I wrapped up Ultraman Geed (and its movie). I don't know if I have my thoughts fully sorted out yet, but this show is definitely my favorite New Gen show so far. I think Geed had a lot of novel ideas. The head writer isn't usually a tokusatsu writer so it does a lot of uncommon things, but at the same time it was a show that had pretty inconsistent episode quality, ranging from fantastic (loved episodes 14 and 15 with Zena and his protege) to just feeling wrong (did not like that episode with the alien that could read minds at all). Still, I overall enjoyed what the show did and thought it had a good balance of humor and drama compared to the other New Gen shows I have seen. I was also happy to see another Ultra show where the whole secret identity things pretty much completely falls apart before the end. Tends to allow for more interesting character interactions when people actually know who the Ultras are. I think the biggest strike against this show was that I was not all that into the cast though. Moa was honestly kind of annoying and creepy to me with her whole jealous crush towards someone who was raised in the same household as her. Most of the rest of the cast I was pretty neutral towards. Shoutout to Leito though, pairing a salaryman with a wife and daughter up with Zero of all Ultras was an absolutely inspired move. Fukuide Kei was also pretty enjoyable as an unhinged villain. The show was also a treat visually, the miniatures are just stunningly beautiful in this show and there were lots of really striking scenes such Geed fighting a monster while Laiha and Pega fight on a nearby rooftop or the bit where Geed gets stained black by mud while fighting Belial.

I still don't know if this is quiiiite a B for me, but it was definitely close. I'd say I like it about as much as Ultraman Max, so on the high end of the C tier!

Geed is easily my favorite among the New Gen Era Ultraman series as well. Although, in my case, it's my second favorite Ultraman series overall just behind Mebius and I honestly love everyone in the show's main cast.

I like a lot of the general ideas for the cast, but once again I felt like the low episode count got in the way of me getting super invested in them. I keep feeling like a big meanie for picking on the New Generation shows for this every time, but 25 episode shows have to be absolutely PACKED with interesting stuff to win me over. I'm curious about R/B since it seems like a lighter and more comedic show. Frequently I prefer tokusatsu that lean towards the drama side of things, but with the 25 episode length I could see a humorous series actually going over better with me since it has a simpler narrative goal, if that makes sense.

After almost a whole month of putting it off, I have finally started watching the third and final Ultraman Cosmos movie.

So you know, I think it is pretty safe to say I have not been a big fan of the New Generation Ultraman shows so far. But... one of the great things about tokusatsu is that you never know when something unexpected will really resonate with you. This turned out to be the case with Ultraman R/B, a show I was curious about but didn't have high expectations of. It swept in and ended up as my second favorite show in the whole Ultra series?!

The show just did so much right in my book. The Minato family forms the emotional core of the story, and even the antagonists have personal ties to them of some sort. Because of how focused the show is, I actually felt like I genuinely got to know everyone and their dynamics with each other. The show is also indeed a lighter, more humorous series, which perhaps gives the cast a bit more room to breathe. I honestly felt like I learned more about Katsumi and Isami in the span of 5 episodes than I did about any other New Gen heroes in the same span. Also, while it is indeed a warm and fuzzy show about family, I thought it had a lot of elements that helped prevent it from feeling like total mush. From the whole drama with who Asahi is to the implication that Katsumi sacrificed so much for his younger brother to go to college to the final battle where the parents come to realize how much their sons have grown up. Not to mention the spot on sibling bickering between Katsumi and Isami. It really captures the family aspect well. Similarly the two main Ultras aspect of the show was awesome. Watching the two of them fumble their way through fights together was both visually unique and often very funny. It was also fun to watch them chat mid-battle, to the point that I actually didn't like Ruebe as their final form because I missed watching them interact and talk. The antagonists were another aspect of the show that really stood out to me. Neither Aizen nor Mitsurugi were characters that were evil so much as they were people who pursued their own sense of justice. Aizen is obviously done is a more humorous way, trying to be cool like Orb and complaining about how modern Ultramen are doing everything wrong, in a friendly jab at the way fans complain sometimes. Mitsurugi then takes over as a more serious take on the concept, as someone who once worked alongside the previous Rosso and Blu and seeks to defeat their old enemy at any cost, while seeing their new incarnations as too weak to be true Ultramen. Honestly, the show just has a perfect scope for 25 episodes. It didn't reach for a super grand scale, and focused on building on its main cast members and adding bits of mystery to keep the viewer engaged. For some people, I could see how the sense of scale might feel too small, but for me it left me feeling satisfied that everything got enough attention. I also just enjoyed most of the show's individual episodes. A few bits felt rushed, especially near the end, but it's a minor complaint in the face of how much dang fun I had with this one. The movie was also a nice epilogue to the whole thing, it was nice to see Katsumi allow himself to leave home and pursue his own dream.

