Fun fact, after Geed she retired and married the suit actor of Geed who later did suit acting for Rosso and currently Taiga. Also the same suit actor who did Victory, X, and Orb.

I like the original ultraman, 80, Max, Mebius, .. but yeah the Geed series is my favorite of the new ones. The characters, actors, and story are just too good.

Liaha is really pretty and powerful, but yea Moa is best girl.

Salaryman is absolutely perfect casting too, he does a fantastic job switching back and forth.

The camera work, effects, sets and costumes are all fantastic too. It's pretty much the perfect ultraman show

Yup, same suit actor also plays Zena, the Alien Shadow who heads the AIB and also acts as Moa's partner/mentor. I may or may not have looked into Moa's actress' life. Who's asking.

But yes, Geed is indeed my favorite, though all of the NG Ultra shows have been very enjoyable. Speaking of, I'm going into withdrawal without new Taiga episodes. But S/O to Genm Corp for continuing to translate them, here's hoping we get a new batch soon.

I'm also slowly working my way through Tiga, but I'm finding it's not catching my attention much. I did notice that to my surprise, that it feels a LOT like a Showa Ultra show. Compared to Kamen Rider, where there's a pretty clear tonal/creative demarcation between Showa and Heisei (RX and Kuuga for instance feel nothing alike), Tiga wouldn't feel out of place in the Showa era at all, whether we're talking action, music, plotting etc.

So Zena is basically the Seiji Takaiwa of Ultraman.

With the Mill Creek Releases and the forthcoming Marvel collaboration, we are seeing a fairly interesting "Ultra Series/Ultraman Renaissance" in the West! Not bad at all.

That being said, what about a facet that hasn't really been addressed: what about the Ultraman Series on Crunchyroll!?

Mill Creek and MovieSpree require money to view, and while good sales of the Blu-ray are necessary for Mill Creek to continue, Crunchyroll doesn't actually require an account to view. Orb and Geed are, currently, the common denominator available on both Crunchyroll and MovieSpree, but the latter is costly!

Someone may be interested in looking at Ultraman and Crunchyroll is a sufficient, free-with-ads, and official option if you are too afraid to commit to a Blu-ray set you may or may not enjoy!

Is the Age of Ultraman on Crunchyroll to end soon!?

I mean the bluray set for Geed was like $20. that's nothing,.. that's only a little bit more than a movie ticket. And you get all the episodes plus the movie on disk, and you also get to stream them on moviespree to your phone/pc/tablet.

For me it's a no brainer.

I have terabytes of Toku on external harddrives, but I want actual official collections to own. If nothing else because I want to support the craftsmen and artists who create this stuff.

For me part of having a collection isn't just toys and figures, it's owning the media too. I really wish I could get Kamen Rider on disk. Or stuff like Akibaranger as a collection. I hate only having it on harddrives.

(plus of course I have double backups for the harddrives so if one breaks at least I don't lose my entire toku collection. So really I have 3 harddrives that are all mirrors of each other. I'd rather just own all the disks as an actual collection instead of a collection of harddrives.)

Crunchyroll is ok but I'd rather have a collection than a subscription to a service that could disappear one day.

At least you guys have official release. Here in Malaysia I know they release Ultraman, but whenever I take a look at the DVDs it made me skeptical whether it is an official release or 'officially-pirated' release.

Here in Malaysia, I just assume it's automatically a pirated release if it says "MALAY, CHINESE, ENGLISH SUBTITLES!" on the cover. :D

I'm excited for Marvel to announce the creative teams for any of their Ultraman projects, too. Would love to see Alex Ross paint some gorgeous covers too. Between Marvel Ultraman, Anno's Shin Ultraman, and official English releases from Mill Creek, it's a great time to be an Ultra-fan.

"MALAY, CHINESE, ENGLISH SUBTITLES!"

... that describes every kdrama I ever bought. Hahaha

I mean hell they literally used a TV-Nihon subtitles for a 'official' Kamen Rider DVDs lol.

Also yeah I really can't wait for the Marvel Ultraman. I think OG and New Generation are the ones getting the focus, and there's a huge chance Ultraman will be in 616 universe given how Conan the Barbarian is canon as well.

