Meanwhile, in the galaxy …
(October 22, 2025)
Meanwhile, in the galaxy … (October 22, 2025)
A few months ago, I came across a news that Ultraman, a superhero from the galaxy M78 of the eponymous TV series, was invited to an opening ceremony of a regular season game at Dodger Stadium (August 26, 2025). The news brought me a pleasant childhood memory. I grew up watching monster movies and TV programs. I admired people who created wonder-full and mesmerizing visual effects on screen, and wanted to be a VFX creator myself (like child Victor Frankenstein in Frankenweenie (2012)). Today’s viewers may feel the VFX is primitive, but the destruction of Tokyo in dark nights in Godzilla (1954) still raises goosebumps on me. I think my son inherits my predilection. My son says that today’s monsters in movies and TV programs do not look big, scary, or real, even though they are created with the most advanced CG-VFX technologies. Maybe, it is creators’ ingenuity which invokes viewers’ imagination to see real things in unreal things. Maybe, it is creators’ passion to entertain viewers, aside from profit-making, which creates excitement.
Ultraman is a superhero who protects humans from kaijus (gigantic monsters). When Ultraman came to the earth for the first time, he was chasing a monster and accidentally collided with a jet-fighter and killed the pilot Hayata who was a member of the earth defense force. Ultraman decided to share his life with Hayata and stay on the earth to protect humans from monsters.
In the last episode, Ultraman lost his life in the battle against powerful monster Zetton. However, the earth defense force destroyed Zetton with a secret weapon invented by professor Iwamoto (Hirata Akihiko, who played Doctor Serizawa in Godzilla (1954). After this, Zofy, Ultraman’s superior in the galactic peace-keeping force, came to retrieve Ultraman for repatriation. Although Ultraman is dead, he can still communicate with Zofy. The communication went like this;
Zofy: “Let’s go back to galaxy M78 (so that I can resurrect you), Ultraman.”
Ultraman: “I will not. If I go, Hayata will die because we share one life. I have lived 20,000 years that is long enough. On the other hand, Hayata is still young to die. So, give my life to Hayata.”
Zofy: “Very well, Ultraman. I brought two lives. I will give one to Hayata.”
After the communication, Zofy separated Ultraman from Hayata, and off they went back to galaxy M78. When I watched the episode for the first time, I was impressed by Ultraman’s self-sacrifice for a human. But later on, I came to think more about the hidden implication in the communication between Zofy and Ultraman. In the communication, Ultraman said that he lived 20,000 years that was long enough. An average human may live about 80 years on the long side. So, to Ultraman, the relative life span of a human is 80/20,000 = 0.004. To an average human, the fraction 0.004 of 80 years is about 4 months. Zofy may felt Ultraman was strange when he expressed his intention to sacrifice his life for such a low and chaotic species. (Do you think you can sacrifice your life for a creature that can live as long as four months?) To Ultraman, 4,000 years of human civilization may be felt ephemeral as well. It is the fraction 1/5 of his life span. To an average human, the fraction 1/5 of 80 years is 16 years.
Like legends and folklores, superheroes and kaijus (monsters) are metaphors. For ancient people before the progress of rational and critical science, natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic activities, hurricanes, tsunamis, and so on, were caused by monsters. Kaijus are disturbances which perturb the environmental systems. Then, superheroes, like Ultraman, are forces which bring the system back to stability.
My grandparents of mother’s side lived in a small town by the sea. In summer recesses and in winter recesses, I made visits to their house. I still remember the lapping of waves against seawalls and the whistles of night trains. I used to walk along sandy beaches lined with pine trees, and appreciated their ever-green foliage. I also noticed some diseased trees turned into withered-brown. Nowadays, sometimes, I imagine Ultraman, patrolling galaxies, admires millions of colorful diamond-like stars, but also notices a few diseased planets that used to be aqua-blue turned into dried-up reddish-brown. When Ultraman comes back to the earth on the next round of patrol, maybe a few hundred years from now, I hope that the earth is still blue.
References;
Frankenweenie (2012), produced and directed by Tim Burton, distributed by Walt Disney Studios.
Godzilla (1954), produced and distributed by Toho, directed by Honda Ishiro.
Ultraman (1966-1967), TV series, produced by TBS.
