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105-439: The Ultra Series ( Japanese : ウルトラシリーズ , Hepburn : Urutora Shirīzu ) , also known as Ultraman , is a Japanese science fiction media franchise owned and produced by Tsuburaya Productions , which began with the television series Ultra Q in 1966 and became an international pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into many television shows, films, comic books, and other media publications, becoming one of

210-640: A TV series that he called Project Ultraman , unaired as of late March 2008, a joint project in China featuring their own Ultraman and attaching Hong Kong star Ekin Cheng to the project. On 23 August 2006, Tsuburaya Productions filed a new lawsuit against Chaiyo for copyright infringement and plagiarism (concerning their three original Ultraman characters), and the court case was taken to China . The Chinese courts in Beijing opened "The Ultraman Copyright Study Group" in response to

315-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

420-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

525-589: A former Alchemy Stars member. Both clash because of their ideals regarding the protection of the Earth but eventually resolve their differences to battle their common enemy. Although not technically an Ultraman game, Ultraman Gaia serves as both the main character and main plot in Banpresto's Super Hero Operations: Diedal's Ambition for the PlayStation . In 2016, the series was released on Crunchyroll and later released on

630-653: A further appeal by 4 March 2020, they were to pay US$ 4,000,000 (approx. 400,000,000 Japanese yen) in compensatory damages, as well as other various court fees. The resulting victory has reached Thailand as well and the Thai Supreme Court ordered a ruling in favor Tsuburaya Productions as the legitimate copyright owner of the shows listed in the License Granting Agreement alongside ownership over Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman (and its remake, Hanuman vs. 11 Ultraman) and Jumborg Ace & Giant. Sompote had made an appeal to

735-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

840-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

945-748: A massive energy infusion, as when Mebius ' allies revived him with their energy after his defeat by Alien Empera's army. Ultras always try to avoid battles in inhabited areas or near innocent bystanders and try to minimize collateral property damage. If these concerns cannot be met, a city like Tokyo could be destroyed. The show Ultraman was followed by many other series. Sequels to the original series are: Ultraseven (1967, TBS ), Return of Ultraman (1971, TBS), Ultraman Ace (1972, TBS), Ultraman Taro (1973, TBS), Ultraman Leo (1974, TBS), Ultraman 80 (1980, TBS), Ultraman Tiga (1996, MBS ), Ultraman Dyna (1997, MBS), Ultraman Gaia (1998, MBS), and Ultraman Cosmos (2001, MBS). After that,

1050-418: A name the company never did business under), and repeatedly contested the issue. In the course of the legal battle, Sompote presented photos of himself sharing his photos of Thai Buddhist edifices, stating that Eiji had based Ultraman's face on those edifices, a claim which he has continued to hold since the dispute began. No other evidence supporting this claim is known to exist. After an eight-year battle in

1155-811: A planet within the M78 nebula ( M78星雲 , Emu-Nanajūhachi seiun ) , three million light years away from Earth (not to be confused with the Messier 78 nebula)—colloquially called the Land of Light ( 光の国 , Hikari no Kuni ) —who were originally identical to humans. They had evolved into their current state of being following the activation of the Plasma Spark, which replaced their dead sun. Ultraman and his many kin are usually red-and-silver (although several color variations have been seen in recent years) and have glowing yellow almond-shaped dome eyes (although there are exceptions to both

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1260-538: A result of the ruling, which implied that, although Chaiyo owned the right to some of the Ultraman series, it did not own the right to Ultraman and his brothers, including the design. Chaiyo gained permission to merchandise the original series, but lost the right to create and market its own Ultraman, or even use the original, without Tsuburaya's consent. On 5 February 2008, Thailand's Supreme Court ruled in favor of Tsuburaya Productions of Japan after they made an appeal to

1365-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

1470-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

1575-712: A single being with various modes used by different hosts). In 2013, the Ultra Series was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the record-holder for the most spin-off shows. The Ultraman brand generated $ 7.4 billion in merchandising revenue from 1966 to 1987, equivalent to more than $ 20 billion adjusted for inflation. Ultraman was the world's third top-selling licensed character in the 1980s, largely due to his popularity in Asia. The Ultraman manga , which began in 2011, has sold more than 2.8   million copies as of 2018. At