Doubt it actually. marvel also made Attack on Titan and Godzilla comics and those weren't in the 616 Universe. Through it would definitely be interesting to see what they do with this. I would be up for a fight between an Ultraman and Galactus.

Thery had a godzilla comic in the 70s and I'm pretty sure the Avengers faced him at least once. Not to mention Spider-Man showed up in their Transformers comic. And I'm fairly sure Marvel never had the Attack on Titan license.

http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/uploads/...jpg?1575345627

So the next Chronicle series will be called Zero & Geed in order to celebrate Zero's 10th anniversary. While this may seem nothing at first glance, when you think about it the chronicle series tend to 'foreshadow' the next Ultra series.

In 2017 we had Zero Chronicpe and afterwards the premiere of Geed where Zero is a main character. 2018 we had Orb Chronicle and then R/B where it's pretty much a spiritual sequel to Orb and even had an Orb Dark. 2019 gave us NG Chronicle, and they made a cameo in Taiga.

So what does this mean? Well Tsuburaya said they have more to reveal about Zero's 10th anniversary later on, I wouldn't be surprised if the next Ultra series is related to Zero in some way. Maybe his official protege, or maybe even Zero's younger brother (or maybe they make Zero had a girlfriend and he had a son with her and the whole series is about teen parents..... With Ultraman :lolol)

Ultraman Zero: The Chronicle: The Chronicle.

I can't get enough of Geed or Zero, so this makes me happy.

Back sometime around when Taiga started airing, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to watch his dad's own series. What better time could there possibly be to watch Taro, right? Uh, besides when it apparently gets an official Blu-ray release next year, of course. Obviously that's something I didn't see coming 20 or so weeks ago.

All the same, I've been working my way through the show since then, and now that I've finally finished it up, I figure the least I can do is hype it up a bit, because it was a heck of a journey!

Now, this is my first proper foray into Showa era Ultraman (the closest I came beforehand was watching a quarter or so of 80), so I'm not in the best position to go into detail about Taro's place in the larger series. I understand it's something of a deliberate oddity in terms of style, taking cues from fairy tales and having an overall lighter tone that, apparently, stands in contrast to Ace before it, and most certainly Leo afterwards.

That's all super interesting, I'm sure, but I can only truly focus on Taro as its own entity, and say that I consistently had quite a bit of fun watching it. The show itself is maybe a bit less consistent. That's not me knocking the quality of the episodes, by the way. What I'm talking about is how the show spent an entire year experimenting with its identity while still getting an episode out every week. It has an almost frontiersman-like attitude that I guess must come with the decade or something. If the 70's was a time when Kamen Rider could find a way to keep on kicking without its own lead actor for several episodes, before just replacing him altogether... well, anything that happens in Taro seems pretty tame by comparison, actually. Aside from the completely scandalous cross-company cameos by Kamen Rider V3's face, and no less than both Kikaiders.

https://i.imgur.com/ZNKKgbb.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/8wt1Yk0.jpg

Yeah, I just really wanted to point that out.

Still though, there are some weird oddities every now and then that suggest to me either occasional production hiccups, or simply the show seeing room for improvement in the formula and just going for it. Most notably, ZAT's roster early on is a bit on the bloated side, and the show proceeds to course-correct a bit by replacing one of the characters before the episode count even hits the double digits, before permanently trimming things down by jettisoning the replacement. It genuinely does help tighten things up, too. I remember Nishida so little, I had to go look up his name, and while Ueno gets considerably more time to leave an impression, he simply wasn't adding anything to the show that was enough to make me miss him all that much. In his absence, the core team starts gelling together that much more, and I especially have to applaud the show for regularly letting Moriyama out of her chair whenever an extra pair of hands is needed. I guess it's small potatoes coming off of Ace, but for 1973, having the secretary be entirely capable of hopping in a space-age super jet and shooting lasers at giant monsters with the same level of calm and collected competence she applies to working the radio isn't anything to sneeze at.

