The New Ultraman: Max[imum]

[Benikiba]

In Ultraman Max, two famous artist will appear: Susume Kurobe (Hayata/Ultraman -1966) and Hiroko Sakurai (Akiko Fuji - Ultraman 1966)

Susume will be the Captain Tomioka from UDF and Sakurai will the a cientist Professor Yoshinaga, from the UDF too.

Some producers: Shusuke Kaneko (producer of Gamera and Godzilla monsters) and Takeshi Miike (Producer of Zebraman and more 100 films about criminal, horror and sci-fi movies).

We can imagine something with that union?
I can.

Hope the histories have many combats against the monsters, cool and attractive enviroment into the DASH Team! ;D

The site: hicbc.com/tv/max/

[Xenorama ™]

he looks pretty cool. i hope we get some team ups with older Ultras though. it's about time they returned!

David

[Benikiba]

Famous monsters will appears too, like Baltan, Z-Ton and others. I think (now) i figure out what the reason Tsuburaya create de Ultraman Noa. He's the link between the past and the future, bringing not only the monsters, but a feel concepts in the past that turn Ultras so adore and famous. In the other side, i think Dark Sagi bring the monsters and their ancient, but famous concepts. I think is that.

The thing i read is that the fans will can vote for monsters and his designs.

This is new in he Tsuburaya, but not for Toei, that use the same process to choose what final end Ryuki could have.

Let's see what Maximum can bring to us!

[RedKing]

I got volumes 1-5 of the subbed HK discs of this for Christmas and this show is great! I think it's the best series they've done since TIGA 10 years ago. I really liked NEXUS with it's darker tone, more adult oriented plot, and arcing storyline, but it was ultimately disappointing as an ultraseries and wasn't too good in the ratings. MAX has been doing quite well, I gather from what i've heard, and there will be another new series after MAX finishes up which will be the "official" 40th Anniversary series. MAX goes back to basics with a non-form changing Ultrahero from Nebula M78 (remember that place? I was beginning to think Tsuburaya Pro forgot it!) with some excellent kaiju and seijin! The classic monsters look fantastic, they are tweaked just a little so that they look almost exactly like the original versions, but more contemporary. Eleking is the only classic monster I've seen so far that has had any major change, and that was just two claws added to the backs of each hand. Now let me get to my favorite episodes-5 and 6. These episodes feature my favorite Ultramonster, as you may have guessed is, RedKing. Only this is the RedKing I've wanted to see since I've been watching Ultrashows. Everytime in the past, RedKing comes out strong, tearing opposing monsters to pieces ( Chandlar and Dorako for example), but as soon as any red and silver do-gooders show up, he turns into a punching bag and gets tossed around, chopped up or worst of all, in ULTRAMAN POWERED he got turned into a love sick sissy! well, not in MAX! Now we have RedKing as he was born to be! The God of Calamity! A mysterious island materialized in the Pacific and Pygmon lives there in the ruins of an ancient civilization. It seems Pygmon was a sort of alien that helped out the ancient humans, but this civilaization was destroyed by the God of Calamity-RedKing! Red was sealed in the ground by a huge pygmon UFO, but he's been reawakened today by human arrogance, or something. These HK subs can be funny you know. Anyways, Red beats a new salamander monster named Salamadon to death and then, joy of all joys, he gets to pummel Max and beat the snot out of him! Oh how i loved it! Red throws Max around like a ragdoll, lifts him over his head and hits him with his new found power to spew forth a stream of explosive magma boulders! Of course he screws it up when he charges Max and trips over a ravine, but that was funny because red proceeds to throw a fit as Max uses his eyeslugger type head cutter to create a bigger ravine to bury him. But Red isn't dead-he comes back in part 2 in episode 6 to beat another monster, a cool lizardy thing that glides like Varan. Red of course looses his second match with Max because it's Max's show after all, but I was happy to finally see RedKing beat an ultra down! The new RedKing looks almost identical to the original. The only changes are to his body proportions, he's sort of proportioned like the Heisei big G with really big legs and a small head giving him a powerful triangular body shape and he has larger and more fangs in his upper jaw.

photobucket.com/albums/f24/RedKing71/?sc=1&multi=3
I have a few pics from the show in my album at photobucket including shots of redKing, the new Gomora(who i haven't seen yet) and the first 2 monsters from episode 1 which was directed by Kaneko, but was still really good anyways. The 4 legged monster is a lava monster and the fish monster is an ice monster, so they had a huge battle before Max showed up.

