(Special thanks to Vintage Henshin for sharing his research materials.)
Of the long and colorful history of the Ultraman franchise, the most devastating blow the franchise had was the 20 year long legal battle with Chaiyo Productions. Chaiyo was a Thai company founded by Sompote Sands, a former student of Eiji Tsuburaya himself. Upon returning to Thailand after his apprenticeship under Tsuburaya, Sands founded Chaiyo, wanting to bring special effects films to his native country. In 1973, Tsuburaya and Chaiyo were successful in bringing several Ultraman entries, as well as Jumborg Ace to Thailand where they were smash hits. This prompted Tsuburaya and Chaiyo to produce two films; Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman and Jumborg Ace and Giant, both of which were very successful.
Unfortunately, with the passing of President Noboru Tsuburaya in 1995, Sands would claim that the late Tsuburaya granted him the rights to the first six Ultra shows, as well as Jumborg Ace using forged contracts. Despite the fact the contracts had numerous errors in regards to the shows themselves, they caused a legal battle between the two companies that would only be resolved in 2018 decades later. Because of that, many projects for world-wide expansion by Tsuburaya were halted. On the flip side, Chaiyo themselves would attempt several of their own Ultraman endeavors, none of them being able to truly get off of the ground.
And we’re gonna take a look at these monsters from all of the various bootleg Ultraman media by Chaiyo. As a fair warning, there isn’t too much online in regards to these guys, many of these guys don’t even have names or quality photographs, so this will be very, very off-the-cuff compared to my usual style. But, there’s quite a few interesting creatures, and while they not be official as the rest of the pantheon, I feel like I should at least give them a section here so they’re not lost to the mists of time. After all, I am reviewing every Ultraman kaiju, and I mean every kaiju, even if we’re scraping them off of the bottom of the barrel.
GOMORA
While the monster army featured in Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman was mainly made up of creatures from Ultraman Taro (and one Mirrorman monster), the film would grace us with a brand new incarnation of Gomora, and fittingly enough, Gomora would be sort of the film’s main boss monster, giving the heroes a bit of a hard time until they gang up on the poor thing and Hanuman vanquishes him.
This new Gomora isn’t as majestic as the original by Tohl Narita, but I do think it’s very fitting to make the character the film’s big villain. The design itself isn’t too bad. It looks a lot cheaper than the original, almost feeling like it’d fit alongside the other returning monsters’ aesthetic in Taro. What’s odd about this version of Gomora though, is that the monster inexplicably has the abilities of Priz-Ma from Return of Ultraman! It’s an odd choice to give to Gomora of all monsters, but it adds to the film’s bizarre and strange charm.
While this version of Gomora never returned, Chaiyo would feature Gomora in their Ultraman Live Show 4D, as well as announcing in 2015, a film entitled Ultraman vs. Gomora in the Japan Olympics 2020. The film obviously never came to pass (as did the Olympics in 2020), but would’ve featured Gomora as a space monster landing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and causing havoc. Aside from the title and short plot synopsis, who knows how weird Gomora would’ve been in it.
ULTRAMAN THE ANIMATION KAIJU
Ultraman the Animation was an animated series with some sort of connection to Chaiyo. I unfortunately cannot find altogether too much on the series, but it apparently came out sometime in the early 2000’s, and is similar in concept to Tsuburaya’s own Ultraman Kids, basically their take on Muppet Babies with the Ultras and kaiju. Not many episodes of it are floating about (if this is the same project mentioned in a November 2001 article of Asiaweek.com, then 26 episodes were produced). I’m not even sure if the show even aired on TV anywhere, but I was able to find some episodes floating about and they do feature some unique characters!
The first monsters we see in the show are these two fish people frozen in ice. They don’t look very Ultraman-y, but I like their cracked skin and their pointed noses. They ain’t bad fishmen all things considered.
