Captain Ultra

[Zone Fighter]

Uchû Tokusatsu Shirîzu: Kyaputen Urutora [Space Tokusatsu Series: Captain Ultra]
April 16 to September 24, 1967 (24 episodes)

* Captain Ultra (Hirohisa Nakata) - The hero.
* Huck (Jiro Sagawa) - Captain Ultra's robot companion.
* Joe (Nenji Kobayashi) - Captain Ultra's alien friend from Planet Kikero.
* Akane (Yuki Jono) - Captain Ultra's beautiful space cadet. Has assorted secret agent gadgets.
* Kenji (Shigeru Yasunaka) - Captain Ultra's eager young boy space cadet.
* Professor Munamoto (Ichiro Izawa) - The scientific expert for our heroes.
(from Wikipedia)


Captain Ultra and his associates Joe, the friendly alien and Huck, the robot, patrol the galaxy, fighting evil aliens. Captain Ultra's spacehip can split into three parts, he pilots one section, each of his friends another, in order to better battle the aliens. In space or on planets with no atmosphere Captain Ultra has to wear an airtight helmet connected to an airtanks on his back. Joe and Huck need no such devices. Captain Ultra and Joe are each armed with a sword and an laser pistol. Huck has verious weapon attachments. Joe can pull his head and limbs into a hard shell to let giant monsters run over.



Captain Ultra operates from the Silver Star space station which is commanded by Professor Munamoto.


Captain Ultra, Joe and Huck often have to come to the rescue of space cadets Akane and Kenji.


Each week's group of aliens (at least in first 4 episodes) consists of one black commander and several green soldiers.

The wikepedia article compares this Japanese live action series to the British puppet series "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterans" but actually its closer to "Fireball XL5".

I only have the first 4 episodes. I think I'd enjoy them more if they had English subtitles.

(screen captures by me from video daikaiju DVD)

[Xenorama ™]

this is a heckuva show. i've liked it since the first time i saw it back in the early 90s. i believe it aired after Ultraman but before Ultra 7.

i'd love seeing this with subs, it's so enjoyable.

[RedKing]

This is a great series and one of my favorite tokusatsu shows.The mushroom like aliens are called Bandell, or Wandell as they are translated into english in the Toei Tokusatsu Chronicle book which covers this series,GIANT ROBO and AKAKAGE. Captain Ultra's spaceship is called the Speigel, which is certainly an odd name, I don't know where it came from. Midway through the series, the plot changes-Joe is written out and the Wandell seijin are defeated to be replaced by various monster and aliens-of-the-week, culminating in a 2 part DESTROY ALL MONSTERS -like finale with 5 or 6 monsters returning en masse. This was indeed aired between ULTRAMAN and ULTRASEVEN and promoted by TBS as the next Ultraseries, which of course, it wasn't. As for why they would translate Bandell and Wandell, the only theory i can come up with is a Germanic pronounciation. Bandell could also be Vandell as B and V are interchangeable in Japanese, which pronounced in German would have a "W" sound for the V. Speigel is also a Germanic sounding name, so maybe there was a German connection in the storyline somewhere. The show is supposedly loosely based on pulp writer Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future stories. In 1978 Toei would make an actual Captain Future anime series which ran 52 episodes.

[kamenridersmythe]

Looks like an interesting series to me. ;D