Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 10, 2025

It's been a steady and satisfying journey as Mill Creek has methodically released the world of Ultraman to the Blu-ray format, beginning way back on October 15, 2019 with the release of Ultraman: The Complete Series. The ultra famous Japanese TV show has gone through many permutations and its world has expanded to mind boggling levels, not so much mind boggling for its success -- though one does have to tip the cap to the success of a show that is basically a decades long refining of a formula of people in red and gray rubbery suits (for the most part) fighting bad guys dressed up in rubbery suits as weird looking monsters (for the most part) atop obvious miniatures (for the most part). There's also been a fairly deep human interest element to the stories, too, but this is not necessarily the space to dive in too deeply into franchise lore. But with this particularly Blu-ray release of Ultraman: The Adventure Begins, Mill Creek opens a new chapter of the Ultraman saga with a TV pilot episode that features a familiar 80s cartoon aesthetic and a decidedly "Americanized" structure.

Whereas Ultraman in its countess iterations takes place in Japan with Japanese characters, Ultraman: The Adventure Begins is set in the United States and focuses on American military servicemen and women. However, the story is very familiar. Three American stunt pilots -- Beth O'Brien (voiced by Adrienne Barbeau), Scott Masterson (voiced by Michael Lembeck), and Chuck Gavin (voiced by Chad Everett) -- find their lives forever transformed when they are exposed to the mysteriously powerful and cosmic consequences of an alien meteorite. They quickly discover that they are to be human hosts for three larger-than-life intergalactic warriors from the planet M78 who must do battle against terrible, monstrous foes to save Earth, and the universe, from the clutches of evil.

Needless to say, this is a very familiar plot line. And it should be. Ultraman: The Adventure Begins was intended to jumpstart a push for the franchise in the West. So of course it's going to take the franchise's fundamentals and translate them for a new audience. Unfortunately, it proved to be a failed experiment. The series, in this animated and "Westernized" iteration, never picked up steam and this "pilot," for all intents and purposes, proved to be a one-off experiment for parent company Tsuburaya Productions as well as U.S. partner Hanna-Barbera Productions, certainly an industry giant that wasn't able to get the series the traction it needed.

Why it didn't take off is beyond me. I've become an Ultraman fan (though certainly not a hardcore fan) and found The Adventure Begins to be a really nice and satisfying jaunt through the basics of the series. Action is featured aplenty though the animated stylings does give it a very different tempo compared to its contemporary live action counterparts from Japan. Does it lose some of the inherent charm? Well, yes, and that goofy charm has always been, for me, one of the draws. It does have a feeling of "any old Saturday morning cartoon" from purely visual and aesthetic perspectives, so I do think that franchise veterans will be more appreciative of what's here than might be a brand new viewer cutting their teeth with this, especially since the live action counterparts are so different in terms of aesthetics, even if remaining fundamentally very similar in terms of essential narrative arc. The characters are perhaps not so well developed as they might of have been, but no doubt that would have come with time.

But, wow...it sure is fun to see Ultraman dressed up in that 80s cartoon aesthetic. I couldn't help but smile for the entire runtime, wondering where in the world this was during my formative years back in 1987, back when I was devouring G.I. Joe and Transformers every chance I got, both of which look a lot like this. This has the same visual flair and appeal, and with the action and Sci-Fi elements it's really going to fall squarely into the wheelhouse for anyone who grew up watching those same shows. The flow, the feel, the colors...everything is spot-on, as one would expect being a product of the time. The animation style does suit that cheesy appeal of the larger Ultraman universe quite nicely, even if, as I mentioned before, some of that raw charm that comes from with the live action content is lost in translation to this medium.

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek releases Ultraman: The Adventure Begins to Blu-ray with a nice looking 1080p transfer framed at 1.33:1/4x3, retaining the same aspect ratio as the original airing back in 1987. This preservation does mean vertical "black bars" appear on either side of the 1.78:1 TV frame. This is a solid looking picture that is certainly the beneficiary of the resolution gain at 1080p. The original animation is very crisp and well defined, showing excellent clarity to static background and motion elements alike. Lines are relatively smooth, and any unevenness seems to be a product of the inherent animation rather than a problem with the encode process. There's not a massive amount of detail in the animation, but viewers will never be left squinting to see anything and there are no elements that are blurry or otherwise less than ideally rendered. Colors are very nice. They're simple, lacking much in the way of tonal nuance or transitional variance, again though that being a product of the source and not any limitation of the Blu-ray transfer. Colors are generally vivid and full, and there is a whole gamut of bright, intense colors throughout the show to be enjoyed. Blacks are good and deep, too. There are some minor issues, like the occasional spots and pops. I didn't notice any severe compression issues at normal viewing distances.

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack, the same available for all three language options (the English on The Adventure Begins and both English and Japanese for USA). I did not detect any obvious differences in overall presentation clarity, and the same configuration leaves the material with the same overall cadence and limitations. There are some subtle differences, like some missing effects (listen to the beginning of chapter three...the English version include some background "military march" sounds that are missing in Japanese), but by and large, apart from some minor things like that, there is not a major change in audio quality one to another.

The presentation is solid overall, though certainly not stout. Basic action elements are presented with fair depth and front spacing, nice clarity, and adequate pronouncement. Music is clear, suitably rich, but lacking the precision detail found on superior fare, even some of the more recent live action Ultraman presentations. The front side does spread suitably wide with some nice discrete elements scatter along the front. Dialogue is clear and images well enough to the center area.

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Of note is that this release contains Ultraman: The Adventure Begins and Ultraman USA, the former being the original U.S. airing, running at 1:15:34 and the latter being the Japanese version running at 1:18:32.

Unfortunately, this Blu-ray releaser of Ultraman: The Adventure Begins contains no supplemental content, and unlike some other Ultraman releases there are no physical goodies included, like a trading card or a glossy booklet. The main menu screen only offers options to play the show, select a version, and choose a language. There is a non-embossed slipcover included.

Ultraman: The Adventure Begins Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I don't know if my children will fall in love Ultraman, but this is a great place to start the young ones. While it's sadly a one-off, Ultraman: The Adventure Begins does a great job of capturing the essence of the Ultra universe for a Western audience and in the familiar clothes of an 80s Saturday morning animation. It's well drawn, well voiced, packed with action, and is everything an Ultraman series has to offer, here with Westerners in mind and animation as the medium. It's too bad there was never more, but who knows...maybe someone will go all Kevin Smith on it and pick up where things left off nearly four decades ago. Mill Creek's single disc release features fine video and audio, but I was disappointed with the lack of any physical extras (the absence of on-disc extras is the norm for this franchise on Blu-ray). Recommended!