Ultraman actors and characters. Notably, in addition to airing the shows on TV, the channel has also uploaded Indonesian-dubbed episodes of the shows it has licensed to a dedicated Youtube channel that has now amassed over a million subscribers.
Fans also have much to look forward to in the near future. Two feature films are on the way, one a CG-animated feature-length production by Netflix, and one a live-action film titled Shin Ultraman helmed by Shinji Higuchi and (Evangelion creator & noted Ultraman superfan) Hideaki Anno slated to release in 2021, though currently delayed by the pandemic. Meanwhile, trademark filing reports in Japan has fans already speculating on what might potentially be next year’s hero.
The list goes on and on, but they all paint the same picture: 55 years on, there has never been a better time to be an Ultraman fan. By slowly but steadily amassing a legacy and building fan interest all over the world, as well as engaging with fans on all possible avenues, Ultraman has become a success story on how a character can become a part of people’s lives for multiple generations. He went away and came back before, but it seems that this time, Ultraman is here to stay for good.
Or at the very least, hopefully for another 55 years.
The Indonesian Anime Times | by Caesar E.S. | This opinion is the personal views of the author and does not represent the views and editorial policy of The Indonesian Times or KAORI Nusantara
