“For the next 30 minutes, your eyes will leave your body and arrive in this strange moment in time.”

Over the summer, Mill Creek Entertainment announced that they had acquired North American physical and digital distribution rights (from Tsuburaya Productions) for pretty much the entire Ultraman library.

This was huge.

How huge? The deal included more than 1,100 episodes and 20 films spanning 50 years of the Japanese franchise.

Despite those five decades of Ultraman, most Americans have just a passing familiarity with the character – and I’d hazard a guess that most think it’s part of the (overly complex and silly) Power Rangers universe.

Well, all that’s about to change. Mill Creek has begun releasing the entire Ultraman library – in order from the beginning! And the first two releases are out now: 1966’s Ultra Q and the very first Ultraman, which aired for four seasons in 1966 and 67.

Here, we’re going to be talking about Ultra Q, the show that started everything off. It couldn’t be more unlike the franchise it spawned, but it’s just So. Much. Fun.

After co-creating Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra for Toho Studios, special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya launched his own company (the appropriately named Tsuburaya Productions), and the first show under that label was Ultra Q, a 28-episode black-and-white series that brought a theatrical spectacle to television.

The best way I can describe Ultra Q is if you took The Twilight Zone and The X-Files and threw them both in a blender with Japanese kaiju. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

To give you a taste, here’s a 10-minute preview of the first episode:

There are recurring characters who appear in most – but not all – episodes, but this is essentially a monster-of-the-week anthology in line with the first couple seasons of The X-Files. Those regular characters are journalists – think gumshoe Mulders and Scullies – who somehow always find themselves at the center of a monster attack, an alien invasion, or some other unexplained phenomena (like a giant flower with killer roots that destroys buildings… not kidding).

Ultra Q was one of the most expensive TV shows produced in Japan at the time, and it shows. Sure, the effects feel dated in 2019, and it’s obvious where they used models and puppets. But for the most part, it’s surprisingly well done. And like I said, it’s just a blast to watch.

It holds up well enough that it kept the attention of my 8-year-old son (subtitles and all).

If you’re a fan of kaiju or Japanese monsters in general, then this should most definitely be on your radar – if not your Blu-ray shelf or digital library. And the fact that it’s an anthology show makes it even better. You can pick it up and watch an episode whenever; there’s no need to watch them in order or remember what happened in earlier episodes. Each show stands on its own.

The new Mill Creek release comes in two different versions. You’ve got your standard Blu-ray box set and a SteelBook edition. Inside, both are the same, so the only real difference is in the packaging. However, if you don’t really care, I’d highly recommend the standard packaging since Mill Creek is designing the entire Ultraman line to have a mosaic image on the spines when lined up together. Here are the first two releases for a tease at what’s to come.

The set includes all 28 episodes of the show in their original, complete Japanese broadcast edits (fully remastered and restored in HD and with lossless DTS-HD audio). They look and sound great. Yes, they’re in black and white, but the quality is top-notch fantastic.

Also included is a 28-page booklet that gives a bit of background on Eiji Tsuburaya, Tsuburaya Productions, and the birth of the Ultraman franchise. It also gives brief synopses of each episode, key monster, and major character.

Finally, the set includes a digital redemption code for movieSPREE, where you can access and download all episodes for digital streaming.