novelcrest Chapter 92 This is the Land of Ultra
Chapter 92 This is the Land of Ultra
Episode 49 aired on the day of its release in Tokyo, Japan.
Although the old Tsuburaya House in Setagaya Ward has been renovated, it still retains a strong sense of the passage of time.
Today, however, this place is unusually lively.
Gu Nan, along with the core team of his studio, the "Chasing the Light" film crew who had come all the way from China, and the elderly people who had made outstanding contributions to tokusatsu, watched the premiere of episode 49 together.
They were sitting around the television in the living room. And around them sat several elderly people with white hair and beards.
If there were any die-hard fans of Showa-era tokusatsu (special effects) films present at this moment, they would probably kneel down and kowtow on the spot—Moritsugu Koji (Dan Moroboshi), Susumu Kurobe (Susumu Hayata), Jiro Dan (Hideki Go)...
These "Hall of Fame members" of tokusatsu history are now intently watching the screen.
Kazuo Tsuburaya appeared extremely nervous, his hands gripping the hem of his clothes tightly, and fine beads of sweat even forming on his forehead.
[The following is entirely in Japanese]
"Ichifu-san, relax."
Gu Nan handed him a bottle of water and smiled.
"This episode is the best gift you could give to your grandfather, and also the best gift for all tokusatsu fans."
Kazuo Tsuburaya trembled as he took the water: "Mr. Gu, I'm still afraid... afraid of messing up Grandpa's performance."
"You weren't acting; you *are* him."
Gu Nan's voice was resolute.
"This episode is not only for the audience, but also a love letter to the history of tokusatsu."
This is the most special episode in Ultraman Tiga, unrelated to any main storyline, simply to fulfill the tokusatsu dream of the older generation.
When the cycle of destiny was passed down to future generations, and when love and hope were guided by light, perhaps that predecessor truly saw Ultraman that year…
……
Meanwhile, in the Xia Kingdom.
Bilibili, Friday nights at 8 PM, prime time.
Old Tang's live stream room was already packed with viewers.
Viewers have been faithfully following "Ultraman Tiga" every week without fail.
"There are only three or four episodes left until the finale! Knowing Director Gu's style, something big is bound to happen before the finale!"
While adjusting the camera, Lao Tang chatted with his viewers, "And I saw in the preview that this episode is titled 'Ultraman Star,' which sounds really mysterious."
[The Land of Ultra? Could it be Ultraman's hometown?]
[Is this going to be about how Ultraman Tiga came to be?]
Stop guessing, it's starting!
As the rousing opening theme ended, the title of this episode appeared on the screen—Episode 49, "The Planet of Ultra."
At the beginning of the story, there is no tense battle, but rather a peaceful city street scene.
A man wearing a top hat, with bizarre clown makeup and carrying a briefcase is walking down the street with an extremely comical gait.
His name is Charlie Gar, a seemingly comical but actually bizarre alien.
"Where did you go?" Charlie looked around, as if searching for something.
Suddenly, he saw a little girl playing with a small doll that looked like a monster.
"Hey kid, what an adorable monster!"
Charlie leaned closer and pulled a flower from his pocket. "Here, how about you use this flower to trade with your monster?"
The little girl clutched the doll warily, crying, "No, no, no, no!"
Hahaha, who is this weird old man?
[Hilarious! Trying to trick a little girl out of her toys with a tattered flower?]
[But this person's makeup is so eerie; they don't seem like a good person.]
[Oh, isn't that Charlie Chaplin?]
Charlie wasn't angry; instead, he continued to press, "Uncle's asking you, does Tsuburaya Productions sell this monster over there?"
"A monster?"
The little girl pointed into the distance. "Over there?"
Charlie followed the direction of his finger and saw the iconic building—Tsuburaya Productions.
The scene shifts, and Charlie Garrett has arrived at the front desk of Tsuburaya Productions.
"Excuse me... I would like to meet with director Eiji Tsuburaya."
Charlie asked politely.