The fish people are freed from their icy prison by this strange alien fellow. I’m not really sure if he was intended to be the main villain, but it seems like he was since he appears in another episode trapping Taro in what appears to be the Monster Graveyard and making him fight Salamandora from Ultraman 80. Regardless, I like his look, and he feels a tad closer to the aesthetic official Ultra Kaiju have, and saucer-shaped head really reminds me of a planarian, which is always fun.
What’s interesting about the show’s setting is that M78 isn’t just home to the Ultras, but other strange beings. It’s a fun concept and helps make the setting of this show feel more unique.
The first non-Ultra aliens we see in the show are this trio of alien bullies and boy are they ugly. They don’t look too good alongside the chibi Ultras and feel like generic bootleg versions of Mushra from Ultraman Taro, Akumania from Ultraman Leo and Gabara from Godzilla’s Revenge.
Their victim, whom Ace helps with combat training, looks a bit more akin to your standard Ultra alien. I like his fishy look, and on his back, you can see the same “barnacles” Metron has!
What’s interesting here is that the schools the Ultra Brothers go to train at feature some non-Ultra classmates alongside them, which raises a few questions.
We only see two of them here, a blue, fish-like monkey being and a fat, pink alien as background characters. It’s a very odd sort of inclusion.
The last major antagonist monster in the show is this shapeshifting critter who uses his abilities to mess with the Ultra Brothers until Mother of Ultra catches on and literally kicks him into space. Yeah, not a fan of him.
I don’t wanna end the section of Ultraman the Animation on such a low note, so here’s this cool, four-eyed axolotl looking alien we see briefly!
ULTRAMAN MILLENNIUM TRAILER MONSTER
Aside from Ultraman the Animation, Chaiyo would attempt a more traditional Ultraman show a few times during the 2000’s, featuring their own Ultraman characters Ultraman Millennium, Ultraman Elite and Ultraman Dark. In 2001, Chaiyo would release a trailer for an Ultraman Millennium series, but the legal battles with Tsuburaya wouldn’t cause any show to ever materialize.
The Ultraman Millennium trailer features this strange, manta ray-esque space monster showing up in Bangkok, Thailand and wrecking the place by causing massive windstorms strong enough to demolish buildings completely, only to be confronted by Millennium himself as the trailer ends.
This guy is a very unorthodox character, but I can’t help but kinda like him. He’s not like many of the other monsters we’ve seen in the franchise, and the non-humanoid form makes him memorable. He doesn’t quite look like he’d fit alongside many of the franchise’s monsters, even the weirder, non-humanoid ones, but he really reminds me of a live-action Ray-Type Heterodyne from Dai-Guard.
CANTINA ALIENS
Not content with just ripping off Ultraman, in order to help promote their Ultraman 4D Live Show, Chaiyo would pilfer the famous Mos Eisley cantina from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, featuring several classic Ultraman aliens such as Baltan, Dada and human-sized King Joes, alongside some more original creatures. I unfortunately can’t get all of these freaks due to how compressed the copy of this ad I have is, but let’s look a couple of the more notable and unique ones. Above we can see the fanged, alien bartender, a simple, but otherwise nice design all things considered.
Sitting in front here is a character that looks like Mos Eisley patron Bom Vidam, just without his large cranial horn. Check out those King Joes too.
The star of the commercial, fittingly enough, is Chaiyo’s take on Greedo himself. Greedo is the one who rallies up all the others in the cantina to go to Earth and check out the live show. I also like the morlock he’s hanging out with there.
We get a few reaction shots of the aliens, including a horned character that’s reminiscent of Star Wars alien Malloc, and an alien that looks really cheap, but also somewhat eerie due to that fact, almost like an alien version of Michael Myers.
The second main star of the commercial is this weird walrus alien dude. He’s super cheap, but I can’t help but dig him. He’s also the only alien in the commercial who actually takes a human life, as he gets the group access to the stage show by disintegrating a security guard.
