The franchise has expanded into many television shows, films, comic books, and other media publications, becoming one of the most prominent productions in the Japanese tokusatsu and kaiju genres and pioneering the Kyodai Hero subgenre.
[6] The franchise is centered on the "Ultras" (Japanese: ウルトラ一族, Hepburn: Urutora Ichizoku), a collective term for the fictional extraterrestrial races spread across its mulitiverse,[9] with multiple origins given for them.
[10][11] The warriors of these continuities gather[12] at a planet within the M78 nebula (M78星雲, Emu-Nanajūhachi seiun),[a] (not to be confused with the real Messier 78)—colloquially called the Land of Light (光の国, Hikari no Kuni).
Of the 18 billion populating it, 1 million are part of the Inter Galactic Defence Force (宇宙警備隊, Uchū Keibitai)[14] who maintain peace in the universe from alien invaders and monsters.
[16] The main protagonists of each instalment end up on Earth and merge with humans, their hosts using devices to summon their Ultra’s unique power.
[18] At the Tokyo Comic Con on 7 December 2017, Tsuburaya Productions revealed that an anime adaptation of the manga was planned for release in 2019.
[21] In China, an Ultraman television series received 1.8 billion views on over-the-top media services between July 2017 and March 2018.
[22] The manga author Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, cited Ultraman as a formative influence on his work.
Tsuburaya Productions had a complete run of the UA-TV's version, which their Los Angeles office, UltraCom Inc., retrieved from a U.S. film warehouse in 1993.
On 23 August 2006, Tsuburaya Productions filed a new lawsuit against Chaiyo for copyright infringement and plagiarism (concerning their three original Ultraman characters), and the court case was taken to China.
[29] In April 2007, the Thailand Intellectual Property Court ruled in favor of Tsuburaya Productions, ordering Chaiyo to cease and desist making commercial profits from Chaiyo-produced Ultraman characters such as Millennium, Dark, and Elite.
Sompote was also required to pay THB 10,700,000 plus interest at the rate of 7.5 percent a year starting from 16 December 1997, when the original lawsuit was filed.
[33] After the announcement of the film Dragon Force: So Long, Ultraman in July 2017, the dispute on the ownership of the franchise has escalated.
[35][36] Despite UM Corporation and Chaiyo filing a counter-dispute,[37] on 18 April 2018, the legal court came to a definite close where a final judgement states that the dispute and the document was deemed invalid, forbidding UMC to use the Ultra Series and all its related characters and forced them to pay Tsubaraya damages for its infringement of its rights.
[41] The resulting victory has reached Thailand as well and the Thai Supreme Court ordered a ruling in favor Tsuburaya Productions as the legitimate copyright owner of the shows listed in the License Granting Agreement alongside ownership over Hanuman vs. 7 Ultraman (and its remake, Hanuman vs. 11 Ultraman) and Jumborg Ace & Giant.
[43] Sompote believes the decision would affect the former two movies' status as national heritage items, and has appealed to both the Supreme Court and Ministry of Culture on that front.
[47][48] Social media users later noticed that a page in the book described the character of Ultraman King (from the film Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy) as a god, which in the Malaysian language is the Arabic word Allah.
The Home Ministry later confirmed that the use of Allah was indeed the reason for the ban, claiming that the comparison may "confuse Muslim children and damage their faith".
[55][56] A second series titled The Trials of Ultraman premiered in March 2021, with Higgins, Groom and Manna returning and concluded in August of the same year.
[59][60] During Anime Expo 2022, Groom teased a crossover event between the current Ultraman comics with the Marvel Universe for 2023.
[61] In May 2024, Marvel and Tsubaraya officially announced the Ultraman x Avengers limited series to debut for release in August 14, 2024.