Lovely, lovely show. I get the impression it isn't a super popular one, but I am a certified fan now.

Honestly my only problem with Ruebe is that Isami doesn't really get a lot to do other than pose while Katsumi does all the transformation/attack stuff.

It feels really bizarre, right? Gruebe felt a bit less awkward since Katsumi was flanked on both sides, so it felt more like a Sentai team attack or something.

Longest “A BRAND NEWWWW TOYYYY” henshin sequences in Ultraman history.
My Wife and I often play “What’s stopping the Kaiju from leaving while this takes so long?” Game. Mid show at best, hour-long ridiculous henshin made me lose interest

The transformations and form changes are long here, like they are in most most New Gen shows, but I found them way, way more annoying in Orb for some reason, which is the peak of transformation stock footage in my mind. I think it was the way they tended to stick his form changes right in the middle of the action that really broke the flow for me.

I will say though, I have come to have a greater and greater appreciation over time for how Kamen Rider uses very little stock footage in general. You can just transform in a flash or light or something and it's great!

The transformation sequences were one of the things that put me off of R/B at first. It was incredibly long before they insisted on doing it twice every goddamn time.

I actually liked it in Orb because Gai just committed so hard to it and the "Ultraman-san! Tiga-san!" just really did it for me.

I do love how polite his transformation sequence is. Like Mitsurugi said in R/B... if you are going to ask someone for something you should show the utmost courtesy!

I finished Ultraman Taiga. It was a show that was quite interesting, even if undeniably sloppy!

I went in expecting another light, humorous show since it features Taro's son, but I was quite surprised to find it was actually quite dramatic and full of moments of intensity and sadness. The setting is similarly intense, featuring the Human-Alien relations on Earth, almost like a more serious version of Dekaranger. At the same time, it also just throws random psychics and magic in because why not. Again, messy, but certainly interesting! It has a unique situation for the human host too, where he hosts three different Ultras (including one from Joneus's homeworld!). While I liked them, we didn't learn very much about any of them honestly. The E.G.I.S. team, being a security company headed up by a kind yet tough ex-cop who decided to work outside the government after becoming disillusioned with her inability to help aliens from within the system? Great. Hiroyuki himself makes a good protagonist, a nice guy... who has a rough time. Homare as a prickly yet protective human-passing alien was also quite fascinating. Pirika... is more like a plot device than a fully realized character though. Tregear is bizarre and terrifying, but again, the viewer isn't actually given much detail on what caused him to end up *like that*.

This all illustrates the greatest strength and weakness of the show. It does SO much... Episode by episode I found it very enjoyable, but before I knew it the show was almost over and it became obvious that it wouldn't be able to develop everything fully. I think a lot of the earlier New Gen shows just don't use their allotted time very wisely to develop their casts and world. Or in R/B's case the show just focuses on a very narrow scope. But Taiga is absolutely packed and STILL can't fully flesh everything out because it tries to do so many things. I really enjoyed what it did explore, so I can't say I felt disappointed, but I definitely felt the pain of only 25 episodes quite keenly here.

I'm pretty pleased with this one in spite of some shortcomings, so I'll give it a B! TBoth this and R/B were good, that's a trend I like to see! ...Speaking of R/B, I still can't decide if I actually loved it that much or if I just got a little overexcited by seeing an Ultra show I had strong positive feelings about after a long streak of "meh".

Taiga is the point where I've started feeling that the current 25 episode count has started to hamper aspects of New Gen Ultra. I do still enjoy most of the shows that came after but my consistent feeling has been "I wished it had more episodes". I think just an extra 5 would be a good sweet spot.

Anyways, I personally really loved Taiga. I felt the show was really bold in terms of what themes and subject matter it decided to tackle. However I do feel its biggest issue and perhaps the reason I've seen it get a bit of a meh reception, is that the aesthetics of Taiga doesn't fully communicate what the show is about, in worst case it sets up false expectations of what the show will be. Taiga being the son of Taro and being in a team of Ultras would make you think that the show is going to be a Taro tribute, with maybe a Den-O like dynamic with the Ultras. However most of that remains a background setting that mostly explored in side materials. The real focus of Taiga is exploring its setting of aliens secretly living amongst humans. And again, I really love all that stuff but I suspect a lot of people went into Taiga expecting it to be about something else.