1680-459: A subsidiary of Navarre Corporation announced they had acquired the DVD license to Ultraman from distributor Golden Media Group Inc., a Hollywood-based distributor, who secured the rights from Tokyo-based UM Corp. Inc., acting as the global agent for Chaiyo. A three-disc box set containing the first 20 episodes of the series was released on 18 July 2006, followed by a second three-disc box set containing

1785-612: A year starting from 16 December 1997, when the original lawsuit was filed. In 2009, the Thai Intellectual Property Court and the Tokyo District Court both ruled in favour of the Thai company. This led to the Tokyo District Court on 30 September 2010, ordering Tsuburaya Productions Co. of Japan to pay damages of 16.36 million yen (Bt5.9 million) to Sompote Saengduenchai of Thailand for violating his overseas copyrights on

1890-675: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

1995-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of

2100-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

2205-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

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2310-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

2415-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

2520-557: Is at first more interested in protecting just the planet itself, even at the expense of humanity (hence the occasional clashes with Gaia). However, this was discontinued after Gaia and Agul would work together as one to face more powerful monsters. The story takes place in the year 2000. Chrisis, a supercomputer developed the Alchemy Stars (a global network of young geniuses born during the 1980s), predicts around 1996–1997 that Earth and humanity would be annihilated by something known as

2625-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

2730-518: Is co-copyrighted by both Toei (and its subordinates, Toei Video and Ishinomori Productions) and Tsuburaya Productions. As of 2013, Tsuburaya Productions accepts 36 Ultramen as official (counting Ultraman Legend, the combined form of Ultramen Cosmos and Justice, as a separate entity). This figure does not account for Thai-produced Ultramen (the figure is 38 if Next, Noa, and Nexus are counted as separate entities — it has been revealed in Nexus that all three are

2835-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

2940-453: Is different from the world of the Shōwa era Ultramen ( Ultraman to Ultraman 80 ), as well as the world of Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Dyna . In a departure from most of the other series, there are two Ultramen as the main characters. They have conflicting philosophies in regards to defending Earth from a mysterious, malevolent and extremely intelligent cosmic entity. The first half of

3045-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

3150-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

3255-611: Is mortally wounded. Due to human pollution and the light filtering effects of the atmosphere, an Ultra can remain active on Earth for a limited span of minutes before its energy is depleted and they die. This forces an Ultra to either assume a human form or merge with a human host body. The latter process has healing properties that include reviving a recently dead person with their own life force. Ultra beings also appear to be near-impossible to permanently kill, as several times an Ultra being has been killed, only to be revived by another member of their species. An Ultra being can be revived with

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3360-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

3465-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

3570-431: Is prominently focused on as well. They are often at odds with each other at the beginning of the series. Their philosophies are as different as their skin colors. Unlike Gaia, Agul is completely blue. Gamu Takayama, the human host of Ultraman Gaia, believes that Gaia is here to save Earth and humanity. On the other hand, Hiroya Fujimiya, the human host of Ultraman Agul, believes Agul to be Earth's natural defense mechanism. He

3675-463: Is the American English dub of Ultraman Tiga by 4Kids Entertainment that aired in 2002. The dub considerably distorted the characterization and general mood of the series, and it achieved only limited success. In 1993, Tsuburaya Productions and Toei Company co-produced Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider , a crossover with the original Ultraman and Toei's Kamen Rider . This direct-to-video feature

3780-646: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as

3885-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

3990-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

4095-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

4200-727: The 1966 Ultraman television series . In 2003, Dark Horse Comics published a comic book based on Ultraman Tiga . Since 2020, Marvel Comics started publishing an initial new Ultraman comic book limited series titled The Rise of Ultraman , written by Kyle Higgins & Matt Groom with art by Francesco Manna. It debuted in September 2020 and concluded in January 2021. A second series titled The Trials of Ultraman premiered in March 2021, with Higgins, Groom and Manna returning and concluded in August of

4305-603: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered

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4410-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

4515-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

4620-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

4725-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

4830-417: The "Radical Destruction Bringer". Technology developed by the Alchemy Stars is used to form an international defence organization known as G eocentric U niversal A lliance against the R adical D estruction (G.U.A.R.D.). This is done secretly, so as to avoid causing a worldwide panic. The e X panded I nterceptive G uards (X.I.G.) is the combat wing of G.U.A.R.D, operating in a floating sky fortress known as

