Urutoraman Reo

The first dozen episodes of Ultraman Leo are quite special.

These have great Showa era kitchen sink monster designs with tons of textures and spew real fire or vapor or soap. The fights end with lots of violent dismemberments---Leo often rips out fangs and fins and then stabs his enemies with these weaponized bits. Also, the drama portions of these shows are largely brutal martial arts training sequences akin to those found in Lau Kar Leung's Enter the 36th Chamber and 8 Diagram Pole Fighter.

BUT the show then progresses to more toddler-centric story lines with shrill kids shrieking and overacting and making almost all of the non-fight stuff a bit of a chore to sit through. The monsters remain cool, especially the UFO/flying saucer designs, but the battles are toned down/less violent by the last third as well.

The original Ultraman series and Ultraman X are better uses of your Ultratime.

Ultraman Leo is the seventh in the "Ultra" series saga that started with Ultra Q in 1966. It is also regraded as the final series of the second period of the Ultra series that began with Ultraman Jack ( 1971 ).

Moroboshi Dan ( Koji Moritsugu ) is the captain of MAC ( Monster Attacking Crew ). His alter ego is Ultra 7, a space patrol from M78 nebula. He was injured badly in the battle with the kaijyu Red Gilas and Black Gilas, and lost his ability to transform into Ultra 7. Ootori Gen ( Ryu Manatsu ) works for sport center as a trainer, but he's really a refugee from L77 nebula called Ultrman Leo. He comes to the rescue of Ultra 7, and that starts the relation between Dan and Gen. Gen becomes a member of MAC to battle the invading monsters in place of Ultra 7. Dan becomes his mentor, and Gen under Dan's auspices, receives his training to combat the monsters.

The series has fighting spirit as it's core theme which was part of the original concept for this series. Because of this, each episode has element of protagonists, overcoming some challenges or obstacles in their lives. The attraction of this series is having Moroboshi Dan/ Ultra 7 being the captain of MAC, which adds interesting angle to each story. It's the only Ultraman series that has constant dialog between the two Ultramen to sort out the battle plan. The series maintains the story driven style that began with Ultraman Jack.

This is perhaps the last of the classic Ultraman styled series as Ultraman series morphs into more modern looking Ultramen, and team of monster fighting squadrons. Each of the Ultraman series shows the evolution of Japanese culture, and this series presents an interesting look into the culture of Japan 40 years ago.

I found a marathon of this show and watched enough episodes to figure out it doesn't come close to the original series I so fondly remember and love. After several years I thought the special effects would be better, even knowing it's a low budget show to begin with. Most of the monsters seem to come from the minds of children, not even scary. More like stupid. The Ultraman character seemed more intent on showing off his gymnastics routine than fighting. Even Johnny Socko was better than this series. Most of all this series did not have the lovely Fuji. That's one apple I'd love to eat.

I liked this series. But I would not recommend for younger kids as a few episodes are very dark in nature.