After Ultraman Leo returned home, and after 5 years of hiatus new Ultraman arrives on Earth.
Takeshi Yamato is one of the Ultra brother's from M78 nebula, masquerading as a school teacher. He feels that the appearance of monsters is due to the build up of negative energy from the emotions of children, and best way to reverse this trend is to become a school teacher. He's also recruited into UGM - a special force formed to fight monsters. Every week Takeshi, and Ultraman 80 fights the tyranny of the newly appearing monsters for the betterment of the planet.
The series lacked central character or a plot that was endearing enough to capture the audience. This series had relatively low ratings, and after this series, for 16 years, a new Ultraman series was not created. One of the reason I attribute to this is that the Ultraman 80 didn't look very cool, or much like a hero. His appearance is almost comical, and fails to assert the strength a super hero should embody.
The episodes, the characters, directing, special effects, all were mediocre even by '70s Ultraman standards. Many new talents were recruited to create this series, and director Noriaki Yuasa and staff went through much brainstorming sessions to flesh out the new Ultraman for the '80s, but ultimately fell short on all fronts on their efforts. This is a testament to the talent of the staff that worked on the earlier Ultraman series, as there were many endearing characters, episodes, and monsters that still holds their place today. But not all were Yuasa and his staff's fault, as the production and the TV station demanded this Ultraman series to be returned to its original format of the hero only working to battle the monster, and doing nothing else.
One thing good that can be said about these earlier Ultraman series is that the heroes tried to be a role model for the young viewers. This Ultraman was especially intent on being a role model for the youth, and scores high in this regards.
Many things changed in this series while the series progressed, and as a result, the series lacks a binding force that holds it together. Eri Ishida was putting in good performance but was eliminated from the plot after the 15th episode.
It's too bad that Tsuburaya production couldn't make a stellar series out of this one. All the negatives seemed to have converged in this Ultraman series, and while it wasn't bad, it didn't become the master piece that it could have been.