4935-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

5040-797: The 1987 Hanna-Barbera co-production Ultraman: The Adventure Begins (in Japanese , Ultraman USA ), an animated movie; Ultraman: Towards the Future (in Japanese, Ultraman Great ), produced in Australia in 1990 and Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero (in Japanese, Ultraman Powered ), produced in the United States in 1993. The Ultraman series have also been dubbed into various languages, including English ( Ultraman , Ultraseven , Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Max), Spanish ( Ultraman , Ultraseven , Return of Ultraman , Ultraman Great and Ultraman Tiga ), Portuguese ( Ultraman , Ultraseven , Return of Ultraman and Ultraman Tiga ), French (only Ultraman ). Also of note

5145-469: The Aerial Base. Gamu Takayama, a 20-year-old scientist and member of the Alchemy Stars, briefly encounters Gaia during some virtual reality experiments he performs with the secret purpose of discovering the will of the Earth, later merging with him in order to fight various monsters that threaten the safety of the Earth . During his battles, he encounters Ultraman Agul, whose human host is Hiroya Fujimiya,

5250-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

5355-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

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5460-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

5565-538: The Tokyo Comic Con on 7 December 2017, Tsuburaya Productions revealed that an anime adaptation of the manga was planned for release in 2019. It was released by Netflix . Ultraman content, products and services have been distributed in more than 100 countries worldwide,as of March 2018. Tsuburaya has officially made their Ultraman and non-Ultraman content widely available on their YouTube channel, even simulcasting several of their series with English subtitles,

5670-752: The UA-TV's version, which their Los Angeles office, UltraCom Inc., retrieved from a U.S. film warehouse in 1993. In 1994, they provided the English audio for the Expressions in Animation VHS release of the first four episodes, which were sourced for the corresponding episodes in the BCI release. During the time of the legal battle, Chaiyo came up with three of their own Ultras: Ultraman Millennium, Dark Ultraman (an evil Ultra), and Ultraman Elite. These were not used for purposes other than stage shows and merchandise. Chaiyo also created

5775-485: The Ultraman characters. After the announcement of the film Dragon Force: So Long, Ultraman in July 2017, the dispute on the ownership of the franchise has escalated. But on 20 November 2017, through a Los Angeles court ruling by Judge Andre Birotte Jr, Tsuburaya won the lawsuit against Chaiyo and affiliate groups on the rights of the series after the jury concluded that the supposed agreement between Noboru Tsuburaya and Chaiyo

5880-530: The Ultraman programs created after Ultraman Taro , including the theatrical feature Ultraman the Next , throughout the world. Because of the copyright struggle, importing literature on Ultraman into Singapore and Malaysia was prohibited. It also resulted in a slight backlash against Thai Ultraman fans, who were assumed to be outright Chaiyo supporters. In 2005 the American company BCI Home Entertainment (BCI/Eclipse),

5985-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

6090-570: The channel has reached over 2 million subscribers. In China, an Ultraman television series received 1.8 billion views on over-the-top media services between July 2017 and March 2018. The manga author Akira Toriyama , creator of Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump , cited Ultraman as a formative influence on his work. Peyton Reed , the director of the Ant-Man films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe , said that Ant-Man 's costume design

6195-416: The company took legal actions against the two companies again. On 10 December 2019, it was confirmed by Tsuburaya that the court has rejected UMC and Bluearc's appeal for a retrial, stating the court's first verdict of regarding the rights and ownership of Ultraman to Tsuburaya is still legitimate and final, and that any future appeals by UMC and Bluearc will likely be rejected. As UMC and Bluearc failed to file

6300-590: The course of the Max series, another new hero known as Ultraman Xenon was also introduced. April 2006 saw the 40th anniversary series, Ultraman Mebius , which signaled a long-awaited return to the original universe. Another hero was also introduced: Ultraman Hikari , formerly known as Hunter Knight Tsurugi. The franchise has also had Ultras introduced in movie theaters, starting with Ultraman Zearth and Ultraman Zearth 2 in 1996 and 1997 respectively, as well as Ultraman: The Next in 2004. Foreign productions include

6405-553: The court over the decision, but was dismissed. Sompote believes the decision would affect the former two movies' status as national heritage items, and has appealed to both the Supreme Court and Ministry of Culture on that front. The legal battles with Chaiyo will likely now come to an end as Sompote Saengduenchai died on the 26th August 2021. On 6 March 2014, the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs announced that it had banned

