It was originally rumored that actors Takeshi Yoshioka (who played Gamu/Gaia in ULTRAMAN GAIA) and Koji Tsuruno (who played Asuka/Dyna in ULTRAMAN DYNA) would be contributing the voices of their Ultra Alter Egos in Takeshi Yagi's upcoming DECISIVE BATTLE! THE SUPER 8 ULTRA BROTHERS.

But, a Chunichi Sports news report confirmed that a press conference for the film broke the news that these actors will be reprising their original roles in front of the cameras. They will be joining Hiroshi Nagano as Daigo/Ultraman Tiga and Shunji Igarashi as Hibino Ultraman Mebius. The following are excerpts paraphrased from the original news story:

Having transformed into Ultraman Gaia for the first time almost a decade ago, Yoshioka commented "I'm delighted to be able to once again protect the Earth as part of the eight [Ultra] Brothers." Igarashi stated, "It was great to work with Tiga, learning pointers, but to work with all of my predecessors is too much!" Nagano said, "For the first time, all four Heisei Ultramen appear together!" and called the film, "Must see."

A Tsuburaya Productions spokesperson said, "The culmination of 40 years of Ultra history is our aim," and promised that the film will contain "many more surprises."

(Translation by August Ragone)

http://www.chunichi.co.jp/chuspo/article/e...1502079513.html

Where's Taiyo Sugiura ("Ultraman Cosmos") in all of this? He needs some work; after all, he's got a new mouth to feed (his and Nono's baby, Noa, born last November 26) especially since the Hello! Project money has stopped coming into the household. C'mon Tsuburaya, hook a brotha' up! B)

What I'm dying to see is an officially-sanctioned R1 release of the first Ultraman series, complete with absolutely completely-complete good-quality English dub.

Sir August, which of the vintage Ultra series were dubbed in English originally, and, in your opinion, might there be a chance anytime soon of these being licensed over here, now that Tsuburaya has apparently made some legal headway in this direction? I rented a tape from a Japanese video store many moons ago of Ultraman Leo, and it looked AMAZINGLY cool.

Tsuburaya Productions was recently absorbed into the Japanese megajuggernaut, TYO, which is going to completely rejuvenate the company and give it the considerable resources to make its product competitive with the world market. They also plan to aggressively promote the Ultraman brand around the world. I imagine that this would include establishing the Ultraman back catalogue in the US through video marketing.

But, I don't see the original ULTRAMAN being resold on the US home video market so soon (I would give it several more years). As detailed in my book, ULTRA Q was dubbed into English, but Tsuburaya Productions only has one episode (originally thought to be a pilot), although some US film collectors have stumbled upon more of them (four, altogether). ULTRA SEVEN was dubbed into English in Honolulu in the mid-1970s and aired them on KHON-TV 4 (then an NBC affiliate), but these have disappeared into antiquity (all for two deteriorating episodes on 1-inch video). The dubs done by Cinar in the mid-1980s, and shown on TBS in the early 1990s, have been pulled by Tsuburaya Productions and will not be recirculated.

Several of the series from the 1970s, such as RETURN OF ULTRAMAN, ULTRAMAN ACE and ULTRAMAN TARO, were dubbed into English in Malaysia, but the English is heavily accented and hard to understand at times (these aren't owned by Tsuburaya Productions as far as I know). There may be others, but they are substandard and would not be suitable for North American distribution.

I am holding in my hand (well I put it down so I can type this) an ULTRAMAN box set, Series One, Volume One, eps. 1-20 on 3 discs, and it says "For the first time in the U.S. see the episodes with the original Japanese audio track with newly created English subtitles or listen to the English dubbed tracks created for the U.S. televison broadcast by the same cast that voiced SPEED RACER."

Extras include interviews with members of the original dub cast, Peter Fernandez, Corinne Orr and Earl Hammond.

It's R1 and it's from a company called Golden Media Group, Inc/BCI and it's © 1966 by Tsuburuya Productions, "Exclusively Distributed by BCI Eclipse Company LLC"

I bought this at Kinokuniya Books in NYC sometime within the past two years.

Isn't this exactly what Jeff is asking for?

That release was not sanctioned by Tsuburaya productions, but by an unscrupulous outfit that claimed for many years to have certain rights to the character, including the U.S. video rights to the original Ultraman. BCI had to deal with them, and instead of the pristine materials (including the complete English dubs) held by Tsuburaya, had to use sadly inferior substitutes. The dubs are incomplete, of shoddy quality, and the transfers are riddled with glitches. The full story, more or less, can be found in these two threads at the Monster Zero forums:

http://www.clubtokyo.org/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=12101

http://www.clubtokyo.org/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=12239

Who knew?

I also have a VHS tape of a 30th Anniversary release of Ultraman, Vol. 1 (eps. 1-4) in its original English dub. But I don't have it in front of me to check its distributor. But I certainly thought it was legit when I bought it.

(It would be great to read those threads at the Monster Zero forums, but since I'm not registered, it won't let me in. :( And I don't register for forums until I've had a chance to check them out first.)

Then, you can go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Series and scroll down to "Licensing Rights Dispute."

It's a bit unfair to say the BCI Eclipse DVDs are not legit, isn't it? Rather, they did their due diligence and released the most legal product they could. The Japanese tracks and prints are very nice. The poor quality English dub track is disappointing, but not so poor that I couldn't watch the whole set in English with my son and have a great time doing it anyway.

I would argue that licensee money would be much better spent in releasing other series, now, rather than re-releasing the first ULTRAMAN series again. Which is why I picked up IRON KING, despite my reservations, and so far have enjoyed the first couple episodes a lot more than I thought I would, and will probably pick up that red robot one as well.