At this point, it's common knowledge among anime fans that Hayao Miyazaki hates most popular culture (even if he never actually said the infamous meme "Anime was a mistake"). Though he worked on a number of TV anime early in his career, he has a particular distaste for television, which he sees as a general bad influence on children. What you might not know is that he blames one TV franchise in particular for the medium's proliferation and children's addiction to it: the classic tokusatsu series Ultraman.
Miyazaki explains his problem with Ultraman in two articles collected in the book Turning Point: 1997-2008. In the article "Recalling the Days of My Youth," published in The Akahata Sunday Edition in 1998, he wrote, "Children began to think the world inside television was more appealing than reality the moment Ultraman was first broadcast. For this Ultraman generation, the greatest thing in the world was Ultraman." He connects kids' growing addiction to TV escapism with a society that is failing children in real life.
In the article "Nothing Makes Me Happier Than Watching Children Enjoy Themselves," published in Graph Mitaka in 2002 following the Ghibli Museum opening, Miyazaki brings up the "Ultraman generation" again in connection with failed parenting. "Parents have failed... and today we see, increasingly, that [their kids] don't have a clue what to do. Among friends in my forties, several are of the Ultraman generation, and this problem seems to have become increasingly common among them." He goes on to note that fewer people are willing to criticize the effects of television, characterizing this by saying "everyone and everything has progressively become stupider."
Miyazaki does not delve into any particular criticisms of Ultraman's specific content, though he does express general concerns about how the media depicts violence. It doesn't seem as if he's without sympathy for those who grew up loving Ultraman over reality; he compares it to his childhood addiction to Osamu Tezuka's manga, a topic he has his own complicated and contradictory feelings about. Still, it's noteworthy that Ultraman is the only TV show repeatedly singled out by Miyazaki in Turning Point.
Miyazaki's anti-Ultraman comments' significant unspoken component is that Miyazaki's protege Hideaki Anno is absolutely obsessed with Ultraman. Anno, born in 1960, was six years old when Ultraman first hit the airwaves and would fit precisely into the "Ultraman generation" Miyazaki talks about. Anno started his filmmaking career with Ultraman fan films in college and is now directing the movie Shin Ultraman.
Miyazaki and Anno's relationship seems to be a complicated one, to put it lightly. At times, Miyazaki has been a genuinely supportive friend to Anno, but he's also been a tough boss and "a mean old guy," in Anno's words. While Miyazaki and Anno criticize otaku culture, Anno embraces an otaku identity while Miyazaki tries to distance himself from one as much as possible. Ultraman is clearly another topic Miyazaki and Anno's opinions diverge on.
So Hayao Miyazaki thinks Ultraman is bad for you. He also thinks most of the pop culture you love is bad for you, and he might not even exclude his own movies from this. However, Ultraman gets singled out as the TV show that ruined a generation.