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6510-543: The courts of both countries, Sompote Saengduenchai was awarded a favorable decision on 27 April 2004. The exact ruling fell into some dispute: Some said it only gave him merchandising rights for the first six Ultra Series ( Ultra Q through Ultraman Taro ) and Jumborg Ace outside Japan, and broadcasting rights of those shows within Thailand. Other accounts, usually reported in the Thai/Asian media, said that Chaiyo had gained

6615-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

6720-400: The episodes in question would switch to Japanese audio from English audio to cover the missing gaps. Due to these gaps, BCI's publicity department assumed the original series was edited by UA-TV when it was originally prepared for U.S. syndication. Only minor seconds of extreme violence were trimmed from three episodes, none of which contained dialogue. Tsuburaya Productions had a complete run of

6825-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure

6930-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

7035-420: The initial ruling. The ruling ended the long legal battle by finding Sompote Saengduenchai was not a co-creator of Ultraman. The decision ended Sompote's bid to continue his enterprise, and the court gave Sompote 30 days to stop profiteering from Ultraman. The final ruling saw Tsuburaya Productions as the sole copyright owner. Sompote was also required to pay THB 10,700,000 plus interest at the rate of 7.5 percent

7140-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,

7245-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

7350-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

7455-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

7560-506: The lawsuit. In April 2007, the Thailand Intellectual Property Court ruled in favor of Tsuburaya Productions, ordering Chaiyo to cease and desist making commercial profits from Chaiyo-produced Ultraman characters such as Millennium, Dark, and Elite. The defendants were also fined THB 15,000,000 (approx. JPY 50,904,959 or US$ 428,673.50 c. April 2007) plus interest and attorneys' fees. Project Ultraman went on hiatus as

7665-489: The most prominent productions in the Japanese tokusatsu and kaiju genres and pioneering the Kyodai Hero subgenre. The Ultraman series is centered on a fictional alien race of superheroes who often combat kaiju or other aliens. In Japan, the Ultraman brand generated $ 7.4 billion US dollars in merchandising revenue from 1966 to 1987. This makes it one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Ultraman

7770-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

7875-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

7980-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

8085-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

8190-510: The publication of an Ultraman comic book Ultraman: The Ultra Power "due to contents that were detrimental to public order". Social media users later noticed that a page in the book described the character of Ultraman King (from the film Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy ) as a god, which in the Malaysian language is the Arabic word Allah . The Home Ministry later confirmed that the use of Allah

8295-620: The remaining 19 episodes was released on 7 November 2006. Both sets feature the Japanese stereo audio, created by Tsuburaya Productions and Pioneer for their Japanese R-2 DVD release in 1999, as well as the English -dubbed version produced by United Artists for North American syndication. The original Japanese monaural was not included. The English audio for Episodes 5 through 39 were not all complete, as BCI sourced private home off-air audio recordings from an unknown television broadcast, which were cut to provide for more commercial time. Therefore,

8400-424: The rights to those six shows everywhere outside Japan. The latter could be taken as Chaiyo's side of the story, as Tsuburaya was reported in the Japanese media to continue taking further action against them. Tsuburaya decided not to market any of the disputed six Ultra Series outside Japan until it had completely settled the rights issues with Chaiyo, although the company continued to merchandise and distribute all of

8505-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

8610-674: The same year. A third series titled The Mystery of Ultraseven , which will be written by Higgins and Groom, and drawn by Davide Tinto, David Lopez, and Gurihiru, was released on August 17, 2022. During Anime Expo 2022, Groom teased a crossover event between the current Ultraman comics with the Marvel Universe for 2023. In May 2024, Marvel and Tsubaraya officially announced the Ultraman x Avengers limited series to debut for release in August 14, 2024. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )

8715-399: The series explores the growing tension between them and their eventual clash. The second half has them reconcile their differences so they can defeat their common enemy. The show is also different from past Ultra Series installments in that the support team, XIG, has more personnel than the defence teams in previous installments. In this series, Ultraman Gaia is the lead, but Ultraman Agul

8820-573: The shape and color) and various abilities, most notably firing energy beams from their crossed hands and flight. They share a strong cultural sense of justice and duty, a majority of Ultramen joining the Space Garrison ( 宇宙警備隊 , Uchū Keibitai ) to maintain peace in the universe from alien invaders and monsters. The Ultras that are sent to other worlds are given Color Timers, or "warning lights", which blink with increasing frequency and turn from blue to red if an Ultra's energy supply dwindles or he