The receptionist gave me a look as if I were crazy: "Director Eiji Tsuburaya? Sir, Director Tsuburaya passed away back in 1970."
"Passed away?"
Charlie was taken aback, then suddenly realized, "Oh... I see, the timing is wrong."
He wasn't disappointed; instead, he gave the receptionist a strange smile: "It's alright. As long as I go back to 1965, I can see him. He was still in good health back then."
After saying that, he turned and left, leaving the receptionist bewildered in the wind.
The number of comments in the live stream room increased instantly.
[Eiji Tsuburaya? Holy crap! Isn't that the god of tokusatsu?]
[Gu Nan is really going all out! He's actually writing real-life figures into the drama?]
[1965? Is this some kind of time travel game? Can Ultraman Tiga travel through time?]
[Do we really want to travel back in time?]
In the scene, Daigo happens to be patrolling by and notices this strangely behaving man.
Charlie didn't try to hide it from Daigo; instead, he opened his briefcase and activated some kind of device right in front of him.
After a bizarre and distorted display of spacetime, Charlie vanished into thin air!
"Disappeared?"
Back at the base, Daigo told his teammates what he had seen that day.
At first, everyone was curious: who would buy a monster?
Then, attention was turned to Tsuburaya Productions.
"But speaking of which, who is Eiji Tsuburaya?"
Faced with Norizuki's questions, the elderly Director Sawai stepped in to offer an explanation.
"Haha, I was really fascinated back then. Godzilla and Morath were so realistic, I was afraid they would jump out of the screen. I was watching with my heart pounding. Eiji Tsuburaya, the god of special effects photography, a world-class film director."
The Godzilla and Morath mentioned by Sawai were both conceived by Eiji Tsuburaya and others in the last century.
……
As time and space shifted, the image transformed into a slightly grainy, retro color tone.
A line of text appears at the bottom of the screen: 1965, Tsuburaya Productions.
Before he knew it, Charlie arrived in 1965, and his first priority was to go to Tsuburaya Productions to buy a monster.
However, the staff at the time told Charija that there were no real monsters, and that the so-called monsters were all figments of people's imaginations.
But Charlie didn't believe it; he was determined to meet the historical director Eiji Tsuburaya!
The camera pans to an office that looks like it's from a bygone era.
The table was piled high with discarded manuscript papers, and a young man was scratching his head in obvious distress.
"Oh dear, Bear, this is so boring..."
The young man slammed his pen down. "The Giants lost terribly yesterday! Long Island struck out..."
Just then, a dignified voice rang out: "Jin Cheng, would you please come out for a moment?"
The young man—who is none other than the famous tokusatsu screenwriter Tetsuo Kinjo—sighed helplessly: "Ah Xiong, stop bothering me. I finally got to the last chapter..."
At this time, Gu Nan was at Mr. Tsuburaya's house in Japan.
Kurobe Susumu looked at "Tetsuo Kinjo" on the screen, and his eyes instantly reddened.
"So similar...so similar. Jin Cheng back then was just like that, always pulling his hair out for the script."
Koji Moritsugu also exclaimed, "Kou-kun, you really put a lot of thought into casting. You even captured the decadent intellectual vibe of the Showa era perfectly."
For some reason, these "veterans" of Tsuburaya Productions felt as if they were back on the set when they saw the storyline recreated by this young man.
Despite being a native of Xia, Gu Nan was able to accurately portray the people of the Showa era through his lens.
It was as if he had truly experienced Tsuburaya Productions' past history...
"Casting is one aspect."
Gu Nan looked at the screen and said with a smile, "Our goal is still to restore history to the greatest extent possible."
After all, this is a scene recreated based on the original Ultraman Tiga series in the original world. What was Tsuburaya Productions like in the past in this world?
Naturally, Tsuburaya Productions, from another world, is most familiar with this.
In the original world, the screenwriter for this episode was a veteran who had actually experienced the era of Eiji Tsuburaya—Shozo Uehara.
He was the screenwriter for Ultra Q, the first tokusatsu series produced after Tsuburaya Productions was founded.
