Ranking Every Manga Iwamoto (That I Could Find) For Ultraman Day

1) Yuzo Takada's Ultraman The First

This is probably my favorite Ultraman '66 manga. Yuzo Takada's art style is so precise and impressive on a technical level, and although he doesn't try to be realistic, he doesn't go full caricature either. I also really like that he draws all the characters' height accurately.

For the most part, the three volumes in this manga stick closely to selected episodes from the original series, but there's enough original content to make it fun. Some of the episodes are combined into one chapter ("My Home is Earth", "The Monster Graveyard", "Farewell Ultraman", and one or two others are all kinda smashed together as the finale, for example) and as a result Dr. Iwamoto ends up in story arcs that he wasn't actually a part of, which I will never complain about. Takada also establishes that Fuji is a gamer, and although it isn't canon, it is canon in my heart. There's another much-needed new female character in the mix as well: a tomboy mechanic named Hinata (who uses the "ore" pronoun); if I recall correctly, she's the only original character in the manga, and she's very cool.

At the end, Fuji is the one who gets bodysnatched by Baltans, instead of Iwamoto getting bodysnatched by Alien Zetton, which is an interesting choice. I highly recommend this manga and I wish it was translated.

Also this panel goes unbelievably hard:

Text says "I won't forgive you, Baltan!"

2) Eiichi Shimizu & Tomohiro Shimoguchi's ULTRAMAN

It's debatable whether or not Edo actually deserves to be here. His whole look is an obvious nod to bodysnatched Iwamoto from the final episode of Ultraman, but whether or not Edo is actually that specific Zetton is never specified. We do see Edo watching what appears to be a recording of Ultraman's fight with Zetton in a (possibly non-canon) bonus comic at the end of one volume, but for the most part Edo's relation to the 1966 Zetton is left up to the imagination.

This one bothers me a little bit though. These mangaka CAN draw likenesses (Shiro Maki from Operation: Mystery is also in the manga for some ungodly reason, and he looks recognizably like Shin Kishida) but Edo's human form is fully just Some Guy.

In any event, Edo gets the #2 spot because he inspired an AO3 fic that is deeply funny to me:

3) Kyōta Kawasaki's Ultraman: The Science Patrol's Battle Chronicles: Operation Giant

I found pictures of this on an auction listing and I was so intrigued that I tracked a copy down and bought it. I thought at first that it was just somebody's random doujin, but it's actually officially licensed. It is [takes breath] a manga adaptation of Toshihiro Iijima's novelization of his own unproduced pilot script for Ultraman. I believe this was published around 1994. 

I have read the whole thing and it's great fun. The art style is very rudimentary, but Kawasaki is really good at drawing action scenes, and it's like watching an episode of Ultraman that never got made. The story is about a little scrap-metal robot who is commandeered by an unknown force in order to announce the arrival of "G", which turns out to be an enormous - bigger than Ultraman - and extremely powerful black robot that looks like a suit of armor. The Baltans appear as well, and there are a lot of characters who are original to the manga. Iwamoto only shows up once in the second-to-last panel on the last page. 

Possibly the rarest thing on this list, but maybe not for long. If this ever shows up translated, yours truly may or may not have had a hand in it.

4) Kazuo Umezu's Ultraman

Man, something about Generic Shounen Manga Iwamoto just gets me.

I do want to award extra points to this manga because Umezu at least gives Iwamoto more of a dynamic role than he ever had in the series. He volunteers to take Mummy Man to his house since he has the requisite facilities to keep its body from decomposing(!) but the truck he's driving (with Mummy Man in the back) ends up getting scooped up in Dodongo's jaws and he has to be rescued by Ultraman. This entire manga somehow survived the MangaDex purge, and it would be just absolutely horrible if you were to read it there for free instead of paying for an officially-licensed translation (which doesn't exist).

By the way, the reason why so many artists draw him with that weird Clark Kent-style single lock of hair out of place seems to be because of one scene from Cry of the Mummy. He doesn't look like that at any point in any of his other episodes. I guess that scene made an impression on people.

4) Gendai Comics (Hideoki Inoue)

sorry about the poor image quality but the lighting situation in the original auction listing photos seemed to be "haunted basement"

If I couldn't read his name in kanji, I would have no idea this was Iwamoto. Points on for being funny, I guess. Gendai Comics' Ultraman is one of those series that has incredibly good cover art and then the actual manga itself is just eh.

5) Gendai Comics (Osamu Kishimoto)

Really good Ide, though. That's what I look like after I've been typesetting for five hours straight.

Non-Manga Honorable Mention: Elisabetta Stoinich's RRParksCards Sketch Card

Sneak peek inside guzareshirei HQ. That is indeed the one and only Rakugo Nagaya wa Hana Zakari script in its shadowbox in the background.

I had to special-order this as soon as I knew it existed and a series of events then unfolded that led to what was ultimately a nine-month wait time (largely my fault for mistaking a years-old Kickstarter for an active project), but we got there in the end. Nobody ever does fanart of Dr. Iwamoto. If you're a fanartist and you're reading this, consider it your sign to do fanart of Dr. Iwamoto. I compel you. Show it to me. (Here's some.)

I hope you enjoyed this goofy post. I did. One of these days I'm going to make a "Fictional Characters I Have Heard People Say Look Like Akihiko Hirata" post and it's gonna be the craziest thing any of you have ever seen.