8925-422: The son of the late Eiji Tsuburaya, had given him and his company a contract which had given him rights to everything Ultraman outside Japanese territories in exchange for a monetary loan. In spite of the fact that the document failed to state clearly and specifically exactly what had been given to Tsuburaya in exchange for these rights, Japanese and Thai courts accepted this contract as real and binding because of

9030-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

9135-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

9240-472: The streaming service Toku in 2018. In July 2020, Shout! Factory announced to have struck a multi-year deal with Alliance Entertainment and Mill Creek, with the blessings of Tsuburaya and Indigo, that granted them the exclusive SVOD and AVOD digital rights to the Ultra series and films (1,100 TV episodes and 20 films) acquired by Mill Creek the previous year. Ultraman Gaia , amongst other titles, will stream in

9345-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

9450-471: The studio made an attempt at reinventing the series through the Ultra N Project, which involved three stages: Ultraman Noa, the mascot of the Ultra N Project, who was mainly used for live stage shows and merchandising in late 2003, Ultraman Nexus (2004, CBC ), and Ultraman: The Next (2004, Shochiku ). This was followed by a return to the old-school series' style in the form of Ultraman Max (2005, CBC). In

9555-625: The subject of a prolonged legal dispute between Tsuburaya Productions and Chaiyo Productions (also called Tsuburaya Chaiyo Co. Ltd) based in Thailand . Tsuburaya had previously collaborated with Chaiyo on the production of two movies, The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army and Jumborg Ace & Giant —the latter of which featured another Tsuburaya superhero, Jumborg Ace —in 1974. Sompote Saengduenchai , founder/president of Chaiyo Productions, claimed and maintained that in 1976 that Noboru Tsuburaya,

9660-438: The supposed hanko of the late Noboru Tsuburaya, who had died in 1995, in the document. Tsuburaya Productions insisted and maintained that the contract was a forgery (due to factual errors, including the faulty titles of the series in the document, such as Ultra Q being called Ultraman 1: Ultra Q, Ultraseven being called Ultraman 3: Ultraman Seven , and Tsuburaya Productions being called Tsuburaya Prod. and Enterprises ,

9765-597: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Ultraman Gaia Ultraman Gaia takes place in yet another universe, one that

9870-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

9975-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

10080-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

10185-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

10290-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

10395-610: Was "not authentic". Despite UM Corporation and Chaiyo filing a counter-dispute, on 18 April 2018, the legal court came to a definite close where a final judgement states that the dispute and the document was deemed invalid, forbidding UMC to use the Ultra Series and all its related characters and forced them to pay Tsubaraya damages for its infringement of its rights. With the release of the sequel film Dragon Force: Rise of Ultraman  [ zh ] ( Chinese : 钢铁飞龙之奥特曼崛起 ; pinyin : Gāngtiě fēilóng zhī àotèmàn juéqǐ ), issues between UMC, Bluearc and Tsubaraya had reignited and

10500-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

10605-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

10710-596: Was indeed the reason for the ban, claiming that the comparison may "confuse Muslim children and damage their faith". This highlighted the larger ban to prevent non-Muslims in Malaysia from using the word Allah , despite its common usage in Bahasa Melayu to refer to any god, as well as a suit from the Catholic Church of Malaysia over its usage. Between 1993 and 1994, Harvey Comics published two comic book series based on

10815-832: Was influenced by Ultraman along with Inframan , another tokusatsu superhero from China. Video game designer Hideki Kamiya (known for games such as Resident Evil 2 , Devil May Cry , Viewtiful Joe , Ōkami , Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101 ) said he loved Godzilla and Ultraman as a child. It was announced in November 2019 that Marvel Comics has partnered with Tsuburaya Productions to publish Ultraman comic books in 2020. As of March 2021, Bandai Namco has sold 101.87 million Ultraman soft figures (heroes and monsters) since 1983, while Bandai Namco Arts (including Bandai Visual ) has sold 8.48 million Ultraman home video units between January 1988 and March 2021. Ultraman's licensing rights outside Japan have been

10920-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

11025-551: Was the world's third top-selling licensed character in the 1980s, largely due to his popularity in Asia. References to Ultraman are abundant in Japanese popular culture , much like references to Superman in Western culture. The Ultraman series is centered on a race of aliens nicknamed the "Ultras". As revealed in Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy , they are a technologically advanced civilization originating from

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