One last reaction shot we see of the cantina aliens is this cute little R2-D2 knockoff, who honestly wouldn’t look too out of place in an actual Star Wars film. What’s fun about him is that rather than moving under his own power, the fanged bartender above carries him around when they get to Earth!
The last alien I want us to look at is this humanoid in a metal mask. It’s hard to make out, but he looks sort of like a metallic pig guy and adds some variety to the group.
OKAMOTO KAIJU
Outside of the Ultraman 4D Live Show commercial, the only other commercial-original kaiju we’ve got is this guy from the Okamoto brand condoms Ultraman commercial…..yeah, bit of an odd brand crossover, even for an unofficial one. In this commercial, this dude has Ultraman on the ropes, until an Okamoto-branded spaceship powers up the giant of life and then he’s able to use his Spacium Ray to destroy this guy.
Bit of a shame he’s a commercial-only guy, as he’s one of the few bootleg kaiju here with a decent design. The black and orange color combination, and featureless face makes the dude feel like a walking volcano. Not a bad kaiju for a condom commercial.
ELUBO
One of the only Chaiyo-original monsters with any sort of actual name, Elubo here was essentially Chaiyo’s star monster, a character they viewed on the same level as guys like Tsuburaya does with Gomora and Zetton, based on how much he was featured from the mid-2000’s when Chaiyo was ramping up for their own Ultraman show.
The character has a couple of conflicting storylines depending on what we’re looking at. In the Ultraman Live Show 4D, Elubo arrives on Earth, angry at humankind disrupting the natural order by creating a vaccine that can treat any illness, and as these villains tend to do, sends out an army of monsters to destroy humankind. Ultraman Millennium struggles to stop Elubo, but the alien is eventually defeated by the combined strength of Ultraman Dark and Ultraman Elite.
The version of the character intended for the Project Ultraman TV show had a much simpler story. Here, Elubo would’ve been an alien that was under the impression that the Ultras destroyed his home world, so the invader targets Earth in order to get back at the Ultras, and was behind the corruption of Ultraman Dark into a villain.
Elubo is a character that while I find really boring design wise, I can appreciate in an odd way. It’s kinda neat Chaiyo created their own evil alien villain to serve as the arch-nemesis to their three original Ultras, and despite being a bootleg character, I can appreciate how he was able to even get toys of himself made, something that none of the other characters on this list can attest to having.
Still, my respect ends there sadly, as I feel like Elubo just feels way too plain and generic for an Ultra kaiju. Take a look at this flyer from the live show with Elubo alongside the classic 60’s kaiju designed by Narita. Perhaps it’s a little unfair to compare him with the best of the best, but Elubo sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all these classic characters like Baltan, Gomora, King Joe…
…Wait, hold on a second, under Pigmon, is that?…
SPELL
OH NO
Yes, it turns out Spell did return in some capacity….as part of Chaiyo’s efforts to make their own Ultraman content. For a character that has been banned for about 50 years now and will probably never see the light of day ever again, it’s somehow really fitting that the illegal Ultraman stuff would include a character that has been so throughly unpersoned. It’s almost like Chaiyo is mocking Tsuburaya using him.
Spell would show up in the Ultraman Live Show 4D alongside Elubo and the more iconic Showa era kaiju. The suit itself is pretty bad, but it’s a dead ringer for the character, and the poor quality of it already feels fitting to just how messed up the original iteration of Spell was, as well as the character’s reputation.
Some rumors state that episode 12 of Project Ultraman would’ve featured Spell as the main monster of the week. However, seeing as how that was the episode of Ultraseven that featured Spell, I feel like it’s dubious at best unless somehow we get Project Ultraman leaked, which if it is true, then Chaiyo was totally trolling Tsuburaya with that.