Something else that's fairly impressive for the time are the effects, which, while not without their own occasional hiccups, are quite well done and often rather creative. The show seems to give particular attention, especially early on, to having plain old tiny humans directly interacting with the monsters. Koutarou especially makes something of a habit of clinging onto tails and whatnot for dear life and always somehow managing to survive, even if he has to temporarily become an obvious puppet to do so! Okay, so again, it's not all super believable, but in scenes like that, Taro is going for pure fantasy anyway, so why bother complaining?

Speaking of Koutarou, he's the glue holding the whole show together. Just a wonderfully charismatic lead who's as heroic as can be, a friend to all children, and brave to an almost absurd level, which only makes him that much more endearing. No matter what elements of the series come in or out of focus, or what crazy premise the plot has in a particular episode, he's always there to keep things on track.

And some of those premises really do get crazy. It's not every day you see an episode of Ultraman where the monster's entire goal is just to get drunk. There's a lot of variety here, despite pumping the "random kid has problems" well a bit too often, and while I think the episodes guest-starring previous Ultras have a tendency to be the highlights, a lot of the most creative, out-there ideas happen in the ones without any of them. Later on, a lot of the episodes don't even involve Taro having to kill the monster in the end, which as a Cosmos fan is always going to get a thumbs up from me. What also gets my approval is the fine line Taro walks in how it uses the existing Ultra family. Their appearances are paced out in a very considered manner that keeps it clear whose show this is, while still making them feel like a regular thing, and keeping the feel of that bigger universe it takes place in.

All in all, while not every episode is some kind of masterpiece, the ones that nail it do so impeccably. It probably helps that it's the freshest thing in my mind, but I have to say, Taro also has an excellent finale that pulls everything together. In just one episode, it brings things full circle by calling all the way back to the premiere, and while Koutarou's big decision towards the end is a famous enough bit of trivia that I've known it for years, I was caught off guard by the why of him coming to that conclusion, which was genuinely pretty touching and emotional. The climactic showdown is also extremely memorable for not taking the obvious route. It's as good a note to end on as any show could ever ask for.

That about sums it up, I think. I'm glad Taiga's premise gave me the push to get around to watching Taro. Ginga was my entry into the franchise, so I have something of a natural affinity for the guy, but without Taiga, it's likely wouldn't have gotten around to this for a while. Even if Taro in his own show was basically a completely different character than he became later, and even if Taiga seems more interested in homaging Return of Ultraman that anything, there's an inherent joy I get from seeing that slightly dopey-looking mug of Taro's, no matter the era.

https://i.imgur.com/mrraGG6.jpg

Genm Corps put up Episode 17-19 of Taiga up this week and I couldn't help but watch them all at once. This show is so good. Freakin' Tregear is fully unhinged now; it's downright scary how cruel he is. I mean he always was, but this time he's going after the core characters and some of these "shots" come out of nowhere (heh), the first one I saw coming but the second one actually startled me.

Feels nice to just watch some Ultraman Taiga again. I wish we would get weekly translations but at least they haven’t stopped completely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEwyElRNrH0

It's been a while since I last gushed about how awesome The☆Ultraman is, and this week's episode, on top of being excellent in its own right, was a big reminder that a crap ton of stuff has happened in the meantime, so I've got plenty of fresh (decades old) material to touch on.

This show goes places, and I'm still getting floored week after week how rock solid it basically always is. It kind of came as a surprise when, watching the Taiga voice dramas about Titas' origin, he suddenly started describing some kind of epic space opera show plot that seemed completely unlike what I had been watching up to that point, which, outside of being animated, struck me as a pretty "standard" Ultra series.

It all started to come together when the show actually became an epic late 70's space opera anime for a particularly sweet set of episodes.

Yes, from episodes 19-21, The☆Ultraman seriously ups the ante, doing an epic trilogy where, after experiencing a shocking defeat against a foe of immeasurable strength, Hikari has to be taken to the home planet of the Ultras to heal using their fantastic technologies. Of course, with all the alien fleets trying to invade U-40, it maybe wasn't the best time to come. It's a packed set of episodes that does intensely thorough and effective world-building, all while remembering to always keep the dramatic tension high. It's an obvious standout so far, and yet I also have to applaud the show's restraint in remembering to get back to normal Ultra plots afterwards. The show keeps its focus where it needs to be in the long-run, but it's also smart enough to not let all that new lore it established go to waste. Not only did it finally give Joneus his name, preemptively avoiding the pitfall poor Jack fell into for years, but elements introduced throughout that trilogy occasionally play into episodes after that point, be it returning characters in guest roles, or more minor references here and there. The world the show takes place in immediately becomes so much larger, and it's only to the benefit of the episodic stories it's still telling. All that, plus the interesting shakeup of replacing the usual attack team's commander with a different, more rough and tumble guy to freshen up the series even more.

