Run's really gone up in the world since being Ultraman Zero's host. Now he's the new science head of GUTS-Select!

Ichika's family runs a temple? Why do I feel like we're going to end up visiting said temple during the inevitable Ichika-focus episode?

I wonder if one of the Trigger GUTS-Select members saved Ryumon. It'd be kind of hilarious if it was Akito.

Kanta finally namedrops himself as Decker in front of the group and comes up with an excuse similar to how Mai came up with "Dyna" to save himself.

They seem to be deliberately withholding diving deeper into how Captain Murahoshi feels about Ultraman.

It's everyone's favorite Kaiju, Gomora! Looks like Sphere really are instigating the Earth Kaiju into acting out.

And, like his predecessor Asuka before him, Kanata ends up being a pilot.

GUTS-Select is surprisingly effective! It really felt like they might've been able to defeat Gomora on their own before the Sphere intervened.

Why did the Sphere intervene? Did they see GUTS-Select in action and wanted to nip them in the bud using Gomora?

Sphere Gomora has to make, like, the 7th or 8th variant of Gomora at this point. Although you can tell it's not natural because the horns are too big on one side.

Sphere Gomora is too powerful for even Decker to take on...luckily it seems like Kanata's deck responds to his needs and supplies him with a flaming power to defeat Sphere Gomora. Enter: Decker Strong Type! And what a splashy debut!

Kanata finds a robot buddy he can trust with his secret like Asuka did Hanejiro and Gamu did with PAL, and thus dubs HANE2...Hanejiro. And it seems like Hanejiro was waiting to unleash the sass on poor Kanata the whole time.

Great episode this week! All the interactions with the robot were surprisingly great. I think just looking at how the characters are already set up now vs in Trigger… it’s quite the difference. I think this is a great show so far.

I love that he is going to pretend to fly the plane and have the robot just do everything for him while he transforms into Decker. It’s better than just constantly crashing the plane and showing up later saying “Uh… I guess I didn’t die, pals!”

And the hospital did not get destroyed?! This was all I was waiting for. Decker did not let the city get obliterated? Did he watch the first ep of Mebius or something, lol?

I guess I will be looking forward to this show every week.

I'm really enjoying how Decker is working as a sequel to Trigger so far. With Kanata, Ichika, and Ryumon working as trainees, plus the team leaders also feeling roped into their position, it really sells the idea that this isn't the planned continuation of the GUTS team. I'm enjoying this a lot, the whole concept of the team being a bunch of rookies and reservists who got called up to the big leagues because the situation demanded it. I actually kind of wish that the show had kept one of Trigger's supporting characters - either Exercise Bro or FALCON-CHAAAAAN!!! - on board to serve as a veteran advisor who got pulled out of retirement to help get the new team up to speed. It might be a bit hard to sell them as an older version of themselves after just a year, but apparently we're supposed to believe that Kanata and Ichika were 15 in the first episode, so I don't think the show cares that much about believable aging.

Decent fight scene this time, but I'm missing the more dynamic camera angles and miniatures integration that we got on some of the previous shows. Hopefully more of that is coming.

I imagine we're going to see some of them show up later. Murahoshi's bio mentions he has a connection to Tatsumi, the previous Guts Select captain. Ryumon's backstory also makes me think it was one of the Guts Select members who specifically rescued him

I assume that most of those characters are either retired or on Mars. I'm guessing we'll see Kengo/Trigger show up around the same time the Sphere barrier goes down.

Trigger is confirmed to show up later in the series as he gives a new weapon to Decker in magazine photos.

Yeah, my main problem with the show so far is the somewhat... flat action scenes. Next episode is a Tsujimoto episode, so it should look cool?

The show's still good though! I like the more "realistic" way of having to start Guts Select from the ground up. Everyone's still figuring stuff out especially Kanata whose trying to figure out how to Ultraman at the same time.

Strong Type is a good looking design. Plus it seems like it's more about just punching things then anything else which is cool.

Speaking of punching things, another Gomora that didn't really do anything wrong gets blown the fuck up. I wonder if it's like Gaia where the Monsters were trying to help defend Earth from big bad thing and that's why the Sphere were like nah. Sphere Gomora is pretty cool. Not as cool as Spheresaurus though.

