Stuff I enjoyed about Trigger:

- The Cinematography and action sequences.

- Overarching, Ultra-esque, antagonists with well-defined looks and personalities and how they play off each other/the protagonists. The banter between the Dark Giants and their own quirks was pretty entertaining for me.

- A female main villain in a tokusatsu show that actually remained the main villain through the entirety of the series (which...that's pretty rare, right? Garo has like giant naked women kaiju but they're never quite the "main villain" like Carmeara ended up being from beginning to end).

- The Kengo/Akito/Yuna trio once that formed around Glitter Trigger Eternity's debut.

- Obviously the Z, Ribut, and Tiga crossovers.

- Ignis and his entire character/arc. If you had told me that Basco from Gokaiger would end up becoming a good guy/Ultraman, I would not have believed you (then again, I wouldn't have believed Kai from Den-O would become an Ultraman).

- The best GUTS-Select episode which is episode 18, and quite possibly one of the funniest episodes I have ever watched.

- Pull the Trigger (the Opening).

But there is a silver lining:

Having no commercials ruins the experience though.

I mean the YouTube uploads gives me the perfect tone contrast of Ignis screaming in anguish before abruptly transitioning to "HAPPY SET" with a McDonald's commercial. And I wish I was making that up. But I'm not and it's glorious.

So after watching several more Episodes of Ginga S, spent Thursday and this Afternoon watching through 9, 10, 11, and 12.

And I think I realize, that really, the most issues I have with Ginga S so far is the first 4 Episodes. They're rather... nothing in the grand scheme of things. When we throw out the formula by having Yapool just hijack an episode plot is where I think things start to turn around in my opinion of the show.

Cause like, the mid-season climax was rather cool. But you get the episodes afterwards focusing on One Zero (Mana), Shepardon and Sho's relationship culminating in Victory's strongest weapon, Gan-Q's Tears which is without a doubt the best episode of the show, and then In Order to Meet You which is definitely my second favorite episode of the show with Tamba-San the Metron.

Was not expecting the Tambourine Man I've heard about a Streamers Friend talk about, actually also be a fictional character in Ultraman but here I am.

(For Context: Streamer I watch had a friend talk about this guy in like Canada who goes up to things and just smacks them with a tambourine to like bless them or something.)

If I had a nickel for every Ultra Chronicle that featured Z’s premiere, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=i1NmmqV6goI

I don't really like this new cover of "Kimi Dake" it's not bad just feels off. Maybe it just because I'm so used to this being an ED using a new cover as an OP feels wrong somehow.

And Marlulu finally got his "MY SWEET HOME" I'm happy for the guy honestly.

Also Deban tried joining GUTS-Select I wonder if will see him in Decker...

No does not commercials suck.

It's been about a week since Trigger ended, which is about enough time for me to simmer my thoughts on the show. I suppose if there's a word I could describe my feelings on the show, it would be rough. Trigger is a show that wants to try and recapture the magic of Tiga for a modern audience. It's an admirable amibition to be sure, one that unfortunately the show had a rough execution on. Whether that's due to behind the scenes problems, not having the right people for the production, I can't really say. However it does feel like the show either needed more time to flesh out its concepts, or revisit the drawing board to refocus itself. In the end though, it definitely didn't meet the calibre of its namesake.

But I don't know, even despite all that, I still had an enjoyable time watching it week to week. Maybe because I still haven't fully watch Tiga so I can't succintly compare Trigger to it, maybe I accepted early on that the show probably wasn't going to meet the loftly goals it inspired to reach. Whatever they maybe, I just went along for the ride and enjoyed what did came. Tsupro are still knocking it out when it comes to the technical aspects. They are still handful of enjoyable episodes, most notably the crossover eps (I still can't believe we're at a point where Ribut is appearing in the mainline Ultra shows), and the stuff related to Ignis and Trigger Dark. And even at its weakest, Ultra still tends to strike heart with me. So while it doesn't reach the highs of previous New Gen shows, I still had fun watching it and am looking forward to Episode Z.