There's a real sense of creative energy to The☆Ultraman. It has a lot of bold ideas I just don't think any of the live-action Ultra shows were really doing at the time. I think a lot of it comes down to the extra freedom that comes with animation. A show like Taro can't really afford to make more than one set of random tin cylinders and junk to represent the Land of Light, but because those kinds of budgetary restrictions don't happen in The☆Ultraman, it was free to go all out with developing U-40, or to give us wild monster designs that wouldn't be feasible as practical suits, like a giant dinosaur-looking skeleton monster whose bones aren't held together by anything in particular.

There's this great article on the show's production background that goes into much more informed detail than I possibly could, and I really recommend you give that a look, but one of the main points it makes, that really helped me lock on to what makes me love this show so much, is that due to how and when it was made, The☆Ultraman is basically a perfect fusion of Ultraman and popular serialized space anime and mecha shows from the time, all of which are way up my alley on their own. So when you throw them together like this, you get a recipe for a show that's a total blast episode after episode.

I bought the Orb boxset recently and started watching it. It's really good so far.

Geed has been my favorite so far of the new stuff, (Max and Mebius are pretty great though), but I have to admit the effects and camera angles for Orb are fantastic.

The composite shots where you see the giants and the humans in the same shot look great. And I see one of my favorite camera angles from Geed, where the camera is inside an office building as Geed walks by,.. was actually taken from Orb because I saw the same exact shot in Orb.

So far the story and characters are still growing on me, I'm only about 5 episodes in,.. but the effects and camera work so far are excellent!

I love the older stuff like Ultraman, Ultra-Seven, Ultraman 80,... but I really like how good the effects are for the newer shows.

I'd almost say Geed has competition,..... except Geed has Moa, Laiha, and Salaryman,.. and those are really great co-stars.

So far none of the Orb characters are really grabbing me, they're interesting but I hope they get better and more interesting as the show progresses.

Dude you're going to love Orb even more after this. It's always hard for me to choose between Orb and Geed for second favorite NG Ultra series, though I chose Geed at the end due to it had even better supporting characters. But what Orb has is a fantastic villain. There's a reason Juggler is so popular.

Ultraman Taiga is now fully subbed via Genm Corp!

That makes me so happy; I will spend the rest of the weekend watching it.

I can’t upload a picture, but they’ve announced and revealed a P-Bandai exclusive action figure set based on the first episode of Ultraman Tiga. It included Tiga, Tiga - Sky Type, Melba, Golza and the three statues in the Land of Light.

Taiga Episode 22 - this one was... I can’t quite find a word for it. The entire episode felt like something ripped straight out of a Showa series, in a good way. The plot couldn’t be simpler, but it is done so beautifully well.

The music seems different too, which only adds to the experience. I'm a sucker for episodes featuring good monsters and this one is no different, but still - that eerie feeling this episode gives of at times, combined with the happy team-up at the end feels very old school and charming overall.

Seems a high contrast to the next episode - because Ultraman Zero is back!

Dude.......... Taiga episode 18. Tsuburaya should really won an award for their amazing set pieces. And even more bonus points for having civilians in those set pieces! And wow, Kirisaki is getting even better, love his obsession with making Hiroyuki suffer. I just love how he targets Hiroyuki specifically because if it weren't for Hiroyuki, Tri-Strium won't exist and Tregear won't be defeated.

And episode 19. Seriously the EGIS squad are one of the best supporting characters since Geed. I really, really love how Kana gave a pep talk to Hiroyuki. And holy shit Gorothunder, this monster is ridiculous, and they know how ridiculous he is and went all the way with it. Having Titas fight him most of the time is even better. The biggest surprise? Gorothunder is actually an all-new kaiju! His design is very showa-y and I think Tsuburaya took a look at Bro Thor from Endgame and decided to make a Kaiju out of it. Hilariously awesome.

