Never-before-seen blooper reels of Ultraman, the original series that spread tokusatsu (Japanese-style special effects), has been found after over 40 years since it originally aired. Experts are calling it “a rare and precious specimen that takes us behind-the-scenes of how Japan’s now world-renowned special effects industry was created.”
Tokusatsu is a genre of entertainment that utilize special effects that are not possible in real life, such as Ultraman fighting giant monsters. Using miniatures and composition techniques were also used to make achieve realistic effects. The recently discovered footage is a blooper reel, containing attempts and failures to achieve a certain effect, has a running time of around an hour.
For instance, there was a scene depicting a monster that was impervious to fire, but the monster suit accidentally caught on fire, and the staff can be seen panicking to put it out. It’s apparent that the staff didn’t resort of composition techniques, but rather used real fire to achieve an even more realistic looking scene.
The video was stored in one of the staff member’s houses, and was meant to be disposed of, but miraculously survived nearly half a century.
This is so awesome! I hope they release this for all to see someday!