As for Decker, while we still don't have much to go on besides the name and speculation based on Chronicle D, I am excited at those possibilities. The biggest one being that, as a homage to Dyna, Decker could be direct sequel to Trigger that's set in the same world. We haven't had that since Ginga-Ginga S and I think Decker thus has the potential to flesh some of the more underdeveloped aspects of Trigger's world. I also don't think Decker's going to emulate Dyna as much as Trigger did to Tiga outside of certain aesthetics, since one of the big rumors is that Decker is simultaneously also a New Gen celebration, given it's going to be the 10th New Gen show. Of course, this is all speculation and Decker could turn out nothing like this, so we'll just have to wait and see.

WTF?
Commercials/Ads suck A$$ and any joy out of watching YouTube. I have literally NEVER met a real person who actually would say something so absurd (imo) as “Oh,I ENJOY having a non-stop barrage of the most annoying Ads in existence CONSTANTLY INTERRUPTING AND RUINING THE EXPERIENCE OF WATCHING A VIDEO” and think it’s a good thing, and I’ve been in Advertising, and we HATED them too.
LOL it’s amazing to find out the actual demographics EXISTS LOL

I'm on the same boat with you.

I'm not sure why you all seem to be taking offense to a comment saying commercials make for funny tonal whiplash.

I'm just surprised it took this long for a reaction. But yeah no, I just love that Trigger gave us something on the level of "Yamato screaming in pain as he thinks his friends died abruptly cutting to HAPPY SET for commercial break" with that Ignis scene from 17.

*shrugs*

Anyway, I mean the complaint and offense doesn't really have anything to do with what I was talking about anyway since I wasn't talking about Youtube commercials interrupting the show, I'm talking about the baked in Ultraman specific commercials that Tsuburaya put in.

I think it's pretty charming and makes it feel like you're watching a subbed version of SHT.

Watching the Ginga S movie, there were a lot of moments where I felt like someone was about to belt out "smile smile" and thinking to myself "now they've got me doing it."

Managed to watch the first three episodes of the original Ultraman series so far.

And that's Ginga S done and dusted. Pretty decent finale all things considered.

I think my favorite newcomer to the cast probably was Mana. Really enjoyed her a lot compared to the others but everyone else was pretty good as well.

Ginga's still my favorite, but I did have fun with Ginga S. Peak of Ginga S is still Episodes 11 and 12 though.

Mana's arc was nice. I appreciate that her big focus episode brought Misuzu back.

My favorite part of the finale is when the Victorians all come in and start busting heads out-of-nowhere.

Like, I think maybe they set up that Sho had powers before but then they all start using these special abilities they've never shown previously and the old dude just starts cutting goons up with a sword he pulls out.

I'm also glad they managed to fit in Kenta and the whole gang in the finale. Made it feel really full-circle with Ginga.

Yeah, Mana's episode starting off the second half of the show was a real nice one to be honest. And it's what made me start to come around on Ginga S and make me realize that it really only had a rather rough start.

That being said, I started cracking a big smile at that part with the Victorians. Like they showed a few things of their power, I remember the kid having a brief moment in the earlier episodes trying to levitate stuff. So I was like "Oh cool they're just going all out."

I also like how they brought back Valky, Icarus and Nackle from Ginga to make up a quirky miniboss squad at the last minute. Really helped sell the connections to Ginga and stuff.

New potential concept leak for Ultraman Decker. Be warned: might not be real.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKeR0KSa...jpg&name=small

Isn't this just Dyna?

That’s the joke

Okay, now I have some actual Decker news, in the form of trademarks. https://akkinews.net/archives/240813

And here are my rough translations.

GUTS Griffon

GUTS Hawk

Ultra D Flasher

Ultra Dual Sword

Gigelan

King Sphere

Gregor man Grace

Alien Shapley

Sphere Gomora

Sphere Zaurus

Sphere Soldier

Sphere Megalothor

Sphere Red King

Select Hyper Gun

Deathdrago

Buzzed Alien Agams

Cyber Demon Terrorfacer

Ultra Dimension Card

So I guess Griffin and Hawk are their new takes on the GUTS Eagles?

I need to catch up on Z and Trigger, but is Ace worth a watch?

There is some degree of legitimacy in your translations.

http://ukiyaseed.weebly.com/ukiyasee...emark-revealed

The idea is that this is "New Generation Dyna". It is themed on a card-based system. It has connections to GUTS-Select. And while "Sphere" was the primary villain for Dyna, it serves here as a Kaiju Prefix, though what direct relation it has to the OG Sphere is up in the air.

