I finally got around to watching Ultraman Arc. Currently 12 episodes in.

The short of it was that I rather enjoyed the first six episodes for what they were, but the latter six left alot to be desired.

The first half was pretty simplistic and fun, no issues there. But the second half attempts at going a bit deeper in terms of narrative, and the writing ends up falling flat in alot of ways.

For example, episode 7 is makes the argument that you need to sacrifice some of the comforts of today in order to bring about a better tomorrow, yet two episodes later, episode 9 makes the argument that doing so is insensitive if not outright bad. And that's not even getting into how I felt both episodes were weak.

And as someone who was fond of Blazar overall, the episode 11 and 12 two-parter kinda felt like a really weak Blazar fanfic. The Communication theme in and of itself is nice, but the way the message and the overall scenario is executed rubbed me the wrong way. My main issue being that every character was acting rather boneheaded to the point of being out of character.

The biggest example of that being Yuma, who after getting the message from Givas' pilot, completely blanks afterward and has to be told by Rin the exact thing that said message told him in order to save the day, when if anything it should be the reverse. This latter half really got me thinking about the old saying of "beauty in simplicity" and how that might be more of Arc's' strength. But hey, maybe later episodes will surprise me.

On a more positive note, the directing and cinematography on these episodes has been top notch; with every action sequence being rather cool to see. I really do appreciate the effort being put in toward making every Kaiju encounter feel unique from episode to episode. And all of that is only highlighted by just how cool all of Arc's' unique finishers have been. These aspects alone bring something to look forward to with every episode, and I hope that they never really go away as I get further in.

So, yeah. Mixed feelings so far, but I will say that I am liking the show more than not as of right now.

I watched the first episode of Omega too. Honestly seems like a great start, an Earth that has never dealt with kaiju before is one of those things I am shocked the series has never really done before and Sorato and Kosei were both very charming.

Unfortunately, what I am actually here to talk about is Ultraman Trigger which was... bad. Quite bad, I actually feel a little guilty for harping on Blazar so much now. I'll start with the positives: there are unique ideas like Ultra being known to some, but not all, of his allies from the start. Sometimes the show got a laugh out of me too. But overall, it just had so many half-baked, half-coherent things going on that it just completely failed to do almost anything right. I think the best example of this is how we know almost nothing about the regular cast outside of the main group. They're utterly flat, and the mains are barely better to be honest, with lots of rushed and bizarre plotlines for them. Akito's dead parents? Who cares I guess. Kengo's incomprehensible backstory where he exists because of a time paradox? Agh. Yuna has a plot about forging her own destiny I guess, but she's given so little agency in the early parts of the show and then spends the later parts getting inconveniently kidnapped a lot of the time. Let's not even get into the legions of male characters tripping over themselves to simp for her. Ignis doesn't seem to add much to the show besides being hammy, just kind of a walking security issue that GUTS-Select doesn't seem all that worried about. The Tiga references also do the show absolutely no favors, at best making the story predictable and at worst making me wistfully think about how I wished I was watching Tiga instead. Dialogue and individual episodes... also not very good. I think the only thing that really stuck out about it visually to me was the fact it actually used a moderate amount of fake blood, which is unusual for New Gen shows. A show where the only "Smile, smile!" I was doing was a wry one.

I'm sort of hoping I will have some kind of inverted reaction to Decker and actually like it, since I like Tiga but not Dyna!

I think Trigger is the only Ultra show I've seen other than Leo where they don't even bother giving the rest of the Attack Team focus episodes (like can literally anyone remember the name of someone from MAC that's not Gen or Dan?). It was basically the Kengo/Akito/Yuna and Ignis show.

Though I feel like Ignis had such a charisma and and an actually solid character arc that it made him a good secondary Ultra.

Also the Dark Giants being very standout presences in the show are one of the few saving graces' of Trigger on-top of the suits/fights. And the theme song.

Ignis is okay, but I didn't really find myself buying into so many of the cast members just accepting his antics when he causes to many problems. I feel like at least some of the more serious cast members should have pushed back on him more, but since they don't it just feels like the plot is giving him a free pass just because he has swagger. Semi-related, but the way the show treats aliens is really weird to me, where they seem like common knowledge and can even be on a defense team, but we don't see them in normal society anywhere.

