In the summer of 2019, Mill Creek Entertainment announced they had acquired North American physical and digital distribution rights (from Tsuburaya Productions) for pretty much the entire Ultraman library. The deal included more than 1,100 episodes and 20 films spanning 50 years of the Japanese franchise.

Since then, Mill Creek has begun releasing the entire Ultraman library – in order from the beginning! Well, mostly. Before we get to that, check out our reviews of Ultra Q, Ultraman, and Ultraseven here.

So, in addition to releasing the original series from the beginning, Mill Creek has also been interspersing the classics with some of the newer series. Which brings us to Ultraman Orb. The internet tells me that Orb is the 28th entry in the series, which first aired in 2016 and was meant to celebrate the franchise’s 50th anniversary.

Watching the classics and the newer series back to back is really rather startling. In most respects, they share the same DNA and provide the same viewing experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1966 or 2016; Ultraman is still a guy in a rubber suit fighting big, cheesy monsters. They fight on brilliantly constructed sets and destroy a whole heck of a lot of models and tiny buildings. And the acting is… well, it’s acting.

However, where the low-budget quality of the original shows contribute to their charm, the newer shows sometimes feel like they’re a pair with Power Rangers. (Full disclosure: I’m decidedly NOT a fan of Power Rangers in any of its iterations.)

That said, there were definitely moments across the 25 episodes of Ultraman Orb that stretched my patience for cheese. There were characters, scenes, and entire episodes that felt pulled out of Power Rangers and had me questioning whether to continue watching.

Yet I forged on. Why? Quite simply, because despite the low-budget SFX and cheeseball acting, I actually connected to the main characters and was engaged with the story being told.

But the cheese is plentiful.

• Our trio of protagonists are part of a group called the SSP (confusingly, the Something Search People) hunting for kaiju and unexplained phenomena to film and post to their website.
• This series’ Ultraman (Gai Kurenai, played by Hideo Ishiguro) is a lone wanderer who “borrows” the powers of previous Ultramen to transform into Orb. He does this by finding and using… trading cards.
• The main villain’s name is Jugglus Juggler (played by Takaya Aoyagi). Man, I wish I were making that up.

I could go on, but I won’t. You need to keep in mind that the show was developed for 8-year-olds, and I won’t lie: it hits that demographic’s sweet spot.

I should also say that about halfway through the series, events take a turn, and it turns DARK for a few episodes. The cornball zaniness takes a back seat to genuine emotions and legit storytelling, and I desperately wanted the entire show to be like that. Alas, it didn’t, but it still added a surprising depth to the characters and plot.

The recent Blu-ray release is a 6-disc set that includes the series’ 25 episodes and Ultraman Orb: The Movie (2017). The movie takes place after the events of the series, introduces a new villain (the space witch Murunau) even though Juggler still plays a role, and also features cameos of previous Ultramen (X, Zero, and Seven). It also serves as a fitting coda to the series.

Interestingly, if all this isn’t enough, Orb has an expanded universe to explore. If you think of the entire story as a 10-chapter arc, the original series (all 25 episodes) form Chapter 6. The movie is Chapter 7.

That’s some George Lucas organization if I’ve ever seen it.

So what’s the rest? Well, Chapter 1 is the Tree of Life arc and was told in the 10-episode miniseries Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga. This prequel ostensibly tells the origin of how Gai became Ultraman Orb, but he and Juggler (before his fall to darkness) are really just secondary characters in a story that spans galaxies and focuses on an empress fighting off an horde of monsters, saving a giant tree, and battling the villainous Dr. Psychii.

Chapter 9 was told in a series of eight 3-minute micro-episodes, which was then collected into the 30-minute “movie” Ultra Fight Orb. This one is really for hardcore fans only, since it’s essentially just half an hour of Orb fighting aliens and doesn’t make much sense out of context. It does, however, feature the introduction of Ultraman Geed.

The other chapters are detailed on this Wikipedia page. Why only mention Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 9? Because those are the pieces of the puzzle currently released by Mill Creek. The 25-episode series and movie are available together, as are The Origin Saga and Ultra Fight Orb.

Both releases include bookets detailing the respective shows and digital redemption codes to watch everything on movieSPREE.