The 37th installment in a franchise that won’t go away laughs in the face of diminishing returns on streaming

People can mock Fast & Furious all they want for making it all the way to 10 installments with one more still to go before the story draws to a close, but Dominic Toretto and the family ain’t got sh*t on Shin Ultraman, which marked the 37th feature film in a saga that began all the way back in the 1960s.

Under most circumstances, you’d imagine that even the hardiest of hardcore fans would have gotten well and truly bored a long time ago, but the fact is that director Shinji Higuchi’s sci-fi creature feature still managed to become the sixth highest-grossing Japanese release of last year, with a $34 million haul making it the top-earning big screen Ultraman adventure yet.

Not only that, but it additionally landed eight nominations at the Japanese Academy Film Prize awards, and found itself showered in acclaim by critics both at home and abroad. In short, there’s still plenty of gas left in the tank, which is just as well when you consider that Ultraman Decker Finale: Journey to Beyond releases at the end of this week to mark number 38.

Proving that longevity is on the cards, too, Shin Ultraman has been causing quite the stir on streaming this week, with FlixPatrol revealing it to be one of the most-watched titles among Google Play Movies subscribers on a global level. Kaiju flicks never really went out of fashion, but genre titans Toho are ensuring that Hollywood’s fondness for the monster mash hasn’t left them out in the cold in the medium the company played a pivotal role in establishing as a pop culture behemoth.