Well, I’m currently 6 episodes away from the end of Ultraman C and I have to say. . . I think it’s the weakest series I’ve seen. It can’t really make up its mind over anything (Does the show have a big bad, or is it episodic), some things are just confusing (the team don’t know that Daichi is X… yet they keep discussing making new items for X’s use, which would make more sense if they knew who he was), some things just seem pointless (Why did the professor have to be an Alien Fanton, considering he doesn’t act anything like the traditional depiction of an Alien Fanton), the cast have nothing going for them (while I could say that for a lot of shows, I’d at least say the cast have personalities. Here, they have nothing) and the plot, if any, is very disconcerting (normally, I could get around that with the recap episodes, yet whoever subbed the series seems to really hate them, as all of them have been skipped over). I’d say the highlight is the returning Ultra episodes, though I still have some nitpicks with the Ginga/Victory episodes (mostly for the staging of the villains, rather than the plot).

I'm currently watching X myself, and I just finished episode 8, and my takeaways on the points you mentioned:

- It seems like they're building up to that evil force that X battled with in the intro that imploded in the sun and caused the Spark Dolls to act up becoming the main threat again.

- They originally just threw a Cyber Monster Card at X to give him a new armor, so it makes sense they'd keep developing them with the intention of giving them to X without knowing Daichi is X.

- Professor Gourman is cooler as an alien. I don't think I've seen Fanton's before so I didn't really have any preconceptions about his character. He's just a fun personality around the cast.

- I'm growing to like the cast as the show goes along. Asuna feels like proto-Yoko from Z to me, or Yoko if she were younger and more of an acrobat. Same with her relationship with Daichi reminding me of Haruki and Yoko.

I was wondering if they were skipping the recap episodes because I remember the next episode preview talking about being a recap episode previewing X's new armor only for it to then be about X's new form and Ultraman Max. I thought for a second the recap was just to fool people into not knowing Max was going to show up, but I guess it's just because they skipped the recap.

Decker with card gimmick. Check.

Okay, I'm all set for this season!

Bandai’s sales figures for the past year. Placed here because Ultraman was the big winner Tokusatsu wise (and the only one to have this year’s instalment outsell last years’)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLFJI7nV...g&name=900x900

Good for Ultraman!

I did get the sense that, while critically Trigger was divisive, it was definitely popular in terms of sales.

This is something I've actually been super curious about when it comes to Trigger. (I think Sakamoto?) said in some interview early on that the main goal with doing a new Tiga was the idea of trying to leave that kind of impact on today's kids, and I always kind of got the impression from the way Trigger was written that it *would* be something children would easily get really into, regardless of what us curmudgeonly older fans think about its quirks. If kids were out there begging their parents for the merch more than usual, I feel like that is legitimately pretty dang vindicating for Trigger.

Was the response that divisive in Japan? I know it got pretty mixed reception here, but I have no idea what the reaction was at home.

I can see that. I almost half wonder if all those kids in the finale were kids who were already watching Trigger.
The only frame I have is Reddit, which...yeah.

"24 Hours Inside Xio" might be my new favorite Ultraman episode.

Same here! That episode was just magnificent! Not only does the style work great, but it's absolutely hilarious and provides a fun look inside the everyday life at X.I.O. Definitely one of my favorite Ultraman episodes ever.

I've started watching R/B. Never finished it the first time around, so I want to give it a fair shake. It's better than I remembered so far, but oh man are the transformation scenes way too long.

I never really understood the antagonism against R/B. I kinda think that too many were unfairly comparing it to Geed and we're disappointed that it wasn't Geed.

I've been watching Leo and rewatching R/B. Leo is.... something (good? bad? both? neither? I DON'T KNOW), but man, I'm really enjoying R/B. Maybe more than I did the first time watching it! Although:

It gets better later on but yeah, it's rough at the beginning.

It felt very tonally different, which I think was part of my problem. I'm not having that problem now, though. In fact, the family aspect reminds me a lot of Revice and some of the things I like about that show.

The lack of official release also made it more obnoxious to keep up with the series when it was airing. Since I wasn't that into it, it got a lot easier to just drop the show.

I assumed it would, but the fact that the early episodes had to do the full toy demo twice every time Blu and Rosso did anything just made those moments drag so much.

New Episode Z trailer:

[youtube]wKkpTIqeBAo[/youtube]