structural:expansion, information:extraction, linguistic:paraphrasing, quality:correction
Ultraman is a superhero who debuted in the pilot episode to his 1966 TV series of the same name, entitled "Ultraman". He is the first tokusatsu hero launched by the Ultra Series and by extension, Tsuburaya Productions. His appearance in the entertainment world helped spawn the Kyodai Hero genre with countless shows such as Godman and Iron King. Ultraman first appeared as the title character alongside his human host Shin Hayata in the 1966 Japanese television series, Ultraman which ran for 39 episodes. Following Ultraman's success, Tsuburaya created another Kyodai hero series still as part of their Ultra Series project, Ultraseven. While both series shared the same genre with very similar heroes, there was originally no relationship between the two. It was not until Return of Ultraman was created four years later in 1971 that both Ultraman and Ultra Seven came together into the same story. This event cemented Tsuburaya Productions' decision to have the Ultra Series continue to follow the trend of focusing on an Ultraman with each new entry. The original red-and-silver giant hero himself enjoyed a long series of popularity and has continued to appear in various works in the Ultra Series. Apart from that, he also has a lot of popularity trademarks that make him memorable to this day: his Color Timer, the Specium Ray stance, and his famous cry "Shuwatch". In the series, Ultraman's grunts and his iconic shout "Shuwatch" were provided by Masao Nakasone, who would later voice him as an actual character in episode 33 during his fight with Alien Mefilas. His dialogue in episodes 1 and 39 was provided by Hisashi Kondō while in episode 15, he was voiced by Koji Ishizaka, the narrator of episodes 1 to 19. In subsequent appearances, Ultraman reuses Masao's grunt while his voice is provided by Susumu Kurobe or just simply speechless during the screen time. Ultraman's suit actor was Bin Furuya during the original season. He would later go on to portray Ultra Guard member Amagi, one of the characters in the later series, Ultraseven. Ultraman appeared in later works of the Ultra Series played by various voice and suit actors. Although Susumu Kurobe did reprise his role as Hayata or provided the voice of Ultraman himself at times but there are other occasions where he was voiced by other voice actors. In Japan, the Ultraman brand generated $7.4 billion in merchandising revenue from 1966 to 1987,. Ultraman was the world's third top-selling licensed character in the 1980s, largely due to his popularity in Asia.