The third in the "Ultra" series by Toho, and Tsuburaya Production, this series is often acknowledged as the best of the Ultraman series even to this day.
Dan Moroboshi (Koji Moritsugu) was an observer from M78 nebula visiting the earth. He was masquerading as a vagrant but due to his support of the Ultra squad in the first episode, he gets recruited into it. The members of the Ultra squad seeing Ultra Seven battle the alien, names him "Ultra Seven" as the seventh member of the Ultra squad.
The popularity of this series increased as years went by, and both the Seven, and its two stars Koji Moritsugu, and Yuriko Hishimi have gained even bigger star status than when the series aired for the first time in 1967. Eight subsequent specials/series have been made some commemorating 30, 35th, and 40th anniversary of the original series. It is now known that Dan and Anne married in their later life.
Koji Moritsugu reprised his role as Dan Moroboshi in Ultraman Leo (1974), this time as the captain of the Ultra squad.
This series has a different take compared to other sagas of the "Ultra" series, namely that Ultra Seven only battles aliens, and no monsters that originates from earth. This set the stage for in depth introspection of our own culture in the way Star Trek did with its encounter with other space fairing race. It also introduced innovative weapons that Ultra Seven wields such as the capsule monsters, eye slugger (boomerang type weapon), and Emerium ray (emitted from Seven's forehead). Although not mentioned, the amount of time Seven can stay in his form on earth seems to be 3 minutes which is consistent with that of Ultraman. The tone was darker, and acting was more serious than that of the previous Ultra series. This was in part due to the request of the program's sole sponsor Takeda Chemical's request to draw more adults to the program.
Even for the famous Ultra series, few has seen increased popularity over the years like this one which attests to its originality, and far reaching concept of its producers. Ultra Seven is still popular character and sees frequent revisits to earth as a member of the Ultra Brothers that now has over 16 members, and still counting.