UPDATE: Episode 21 is a masterpiece. Taiga is basically a series that deals with racism and foreigners under the guise of xenophobia, which is pretty amazing considering this is Japan, the country known for being strictly conservative.

Hell, I feel like Osamu and the alien's relationship felt like a 9/11 aesop. Seriously though seeing the alien in pain is very heartbreaking, and it's awesome how she forgave Osamu in the end. Too bad Osamu is just a guest, he would be a good EIGIS member.

I grabbed both batches of Genm's Taiga subs yesterday so I'll give the series a full shake here in the near future.

In the meantime, I've been watching Ultraseven since I got the blu-ray set for Christmas. I'm still on disc one, but I'm enjoying it so far. I just want to say that oh man, did they make a decision for dubbing over the voice of the woman who got murdered by the Alien Quraso in episode seven.

You will enjoy it, Taiga is awesome.

I don't have the Ultraseven set, but I'm curious as to why they would alter it like that! A subtitled set shouldn't have a dub-over unless there was an adequate reason for it.

Of note, I do have the Ultraman Orb set and finally watched the Movie, which has a rather random appearance from Ultraseven due to the Movie being released around the 50th Anniversary of Ultraseven according to the included and very detailed pamphlet that puts SHOUT! to shame! However, the Orb Movie did leave me with a question about the ending when Zero tells Gai about a new kaiju threat and we see what looks like a new form, which appears to have accents of Orb, Zero, and Seven. Did this continue in another special?

Nope. The monster Desastro was teased since X's movie (and exactly why X and Daichi ended up in Orb's movie to begin with). Time will tell if we're ever gonna see it, but the fight with Desastro was meant to be the final chapter of Ultraman X, with Zero and Orb lending their help.

Who knows maybe future Ultra series will finally bring Desastro to screen. Hell, maybe the upcoming Taiga movie is about NG Ultramen fighting Desastro! It is unlikely but who knows.

Wait, I thought the end of the Orb movie was just teasing Emerium Slugger and Ultra Fight Orb. I am forgetting something here?

The actress wasn't dubbed into English. She was a white actress that seemed to be dubbed into Japanese, but with a ridiculously high-pitched voice that sounded like she'd been sucking helium.

It did, but Zero came to Orb in the first place to ask him for help in assisting X fighting Desastro. According to Orb Chronicle, it was Chapter 8 and takes place before Ultra Fight Orb which is Chapter 9.

So, that means there is a gap in The Ultraman Timeline! The set-up for the fight with Desastro has led to nothing....even though Orb was a few years ago!

Yerp, I do hope we'd get that Desastro storyline, especially if it's focused on X.

In other news, looks like Ultraman Tiga & Dyna are about to receive their own novels. We know nothing for now, but I do hope they would expand the lore of Tiga and Dyna's universe considering that Tsuburaya seems to love expanding lore these days.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jto1Pii1D...0/Untitled.png

The Funko POP! Ultraman figures are available at Barnes and Noble on a "First-To-Market" basis!

Taiga's movie being called New Generation Climax makes me wonder if the Tri-Squad are the last NG Ultramen, and if that's the case then 2020 series will be the start of Reiwa Ultraman, even if Taiga and the gang are completely Reiwa.

I'm watching the OG Ultraman for the first time, and I haven't gotten far with it yet, but blowing-up an entire ship of Baltans in the second episode is some kinda dark!

I know the Baltans do return later on, so maybe that earlier instance wasn't as dark... right?

Just you wait for Ultraseven.

Official North American Website for Ultraman/Ultra Series is now up: https://ultramangalaxy.com/

About the site: http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/ukiyasee...erican-website

It's weird/cool that they have an English version of the poster for the Taiga movie.

Here's Grigio fangirling over the New Generation Ultras. Give me my Figuarts Grigio already, Bandai.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOx9bdpU2Y&t=1s

OG Ultraman has the occasional dark/melancholic episode (like Jamila!), but it's nothing compared to Seven, which is like overwhelmingly foreboding and depressing.