Ultraman Orb Reference File: “I Saw a Bird”

Ultraman Orb, the 50^th anniversary series, began its run on Saturday and celebrates the history of the franchise in more ways than one.

The various Orb episodes will have references to events throughout the Ultra franchise, beginning with episode 1 referencing episode 12 of Ultra Q, the original series in the franchise.

Episode 12 of the show deals with the prehistoric bird Larugeus. The monster bird was a member of an endangered species that ate animals by the dozen for a single meal. When a zoo keeper is mortally wounded in the episode, his final words are “I saw a bird”. The line is also the title of that episode.

In the first episode of Orb, while hunting for tips on unidentified monsters, Jetta shows Naomi a tweet featuring an image of a monster whose profile resembles Larugeus. The tweet comes with the line “I saw a bird”. In the show’s first episode, Ultraman Orb battles a demonic bird monster, Maga Bassa.

The 1966 tokusatsu series Ultra Q, the very first series in the franchise, did not actually feature an Ultraman character. Rather, each episode dealt with characters discovering and dealing with strange monsters.

In addition, Ultraman episode 20 “The Scary Route 87” and Ultraman Tiga episode 32 “The Zelda Point Offense and Defense” feature bird monsters that bare a striking resemblance to Maga Bassa and Larugeus.

New episodes of Ultraman Orb can be seen every Friday on Crunchyroll at 7 PM PST / 10 PM EST subtitled in multiple languages including English.

Source: Tsuburaya