How much Ultraman do you want? All of it? Well, good news.
Scifi Japan reports that Mill Creek Entertainment has licensed a new deal with Tsuburaya Productions—the stewards of the legendary Ultra Tokusatsu series since it first began in 1966—to begin distributing every single Ultra show and film, both physically and digitally, in the US.
Every. Single. Show. And. Film.
That is, for the record, over 1,100 episodes a across a phenomenal 30 series, and 20 films, from the show that started it all, Ultra Q, all the way up to the recent Ultraman R/B—and perhaps even beyond it, to this year’s upcoming Ultraman Taiga. Whatever the extent of the deal, it’s a huge one, and means that at least for some of these shows and films, it’ll be the first time they’re officially available at all outside of Japan, or in a high-definition format.
As well as being available digitally, Mill Creek will begin releasing the Ultra series on Blu-ray and DVD starting this October with the two shows that kicked it all off: Ultra Q, the original monster/paranormal investigation series that spawned the franchise, and Ultraman, its successor series that introduced the iconic, size-changing hero and changed the Tokusatsu genre forever. Two versions—one in standard packaging and one in special edition steelbooks—of each series will be available, costing $40 apiece ($50 for the steelbooks). As well as every episode of their series, with HD remastered footage and DTS-HD Master Audio of the original Japanese soundtrack as well as English subtitles, each release will also come with a redemption code for a digital version of the shows to be used through Mill Creek’s streaming platform, MovieSpree.
It’s a huge moment for Ultraman’s presence in the West—off of the back of the Netflix animated series, which just recently got confirmed for a second season, as well as Tusburaya’s own recent plans to essentially reboot Ultraman for a Western audience, getting easy access to new, high definition versions of the entire back catalogue of Ultra shows is great. Between this and Shout Factory’s ongoing attempt to bring every Super Sentai series to the U.S. (and not just the ones that got turned into Power Rangers shows), this is excellent news for fans of Japanese people in Spandex screaming crazy attack names at each other.
Ultra Q and Ultraman will hit Blu-ray and DVD October 15.