The Dark Giants didn't really capture me, but I think the villain game is pretty weak in most Ultra shows to be honest. Not a deal breaker for me. Their suits are really neat though. In terms of fights... You know, I typically love me some Koichi Sakamoto but for some reason the only Ultra show I really loved him directing for was Ginga S. I don't think that show used slowed down fight footage like most Ultra shows do, which is my best guess as to why. The speed of his choreography is important to me.

The theme song is great though, this is one thing I can wholeheartedly praise about Trigger.

I haven't re-watched Trigger in a while but I don't think he ever presented himself much as a threat initially, only a nuisance at worst. So there might not have been much impetus to do anything about him.

I guess colonizing Mars means Earth has already made deeper connections to aliens.
I think it probably depends on the season and the villain. I feel like Carmearra and Darrgon became really popular (and obviously the "MANAKA KENGO" memes).

I loved Ginga and Geed! I think some of the fights in Trigger were pretty good too.

Yeah, there's a reason that Trigger is probably still the most contentious New Gen Ultra show. I say this even as someone who still managed to enjoy Trigger by the end of it, but I feel the biggest root issue of Trigger is that it doesn't feel like it has a strong creative vision behind it. Every other New Gen show feels like the direct result of the production teams specific intent. Even if they got hampered in some way, they all still at least felt like they came out the way its creatives intended. Trigger however doesn't feel like that, it doesn't feel the result of anyone's specific vision. This is a feeling that's all the more backed up by various statements made after the show, wherein the production shared that they had various different ideas on how Trigger was going to homage Tiga, most notably one where the show would have been about 3 separate protagnists who each transformed into one of the forms of Trigger. However for one reason or another, whether it was higher up demands or the show being filmed during the height of Covid, the show was then made to become more Tiga-like and I feel the end result is pretty evident of those production issues.

I was also watching Arc alongside Trigger, and now Arc is complete. This is actually a really solid one, probably my third favorite New Generation show! I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that, to me at least, it had a sense of whimsy and wonder to it that captures the fundamental appeal of the Ultra series. Arc has a lot of creativity in his fights and the episodes are often a bit surreal. The visual identity of this show is also fantastic, so many cool and unusual camera angles and scenes! Yuma is also what I would consider a very "classic" Ultraman protagonist, who has a good balance of kindness and toughness. He's very sweet and I really liked him and his dynamic with the rest of the team. I also appreciated that they weren't really a defense team, more of a public service government organization, one that was clearly a bit lacking resources but doing their best. It's a personal thing, but it reminds me of my own job so I found it quite relatable, haha... The show generally has a bright, hopeful atmosphere, but it has a hint of melancholy too. Probably my biggest issue with the show is simply that not every episode was as good as I wished it was. DreamSword mentioned 7 and 9 up above, which I think are both episodes that have interesting concepts, but executions that left me a bit disappointed (even if I am willing to interpret their shared theme as "kaiju don't exist for human convenience"). Still, it's a solid, classic, sweet little show that I was quite happy with!

Happy Ultraman Day! Honestly this commemorative video felt better than the Gundam Day video (yes, I've been getting into Gundam).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHTEeD3veLI

In other words, all this talk about some of the recent Ultra Shows gives me some retrospective on the Tiga/Dyna Successor Shows.

While I haven't finished Tiga (I intend to) yet, I can appreciate the angle they wanted to go, and I loved some of the ideas they were going for it with the support characters being in the know on Ultraman, but it did feel a little too "modern day Tiga" to the point it felt like it wanted to be Tiga more than a successor or a celebration of it. Overall, I don't dislike it, but I would say it's probably one of the weakest of the New Generation. Though the songs still slap.

Since someone here's on their way to explore Decker, I'll hold off on any big discussions or overall thoughts, but I will say that I think it's better than Trigger but also has some things that make it worse than Trigger if I'm honest. Also, I haven't even watched Dyna, so I can't make any direct comparisons, but it does come across less like a "modern day Dyna" that Trigger was for Tiga, to me at least.

Regardless of how good or bad the show is, the chorus for Trigger's theme song is catchy af. So many triggers in one chorus. :lolol

Wow. The message in that really hit home for me. I may save this for days when I?m feeling really down.

Vis ? vis Trigger, I?ve always felt that it kind of set a very high bar for itself by being both a loose remake of one of the most beloved series in the franchise and having to be the show that?s followed Z. It had some neat ideas, but got too caught up in trying to follow the premise of that one Tiga movie and leaning way too hard on a shallow catchphrase protagonist.