ULTRASEVEN: GREAT MONSTER THE 30 (Bandai, 1990)

 

So here is the OTHER of the two Bandai boxed sets, and it follows the exact same path as the Ultraman one:  30 figures, a die, and a gameboard, all in a box of awesomeness.

The back of the box is more accurate this time as well (the last one showed enemies that weren't in the set)

ULTRASEVEN is, without a doubt, a magical high point in the long lineage of Tsuburaya's flagship franchise.  We could discuss why all day, but every time I revisit it, I am overwhelmed by the feeling that something special was going on, and everybody involved was aware of it.  I have a particular fondness for the third series (THE RETURN OF ULTRAMAN, later to be named JACK), but somewhere in the middle--or possibly just after--it, the original golden age of Ultra concluded.  You could argue that the limit should be extended all the way to the more natural original ending point of ULTRAMAN TARO, but admittedly by then the series was in a major repetitive rut (not to mention the many outside forces affecting the quality and production of the show, such as oil crises and kaiju falling out of fashion).

But back to our boxed set--the show gave us many innovative creature designs, and several that have stood the test of time.  How many enemies can you name?

Once again, I pretty much failed and had to cheat, so here are the answers:

Like last time, there were some major favorites that didn't make the cut, such as:

Crazygon, the giant car-eating robot (who's probably hard to make a figure of), Miclas (who is not a foe, but actually a helper to Ultraseven), and--the design of all designs--my hero, DINOSAUR TANK.  

Bandai doesn't appear to have continued these boxed sets, which is really too bad, as there was definitely more ground to cover.