PROJECT ULTRAMAN’S MONSTERS
Arguably the most infamous Chaiyo project after their debut film, Project Ultraman was an attempt to create a live-action, 52 episode Ultraman TV show featuring Ultramen Millennium, Dark and Elite. The plot would’ve been quite a bit different than your average Ultraman show, being set 15 years in the future after Earth was devastated when a massive space monster landed near Japan and created a huge tsunami that destroyed coastal Asia. That same impact affected the Earth’s axis, causing all sorts of climate change, leading to vast wastelands all over the planet and killing off most of the planet’s population. The remnants of humanity is led by a mysterious organization called “S” whom establishes the defense team BASE in order to battle the different aliens that invade the Earth, and the series would’ve revolved around the three Chaiyo original Ultras in a story littered with conspiracies revolving around the future of mankind, almost like a mix between Ultraman Nexus and Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, despite being finished and ready to go, Project Ultraman violated a court ruling stating Chaiyo could distribute the first six Ultraman shows, but couldn’t produce any new films or shows, or create any new characters and the series has never seen the light of day. While there’s not much known about what was planned for the show, several pieces of footage, plot synopses and concept art have been leaked to the web, allowing us to paint some sort of picture of what could have been.
The first monster we see in this trailer is this huge, jellyfish-looking creature, who, if my sources are to be believed, is named Maryway, the same monster who crash-landed into Earth, causing the planet to be devastated.
We only get a few brief shots of the monster in the trailer, but it does certainly feel very apocalyptic, especially with that large, human-like eye they’ve got.
There is also this cool piece of concept art depicting the monster and two Ultras, presumably Millennium and Dark.
We also get some concept art of Maryway itself, detailing a lot of features obscured by the trailer.
He doesn’t quite look like he’d fit alongside the classic Ultraman monsters for sure, but I really like how alien he feels and he looks like the kind of creature that would bring massive devastation wherever he goes. I’m a little sad that it seems like Maryway was a CGI model, since I feel like the monster would be really impressive as a puppet.
The only other monster we see in the trailer proper is this strange, long-limbed space creature. Since his head bears a resemblance to Elubo, I wonder if this guy is meant to be Elubo’s own kaiju, or perhaps even an alternate form the alien can take.
We also see a similar looking creature in the behind the scenes video for Project Ultraman, detailing a very interesting mosaic skin pattern on the critter.
I hesitate to call the monster in the behind the scenes video the same as the one in the trailer due to the lack of limbs on the CGI model in the trailer, but they share so many features that I feel that they are one and the same, or at least closely related. It’s a weird design, but I kinda dig it, especially compared to Elubo.
Concept art of the monster shows off a bit more detail with the creature’s feet in hands, ending in big flippers with yellow orbs on them.
Regardless of their identity, the critter or critters possibly seemed to be a fully CGI creation, like Maryway, but a Sompote Sands interview from a few years ago reveals that this monster had some kind of physical prop or suit made. Whether it was for the show itself, or just public appearances is unknown.
The behind the scenes video for the show also gives us this huge monster, sadly obscured by the compressed video quality, so I’m not sure whether it was Maryway, the monster we saw above, or some new creature, but it fits alongside those two, as it seems like Project‘s kaiju were aiming to be much more inhuman in terms of design.
Another monster we see briefly in the trailer is this lanky creature. Sadly the video quality once again hides this dude too much, but I can sort of make out a reptilian face on there. Again, some tentacles at the end of the hands to match the other monsters above.
Thankfully, the video quality doesn’t completely hide the features of this blue alien. It’s a simple design, but not too bad, and we get to see the creature wreck the inside of BASE for a few seconds. Honestly, out of all the kaiju we’ve seen so far in this review, he feels like he’d fit into the legitimate entries the easiest, and I can see this guy as the kind of human-sized alien invader menace that pop up frequently in Ultraseven.
