Nebula M78

As some of you may know, Nebula M78 is the home world of most of the Ultras (Ultramen and Ultramom). It so happens to also be the sister city of Sukagawa a small city south of Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture. How did this relatively unknown burg get the honour of hosting the Sis City? It's because it's the birthplace of 円谷 英二, Eiji Tsuburaya, the Special Effects maestro of Godzilla and Ultraman. Click that link for more details on the man or just click his name in my "Labels", he's been mentioned a few times in this very blog.

That picture is from a plaque near the Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, located on the 5th floor of the Sukagawa Community Center and Library, open since January 11th, 2019. Unfortunately, photos of the displays were not allowed yet the miniature mock-ups of his most famous creations were fascinating. There were hundreds of books on the subject, such as these two (which I snapped pics of, unbeknownst of the photography prohibition.)

 

One statue that was permissible to photograph was a life-size model of his most famous creation, you may recognize him.

No, not me. The guy standing behind me.

I was very disappointed that there was NO postcards, souvenirs or books for sale at the Museum itself. I would have definitely purchased some commemorative loot.*
*(Details tomorrow on what I did get.)

On the ground floor of the Community Center, are a few statues of some of Eiji's more famous Ultraman foes. Such as Red King...

or Alien Baltan...

(I really dig his crazy footwear!)

and King Joe.

Interspersed along the main street are several statues as well. I definitely need to go back there in the evening for they all have spotlights affixed to their platform.

It's taken me longer than expected to write about Saturday's trip. So I'll edit in some details about the above statues tomorrow. Also stay tuned for there's lots more about the town as well as a few purchases I made.