He joined Tsuburaya Productions at the invitation of his fellow townsman, Tetsuo Kinjo.
Later, he met Eiji Tsuburaya and other tokusatsu veterans. The old gentleman had participated in the scriptwriting of tokusatsu works such as the first generation and Jack.
Moreover, traces of him can be found in later characters such as Tiga, Dyna, and Max.
When Uehara Shozo wrote the episode "Ultraman Planet", his co-writers, including Kinjo Tetsuo and Tsuburaya Eiji, had already passed away.
The Ultra Star is both his nostalgia for that era of tokusatsu (special effects) and his longing for those people from that time...
……
The story continues.
Daigo travels back to 1965 and walks around the film set looking completely bewildered.
Even though everyone here speaks Japanese, to Daigo's ears it sounds no different from his own mother tongue!
Daigo realized that his speech seemed to be turning into Japanese!
However, before Daigo could react, he saw a man who looked 90% like him brush past him!
"Huh?"
……
At that time, Tsuburaya Productions was filming a monster movie.
The retro set design, the bulky camera, and the rough yet textured leather suit instantly transported the audience back to the golden age when tokusatsu (special effects) was just beginning.
Daigo was looking around when he was suddenly stopped by a stagehand.
Unlike the original world, this time, Daigo was directly pulled onto the stage.
"Hey, Nagano! Where have you been? Hurry up, it's your turn!"
"What are you wearing? Change back right now!"
Before Daigo could react, the stagehand ripped off his Victory Team jacket and pushed him in front of the camera.
"Me? I'm not good at it..."
Daigo wanted to explain.
"Stop talking nonsense and get inside!"
With the director's shout of "Action!", Daigo was forced to begin acting out "the terror of seeing a monster".
But he was, after all, a member of the winning team, and had seen real monsters before; his fake performance was clearly inadequate.
However, it also allowed Daigo to experience what it's like for an ordinary person to encounter a monster.
"Cut! No, no, no!"
The director called "cut." Just then, an elderly man wearing an old-fashioned suit and glasses walked over.
When the old man's face appeared clearly on the screen, there was a brief vacuum in the entire comment section, followed by a frenzied explosion!
Holy crap! This old man... his aura!
Although I don't know him, the way he looked at the camera gave me goosebumps. Is this old man some kind of veteran actor?
[Wait! I've seen the photos, isn't this... isn't this Kazuo Tsuburaya?!]
[Holy crap! It really is Kazuo Tsuburaya! Eiji Tsuburaya's grandson is playing Eiji Tsuburaya?!]
I got goosebumps! What kind of divine casting is this?!
[This is such a tribute! Having your grandson play your grandfather across time and space—Gu Nan, you're amazing!]
[I'm moved to tears, brothers! This is what you call passing the torch!]
On screen, Kazuo Tsuburaya plays Eiji Tsuburaya, whose gaze is both kind and stern.
"Your expression just now was off."
Eiji Tsuburaya walked up to Daigo and personally instructed him, "The opponent is a monster, a 50-meter-tall monster that suddenly appeared. You all need to act very scared, be panicked, and make your expressions exaggerated! Monster! Monster is coming!"
Kazuo Tsuburaya's performance was completely unpretentious; his deep-seated love for tokusatsu (special effects) resonated with audiences through the screen.
"Aaaaaah! This is paradise for nostalgia lovers!"
Old Tang slapped his thigh and shouted in the live broadcast room.
"Guys, even though I only got into Ultraman Tiga last year, I'm still a tokusatsu fan! I even watched the entire Showa era Ultraman series! If I, as a die-hard tokusatsu fan, were to rate this wave of nostalgia, it would be a perfect score!"
At this moment, Kazuo Tsuburaya, sitting in his living room in Tokyo, was already in tears as he looked at himself on the screen.
"grandfather……"
He muttered to himself, "Did you see that? Special effects aren't dead, they're still here..."
The plot progresses.
