For twenty-four years, Ultraman Cosmos has held its place as the longest installment of the Ultraman franchise with sixty-five episodes aired. Of course, the action wasn’t simply on the TV screen; During the airing of the show, and in the year after its final episode, the Ultraman Cosmos series was punctuated by three gripping films: Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact, Ultraman Cosmos 2: The Blue Planet, and Ultraman Cosmos vs Ultraman Justice: The Final Battle.
Now, for the first time, you can own the trilogy, as well as the entire Ultraman Cosmos discography with the Mill Creek Ultraman Cosmos Six-Disc Box Set! All three movies feature English subtitles and come with a comprehensive information guide summarizing their contents.
Prime your Cosmos binge with Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact,directed by Toshihiro Iijima. This first film serves as a riveting prequel to the Ultraman Cosmos series, released as a companion piece at the start of the series. It sets the tone and context for the relationship between host Musashi Haruno and Ultraman Cosmos, and helps to characterize Musashi while reintroducing Ultraman’s most famous antagonist from a new perspective.
Starry-eyed fifth grader Musashi Haruno witnesses an electric showdown between what appears to be two shooting stars as they tumble down from outer space, into a violent storm on Earth. The combination of the Alien Baltan, Basical’s power, and the lightning in the sky leave Ultraman Cosmos incapacitated in the woods, where Musashi finds him, in a scene reminiscent of The Iron Giant. When Musashi helps Cosmos back to power, he’s rewarded with a glowing stone, a token of the bond they’ve formed.
Basical soon returns, awakening the sleeping kaiju Donron, and using him as leverage to negotiate a cohabitation plan with the SRC. When fearful humans react with violence, Basical rages and abandons any hope of peace, officially attempting to conquer the planet, Musashi must use his gift to summon Ultraman Cosmos before it’s too late!
Ultraman Cosmos 2: The Blue Planet is the perfect pick-me-up after the post-Cosmos-binge-sadness sets in. The sequel to the series, directed by Tsugumi Kitaura in 2002 and released in the final months of the show’s airing, follows Musashi after his retirement from EYES as he pursues his dreams of space, and attends a destination wedding and revels in the joy of his closest friends.
His optimistic future is interrupted, however, by the destruction of beloved sister planet to Earth, Juran, and by the sighting of a sea-woman at the wedding, later identified as a member of the Alien Gyashis species. When the destroyers of Juran, Scorpus, and their master Sandloss approach Earth, the Gyashis have to decide where they stand with humanity and if they trust each other enough to defeat the planet terrorizer and the evil alien Sandloss. Can Cosmos help to mitigate this situation, or is this too ‘human’ of an issue?
In addition, the introduction of another Ultraman, the mysterious Ultraman Justice, dramatically widens the scope of the setting. Who is this mysterious giant, who fights for order rather than peace? What is their relationship with Sandloss, and their relationship with Cosmos?
The third and final film in the Mill Creek Box Set is, of course, Ultraman Cosmos vs Ultraman Justice: The Final Battle, directed by Tsugumi Kitaura in 2003. This film is the conclusion to Cosmos’s story, and serves as the essential final watch in your binge. Defense team EYES are about to relocate all kaiju to a safe haven planet when the Groker, a legion of giant alien robots, interrupt the plan.
Ultraman Cosmos swoops in and takes charge but is quickly thrown off when Ultraman Justice shows up and fights against his fellow giant. Justice defeats Cosmos and his army destroys the kaiju transportation spacecraft. The Groker take advantage of Cosmos’s loss and begin their conquering of earth. Judging humanity to be a threat to galactic order, the Groker allot humanity mere hours left of survival before total annihilation. All the while, a strange solemn woman lurks about, watching everything unfold… Will Cosmos be able to handle this threat alone? Who is Ultraman Justice, really? If they are an Ultra, why would they cast judgment on Earth?
When you have the Mill Creek Ultraman Cosmos 6-Disc Box Set, the fun doesn’t have to stop when the season ends. Between interplanetary terrorism, mermaid-filled islands, grief, hope, aliens, monsters and the sheer power of both our heroes and our villains, the Ultraman Cosmos films are a fun, wild addition to a beloved series. Get your Mill Creek Ultraman Cosmos 6-Disc Box Set here, and stay tuned for more here on Ultraman Connection.