[Xenorama ™]

OK, i do want to see this one now.

[RedKing]

I just ordered volumes 6 and 7 which will bring me up to episode 28. This show just flat out rocks!! I love that they really didn't change the old monsters very much at all, it's like seeing old friends again.

[Xenorama ™]

i'd like to borrow those sometime... i bet they have no copyguard on them, and i can copy them directly with my computer burner. let me know if that's an idea worth discussing.

[RedKing]

I'm sure I could arrange that David. I also ordered volume 8 which i saw was just released when i went to pay for vols 6 and 7! There should be just 2 more discs to go for the entire series.

[Xenorama ™]

that would be very cool.

i think there are only going to be 39 episodes of the show, which would be ten volumes. can't wait to see them!

[RedKing]

I checked and there's no copyguard. The HK discs have gotten alot better over the years-the subs are quite good-not perfect, but light years better than the old MAZINGER set! They also only have 4 episodes per disc now instead of 8 or 10. On the downside , the episodes them selves are recorded right off Japanese TV. Granted they look just fine, but they have the clock in the corner of the screen, and there aren't any extras included like there was on the COSMOS discs which they ripped from the Japanese dvds. Oh well, i'm not complaining, I'm very glad to be able to see the shows with subs on disc at all!

[RedKing]

Still waiting for vols 6,7 and 8 to get here. I hate waiting for stuff from Hong Kong-you never know how long it'll take! Let me know when you want to borrow the discs david and we'll set something up. I also found the Japanese site for the show which, while entirely in japanese, has lots of cool photos, a monster guide with heights and weights and an episode guide that has a still from the episode and the preview for that particular episode. Baltan shows up in i think episode 33 or 34, Eleking and RedKing also get to come back -this time Eleking had his old pals Alien Pitt with him, and RedKing gets to tear up Tokyo!!(Oh yes!! I'm so happy!) This is such a great show, the only thing that would have made it better is if they had placed it in the Showa continuity as they are doing with Moebius.Here's the link to the site:
www.hicbc.com/tv/max/

[Xenorama ™]

any time is good, i'll start getting you some Shaw Discs and LEGEND OF DINOSAURS made up for you as well.

i'm looking forward to this, and the new series as well.

[RedKing]

Sounds great David! Vols 6,7 and 8 arrived today and they all work fine. I watched a little of the Gomora episode and it looks really interesting(Gomora is also called Godmolla in the subs). In the Max continuity, Gomorasauruses are a natural species like a crocodile or komodo dragon that are roughly human sized and live in a Europen(I think) country called Findlya. 30 years before 6 Gomorasauruses were illegally imported into Japan by a radical ecological terrorist group expierimenting with biotechnology and now they are running around loose in rural Japan and there's one that is huge! That's all from the first 5 or 6 minutes of the episode! i also was kinda shocked to find out that the girl playing the android girl that works the control panel of the DASH HQ is the same girl that was in MOTHRA 2 when she was like 12! She just recorded a commentary track for Toho's dvd release of MOTHRA 2.
Anyhoo, I'll start getting a package together for you with the MAX volumes, hopefully for next week or the week after.

[Xenorama ™]

this is one fun show! i've watched up to episode 5, with Red King and it's way cool. even the theme song is very catchy.

i wonder if the new Ultraman will team with Max, since Max has had so many of the original monsters showing up. can't wait to watch more of these episodes.

David

[Xenorama ™]

just watched episode 17, so nice to see Susume Korobe and "Dan Moroboshi" (pardon me for not remembering the actor's real name) talking to each other. it REALLY makes me ready to see the Mebius movie, since the others will be appearing as well.

with all this going on, perhaps we will see the original Kamen Rider actors showing up again in a movie?

[RedKing]

That was a great episode! Did you see the one with the actor that played Ito in it yet? That was a great reunion too. Susumu Kurobe says he and "Ito"'s character used to work together years ago, though in the context of MAX they were fighter pilots. I'm with you on the Moebius movie, it should be great to not only see Susumu Kurobe and the other original actors again, but to see them as Hayata, Dan Moroboshi, Hideki Goh, et al! I don't know how many of the other original human-form actors are appearing , but those 3 at least are.