It's really strange that they chose such a serious show to feature Taro's son in. Maybe they wanted to surprise viewers, but I feel like Taro is a little TOO famous as a goofy show, so the marketing for the show is a bit too misleading.

As far as the episode count goes, I definitely felt very keenly with Taiga that they wanted to do more than they had time for. Nowadays the Ultra series is doing much better financially, so I think Tsuburaya should really look into at least stopping the recap episodes at this point. Unlike a lot of series, I think they also COULD fairly easily add more episodes, since they have those recap shows in the same timeslot for the other half of the year. Every episode they could add would help!

I feel like you go into Taiga with the foreknowledge of him being Taro's son and you kind of expect him to be "New Generation Taro" which is accurate even less than Trigger being New Generation Tiga.

My home state had its yearly Comic-Con recently and I found this to my near-complete surprise!

Did Dark Horse adapt/license a pre-existing Tiga Manga or create this on their own!?

This time I watched the Ultra Galaxy Fight subseries, plus the Regulos stuff! Probably accidentally spoiled some minor things from Ultraman Z but... oh well! This stuff really puts the "stupid" in "big stupid crossover". I found this stuff was best approached by just turning my brain off and being amused at all the obscure characters. Just let Ultraman Zearth and Andro Melos wash over you! The actual quality of this subseries isn't all that high though, the plot is obviously flimsy window dressing for the crossover content. Not to mention that as much as I enjoy some good suit acting, it might be too much to have this much content be done purely via guys in costumes. I think the Ultraman Regulos series in particular really shows the cracks in the format. Stripped of the absurdity of seeing randos like Ultraman Xenon again, you're left with a rushed martial arts drama.

Presumably they will continue this whole miniseries eventually, but it hasn't happened yet, so we don't have a satisfying conclusion currently. Still, if they do follow it up eventually then I'd like to see Rei show up since they were teasing a revived Alien Reiblood at the end of First Mission. Also... they should throw Gridman into the crossover madness, just for shits and giggles.

^I apologize in advance but I think you forgot about the New Generations Climax movie that took place after the events of Ultraman Taiga. Admittedly, I still haven't gotten around to start watching this series myself since I am very preoccupied with rewatching Gokaiger and OOO along with watching a few episodes of Goggle V.

I actually did watch it, but I guess I just forgot to make any comment about it since I was so caught up in talking about Taiga proper! It was another big wacky crossover movie! I honestly wish Hiroyuki himself had gotten a bit more focus in it, maybe give him a scene where he shows the Tri-Squad that he'll take care of himself properly, so they feel comfortable saying farewell.

Ah, I see I'm not the only Taiga enjoyer here.

Teaser for the next Ultra show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJmirWOjE08

Count me in. Story is nothing special for me but the design for Taiga is one of my favorites.

The return of the Eye Slugger!

I need to rewatch Taiga. I feel like it was good, but I wish it was better? That's how I remember it at least.

Hey, did we know that we're getting Z and Trigger on Blu-Ray soon?? :thumb:

Oh goodie! I have Shin Ultraman and Blazar Blu-rays, but I might hold off on them so I can try these earlier entries first.

Neat!

...I thought about holding off on Shin Ultraman and Blazar but got bored.

Soooo, Shin Ultraman has now been watched by yours truly. Like the other Hideaki Anno Shin films, I think it offers a fresh take on the source material, while also clearly having been crafted by a huge fan. It features a particularly *alien* depiction of the Ultramen, both in terms of motivations and design, and a plot that does a take on the whole "humans will become like the Ultras one day" idea you see in the series and approaches it from an angle where aliens are trying to use them as weapons. Good ideas to explore, although in the end I think this might be my least favorite of the three Shin films. I think this is because the movie has an uneven tone that flips between humorous and serious, which worked for Shin Kamen Rider because I think the Kamen Rider series itself is just better suited to that sort of tonal whiplash, but Ultraman not so much. The movie was also not my favorite visually, the CGI usage is particularly heavy and off looking in this one, while the film also has a lot of frantic camera cuts and strange angles that never really came together as stylish looking. I enjoyed it for what it was, but it's probably not going to stick with me.

Went ahead with Ultraman Blazar too. I was not pleased with this one, to the point this might actually be my least favorite show in the Ultra series that I have seen!