After filming ended, Eiji Tsuburaya noticed Daigo.
"Thanks a lot."
Eiji Tsuburaya smiled and handed Daigo a bottle of water, glancing at the logo on Daigo's coat that he had just retrieved.
"GUTS? What's that?"
"Uh...it's the GUTS team!"
Daigo hasn't figured out how to explain his origins yet, but it seems that Mr. Eiji Tsuburaya doesn't care about these details and is instead immersed in the design.
"Victory Team? Not bad as a logo for the Monster Attack Team."
At that moment, the words "Victory Team" seemed to take on a special luster when spoken by Eiji Tsuburaya.
This line instantly broke the defenses of countless longtime fans.
This is officially verified!
[The name "Victory Team" has been officially approved by Tsuburaya Productions?!]
Now, history has formed a closed loop!
[The god of tokusatsu looks at the future members of the GUTS team; this scene is too beautiful.]
However, heartwarming moments are always fleeting.
After filming wrapped, Daigo discovered Charika hiding in a corner.
The two then went to an empty photography studio.
Daigo questions Chariga about why he keeps bothering Eiji Tsuburaya.
Charlie said it was a secret between them, then performed a magic trick and disappeared.
Daigo was also puzzled by the secret that Chariga mentioned. Did Eiji Tsuburaya really see a living monster?
……
On the other side, screenwriter Tetsuo Kaneshiro once again fell into despair.
"No... I can't write it... I'm not capable of writing it..." Jin Cheng buried his head on the table and groaned in pain.
His new script was crucial to the future of Tsuburaya Productions, but he got stuck at the outline stage.
He wanted to create a completely new hero, a protagonist unlike any other in previous monster movies, but he couldn't find that core soul.
Even though Jin Cheng had already fully conceived the draft, he still felt that something was missing...
Just then, Eiji Tsuburaya walked in.
He seemed to know what Jin Cheng was thinking and what he was worried about.
After filming "Ultra Q", Kinsei seemed to stubbornly believe that monsters were merely creators of visual spectacle.
However, monsters are more than just destroyers.
Tsuburaya Productions wanted to tell Kinjo that people should think about why there are monsters in the first place.
What is the purpose of the monster's existence?
Gu Nan filmed this dialogue scene with great charm.
Yes, it's simply a reflection on creation, a questioning of the original intention of special effects.
Seeing the pained Kinjo, Eiji Tsuburaya did not blame him. Instead, he silently opened the drawer and took out a red stone that looked like a gemstone.
Don't be discouraged.
Eiji Tsuburaya's voice was gentle yet firm, "Kinjo, look what this is?"
Jin Cheng looked up, his eyes filled with confusion: "This is...?"
"Ultra Star".
Eiji Tsuburaya placed the red stone in Kinjo's palm.
"This was given to me by an alien. I'm his good friend." Eiji Tsuburaya's eyes seemed to pierce through time, returning to that night.
"Stop joking, hahaha." Jin Cheng thought the director was just teasing him.
"Actually, I'm from Venus."
Eiji Tsuburaya, however, said with a serious expression, "One night I was thinking about something and couldn't fall asleep, so I went for a walk by Lake Ryūmori... and that's when I met him."
As Eiji Tsuburaya narrates, the scene flashes back.
At that moment, a piece of music started playing...
That was a piano variation of a piece of music.
As the music started, scenes from that memory appeared on the screen.
It was a night many years ago when a young Eiji Tsuburaya was taking a walk by the lake.
Suddenly, a blue ball fell from the sky and landed at the bottom of the lake!
Eiji Tsuburaya walked quickly to the rocks in front of the lake.
There, he saw a "person" with red and silver stripes.
"Who are you?"
"I am Ultraman, from Nebula M78."
"M78 Nebula..."
"I just sank the monster into the lake. This is a token of friendship."
As he spoke, the red and silver-clad man took out a red stone and placed it in Tsuburaya's hand.
"This... is it?"
"This is the Ultra Star. I think it will be helpful to you."
This is a bond that transcends time and space.