[Zone Fighter]

Moroboshi, Dan played by Moritsugu, Koji.

[Xenorama ™]

thanks, i knew it was something like that. those two, along with "Hideki Goh" and Ultraman Ace's human counterpart are all going to be in the Mebius movie. i have no idea where "Kotaro" from Taro is tho!

[Xenorama ™]

just watched the Gomora episode, that one was way good. Gomora is a great monster, i wonder why Red King is more popular.

the dream episode is just weird, but it's nice now to see Ito again.

[Zone Fighter]

Ultraman Max (2005-2006)




Are the Ultraman hosts getting younger or is it just me getting older? The Ultraman Max host looks like a kid to me.

I have the first 4 episodes only. I don't know about later episodes but in these 4 Ultraman Max has only the one form. The episodes I have were fan subbed then writen to a disk and mailed to me.

Episode 1: A young boy spots a monster inside "Dragon Cave". He tries to tell a policeman about the monster but the officer does not believe him (apparently the officer did not get the memo about reporting monster sitings to UDF or DASH). So the boy returns to the cave with a camera to get proof. When the monster appears the police officer won't go to the cave to rescue the boy so a young man, Touma, Kaito, from a relief organization which was handing out food, goes after the boy. The monster from the cave is destroyed by DASH. A second monster which has a freezing breath appears. Then lava from the volcano causes the pieces of the first monster to regenerate the first monster. Now DASH has two monsters on their hands. The monsters fight each other, which would seem to contradict the theory that they're supposed to kill humans. When a female DASH member makes a bad landing, Touma, Kaito who failed in the DASH membership exam tries to pilot her aircraft. As he is about to be killed, an observer from the M78 Nebula recues him and merges with him so that he may aid humans as Ultraman Max (named by Touma, Kaito). Touma, Kaito is accepted into DASH. It would be more interesting if for once the Ultra host did not join the group (ala Jumborg Ace). Touma, Kaito does do something different, he admits to having been saved by the giant of light.

Episode 2: The electricity absorbing monster Eleking appears on Earth. Actually it should be named Elequeen since it laid an egg. Anyway, when the monster is not roaming the city as an electricity absorbing giant its residing in woman's apartment in glass tank. Is the monster the woman's pet or she it's pet? Touma, Kaito becomes Ultraman Max to save Mitzuki and the other woman from a falling building and to deal with the giant monster which has knocked out DASH's power supply. After the monster is destroyed the woman is reuinited with her dog, who's name is Taro.

Episode 3: The same female scientist from episode 1 decides that since Eleking was an alien monster (how does she know?) not an Earth born one and Ultraman Max is an alien (again how does she know), Ultraman Max may not actually be a friend to humans and should be carefully studied whenever it appears. I was shocked she actually said something logical. Of course this suggestion makes Touma, Kaito very angry. He becomes obssesed with proving that Ultraman Max is a hero and puts himself in jeopardy twice trying to force Ultrman Max to "rescue him" proving he's a hero. This offends Max and the Max Spark fails to operate. Mizuki claims she cannot work with him anymore and the DASH commander takes his DASH badge away. After Touma realises that Max doesn't need to prove himself, that he came to Earth to help humans not make himself look good, the Ultra allows the Max Spark to function. The commander and Mizuki were just trying to get Touma to come to his senses and forgive him when he does. The monster in this episode is a flying creature supposedly once worshiped as a bird deity.

Episode 4: A human sized monster which moves very fast abducts Touma and Mizuki and puts them in its flying saucer. This is one of those "you humans are ruining the planet so we're going to take it over" stories. How is it all these aliens know that planet Earth is worth invading but don't know that the inhabitants of M78 have for some reason decided to defend Earth against invaders? Anyhow, when the space ship is shot down the alien giant sizes so Ultrman Max will have a fight scene in this episode. Note: in one early scene the monster dodges laser beams. This is impossible as it would require moving faster than the speed of light (something science fiction writers always fail to realise). Later though it forgets how to dodge light weapons.

[Xenorama ™]

lasers on tv shows always move slow- look at Star Trek- if you couldn't dodge a phaser blast you deserved to get hit! all those blasts must have more mass than usual light to them to slow them down. i don't mind, tho, since it is fiction, it also adds drama to the story.