Monster Archive

Ultraman the hero ... again!

By EDAN CORKILL

Staff writer

SCENE ONE — Television production company Tsuburaya Productions' "Monster Archive," a two-story wooden shed used for storing "monsters" from long-running TV and film franchises such as "Ultraman." The location is Kinuta, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo; the date is mid-February 2008.

Close encounters inside Tsuburaya Productions' "Monster Archive" in Kinuta, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, which was closed down in February. The archive served for more than 40 years as a storage and repair facility for monster suits and other props used in making live-action sci-fi television programs such as the popular "Ultraman." The company has now built a new storage facility at an undisclosed location elsewhere in Tokyo. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTOS / © TSUBURAYA PRODUCTIONS

A cleaner emerges from the second floor of the storeroom and walks down an external staircase, where another cleaner is waiting.

Cleaner 1: Did you hear they're planning to tear this place down, sell the land and move all the monsters to some spiffy new storeroom?

Cleaner 2: Really? They're going to move the Monster Archive . . . ? But this place is known as a "sacred site" in the history of live-action science-fiction TV production! That's big news!