The last monster we see in the behind the scenes video is this strange, cycloptic looking alien. He looks a bit more in line with what we’re used to in the official stuff, but doesn’t quite hit the mark, but I do admit I like his color scheme. His eye bears a bit of a resemblance to Maryway’s, so I wonder if there’s a connection between the two. The video shows off a prop head, as well as a CGI model, so I’m curious if the show was going to try and hybridize them as much as possible.
The very last kaiju proper is found in this piece of concept art. Since we can’t see the body, I can’t really tell if this was a new beastie or even just a body part of one of the monsters we’ve seen above. It’s a weird looking creature, but I like it, even if it looks more at home in some anime than Ultraman.
While we’re out of kaiju to look at, I do feel like before we leave off, we should take a look at the true antagonists of Project Ultraman, S, the mysterious leaders of the world following it’s devastation, and the ones funding BASE.
While they are humans, I feel like a shadowy cabal of masked dudes are close enough to throw onto the pile here, especially since their master plan is quite sinister. You see, S’s master plan is the titular Project Ultraman itself, as they seek to use the DNA of the Ultras to evolve mankind further, not caring about the ethical ramifications of what they’re doing or who lives or dies. They are even behind the creation of the show’s third Ultra, Ultraman Elite, in a story somewhat similar to the origin of Ultraman Geed from a decade later.
We also see briefly S’s bodyguards in the trailer, and they’re kinda neat, looking somewhat reminiscent of the war-obsessed Sontarans from Doctor Who. They also made a quick blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the commercial for the Ultraman Live Show 4D.
Honestly, of all the things from Project Ultraman, the main villains sound the most interesting. I like the idea of a shadowy group of leaders who want to take the power of Ultraman for themselves to make their own improvements on the human race. It’s a concept that would’ve felt right at home in a great number of the Heisei Ultraman shows, and one idea I wish was done in a Japanese show proper.
The history of Chaiyo’s attempts to steal the franchise from Tsuburaya is a wild, and at times, frustrating ride for a fan. While Chaiyo are indeed the villains of this story, I do think in some odd way, that they ruined themselves by pulling what they did.
Full confession here from a die-hard Ultraman fan, I actually quite enjoy Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman despite the reputation it has. And at one point, Tsuburaya did too, as they would include the film in their reference books and even have Hanuman cameo in the Ultraman Super Fighter Legend OVA. It’s quite clear to me that Tsuburaya was willing to acknowledge and accept it as part of the grand canon of their series, and perhaps if the court battles didn’t occur, we’d still be seeing winks and nods to it in the future shows and even maybe being elevated to cult-classic status among fans.
So, I honestly think that not only did Chaiyo almost destroy Tsuburaya and the series as we know it, but they also destroyed the legacy of their film. Now Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman will never be seen as just a fun, quirky film and a valid part of the greater Ultraman universe, but will always be associated for the decades long damage to the series, affecting literally everything from the budgets of the shows to home video rights. I don’t doubt Sompote Sands loves Ultraman, it’s clear that he does based on every interview I’ve seen of the man, but it’s an unhealthy love, a dangerous, obsessive one. Perhaps if Sands wasn’t so greedy, we would’ve seen legitimate Thai Ultraman productions that would’ve become fan-favorites much like Ultraman USA or Towards the Future, but his only success is a huge blemish on the franchise that will never be forgotten by history.
Thankfully, despite what has happened, Tsuburaya did manage to win in the end, allowing overseas fans to experience the first six shows officially since 2019, and what had happened with Chaiyo hasn’t made them afraid of branching out of Japan and collaborating with foreign creators such as Marvel. As a last, ironic twist to the story, there’s ongoing hearings in the Thai courts on the ownership of Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman and Jumborg Ace and Giant, with the courts leaning towards Tsuburaya having the complete ownership and distribution rights to the films. I can understand why Tsuburaya wouldn’t want to let these see the light of day again, I hope perhaps, they can be welcomed back into the fold with open arms if they fall into Tsuburaya’s hands completely and can still be easily sought out by fans.
Easter's Kaiju Kompendium 