The motif of the show with its emphasis on communication, even when it seems impossible, is honestly a very nice idea. The main character learning to work with an Ultra who cannot communicate properly with words and the fact that Gento is the first Ultra host who also acts as the team captain both seem like they will offer unique territory for the show to explore, but the final result is utterly half-baked. Yes, under the golden brown crust of these appealing elements lies an underdone core of doughy, weak characterization and plot! I know I keep bringing up the "25 episodes" issue when talking about the New Generation shows, but I don't think any number of episodes would have fixed this show. This show once again features a team that is a government organization, which is... fine but doesn't really enthuse me since it is the default for the Ultra series. Gento acts as the team captain, but I didn't feel like he made much of an impression on me as a leader. It actually kind of freaked me out how often he would tell his team he was going to do something, then run off to transform instead. Just didn't feel like he was doing well rallying everyone together. In terms of individual episode quality, the show also felt rather weak to me. Most episodes felt like they were treading well worn territory for the Ultra series without anything new to add. I will give a shoutout to the Kaiju Insurance episode though, that one rocked. In spite of the show being about communication, the cast is pretty underdeveloped. We learn a handful of snippets about most of them, but never really dig into much beyond the surface level details. It took Teruaki until episode 20 to get a focus episode at all! They also try and touch upon the often shifty and villainous actions of the government, but it doesn't really ever escalate beyond the higher-ups yelling a bit at SKaRD about how they will be in hot water. No, for real this time! Dobashi acts as the big government villain of sorts, but his behavior is so exaggerated its hard not to laugh. V99 meanwhile engages with their own rather absurd grudge against Earth, sending some truly malevolent Kaiju over in retaliation. But everything gets resolved after talking to them for like 5 minutes, then they run off and leave Earth to deal with the giant planet destroying monster they sent. Everything plotwise just too much of an underdeveloped mess for me to overlook, even if the show LOOKS nice.

Next cast member for Omega: Kosei Hoshimi and Omega's kaiju partners: the Meteokaiju
https://tsuburaya-prod.com/news/8384

The Kaiju Partners is very Ultraseven.

For a lack of better comparison, he feels like the Rick Jones to Sorato/Ultraman Omega's Bruce Banner/Hulk.

Recently watched Ultraman Blazar's Movie, and I think I finally understand why despite everything I love about this series; there's one thing that prevents me from putting it at the top of my list: definitive closure.

Despite the slightly more grounded and otherworldly take on Ultraman, Blazar never really feels like it really has any definitive "end." Sure, the main series resolves the alien invasion and communication, but what of Blazar himself? While they show some stuff about him, it never really feels like some of the more important things get resolved like in other Ultra Shows. Blazar is still kind of unknown, no identity reveal about Ultraman, nor does any of this feel resolved.

And while the movie was serviceable with some nice moments and a cute moment with Gento and his family, I just don't feel satisfied with Blazar. I love a lot about it, from the characters, the kaiju, and Blazar himself, but it just doesn't feel complete to me.

The more I see, the more I'm loving the direction this series is going! Nice to see Kaiju Partners become a recurring trend, especially with how neat these look.

I feel Blazar remaining an enigma till the end of the show was intentional. Gento still knows next to nothing about Blazar, his backstory and where he even comes from. But ultimately he comes to trust Blazar based on his actions and mannerism, achieving an understanding with Blazar beyond just words. I feel this does ultimately fit with the shows theming of communication.

I think it's also a Taguchi thing. I mean, we still barely know anything about where X came from.

I think the difference between Blazar and X is like... by the end of X I had an idea of who X was compared to Blazar who is really just shrouded in mystery?

And I don't like the idea of saying "Well that's how it was supposed to be and it plays into the themes". Comes off as cheap.

Anyway speaking of the Blazar Movie, I still question the decision to make a disorienting 10 minute recap of the show, and an extended opening sequence eat up like the first 13 minutes of the movie. Add in the ending credits and that's 17 minutes of the movie gone for that.

Though I don't seem to be alone in this as the Arc Movie decides to do a similar recap, but with an actual narration, and makes it only a little over 3 minutes long. And also they make a gag out of nearly playing the intro (it was absolutely in response to Blazar's lol)

I think they do at least a decent enough job of conveying Blazar's character in terms of his behavior when transformed and the effect he has on Gento.

Next Omega character: Ayumi Ichido
https://tsuburaya-prod.com/news/8400

Huh. Never thought about it that way. Then again, I suspect the dissatisfaction I feel might either be a nitpick or more than likely I just want more Blazar, especially since the Arc Crossover, which while enjoyable and different, still doesn't feel complete to me.

I guess this is just an odd situation for me, since I did enjoy Blazar, which is by no means a perfect show, I might just be simply missing the show, despite it not being that long ago.

I can see how her involvement with the government, in wildlife protection, and in understanding species will intersect with Omega's journey.