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I actually don't really want to go back to the more dynamic and spinning camera angle, especially from Sakamoto's direction. Sometimes seeing those dynamic scenes make my head spinning and it's hard to track the fight. I'm more than satisfied with Takesue's direction with Decker. He has shown that if he really wants to, he can make some dynamic angle shots akin to Sakamoto. It might also because my bias with TDG where the action scenes were simple. There's a monster and the Ultraman just beat them with just simple plain shots. Sometimes simple is better.

And RIP Gomora. You were blown up again. I could hear Daichi dan X's cry in the distance. That aside, I appreciate that the series put more emphasize on its character interactions. My favorite scenes in this episode were just a bunch of characters talking to each other. Be it between the trio in the roof, the Captain and the Vice Capt, or even HANE2's interactions with Kanata and the others. I was doubting whether HANE2 could become the heart of the Guts Select akin to Hanejiro in Dyna but turned out I worried for nothing.

While it's still premature to say it, I think Decker will be one of those series which is strong because its focus on the characters. I don't want to say anything bad for Trigger but I wish the show make more emphasize on its characters. It's the reason why I love ep 18 of Trigger because we got to see more facets of other Guts Select members, not named Kengo and Yuna. If Decker could continue on like this, I think we will have a nice show for the next half a year

I definitely think one area where Trigger was lacking was in focusing on the entire cast. Like, nobody in GUTS-Select other than Kengo, Akito, or Yuna got any real focus episodes whereas usually in an Ultra show every member of the Defense Force gets at least one focus episode.

The best we got was the Marluru clip show or episode 18.

Just saw Shin Ultraman at a special screening here in New York.

Really great film, a bit hard to describe. Simultaneously sardonic and hopeful. There's an overall brevity and cadence to the movie that makes it feel like a bit like a comedy? I've heard others say it feels like a condensed TV show and I can see that because a lot goes on.

I'm not a stickler for Toku CGI at all, but I think I was a little disappointed here. Ultraman himself looks great, but the other CGI elements didn't work as well.

I really hope this movie comes out in the US, even if its just a streaming site. The music is really really unique. It is a very fine addition to the Shin trilogy and I'm even more hyped for Shin Kamen Rider now.

Very jealous – I want to see this movie real bad.

I’m sure it’ll be available eventually though, even if they just sell $15 streaming tickets to watch it on their website or something.

Time for a little honesty: Never really watched a genuine episode of Tiga before! The clip show after Trigger provided some odds and ends, but never got around to the true series before.

Until today! I decided to watch a more genuine cut before heading to SHOUT! for their version.

The context there is that, evidently, SHOUT! could not get the rights to "Take Me Higher!" and therefore the version that they distribute alongside Mill Creek is technically altered.

The "TMH Version" (my designation for a genuine cut with "Take Me Higher!") has the appropriate theme song and opener with an instrumental version which is heard during the battle in Ep. 1 with Golza and Melba.

The SHOUT! Version (and by extent, the Mill Creek Version) omits the opener in favor of a clip show opening sequence and a different song. I'm unfamiliar with that particular song nor can I say if it was SHOUT!/Mill Creek who made the new opener or if it was ripped from something Tsuburaya did, but it is exceptionally well done all things considering. You lose the iconic opening song, but the plot and story and action still remain.

During the battle in the SHOUT! Version, the instrumentals have clearly been altered as they don't sound anything like TMH. Again, the battle is still basically intact.

The end credits, with "Brave Love, Tiga", is the same in both versions.

P.S.: Were the other two stone Giants which were destroyed by Golza and Melba ever truly named? Odd how Tiga-Series Yuzare doesn't reference them in the message!

Same.

I just hope it's not going to be like Shin Godzilla which took a year to release here. But thanks to Tsuburaya, I think we'll see it by the end of the year or early next year at the earliest.

Still, I've heard nothing but praise for Shin Ultraman, which only makes me more excited to see it!

Bemular! Feels like he's been making the rounds lately in New Gen shows.

That was a well directed squad scene and shootout.

Kanata breaking formation to go after a random alien bad guy is such an Asuka move. Also apparently the D-Flasher shows up instinctually whenever Kanata feels threatened, even when it's not real, and he doesn't have full control over it.

I think I'm going to love Kanata and Hanejiro's banter.

Kanata geeking out over mecha combining was so relatable. C'mon Ryumon, get into it!

I see the leader of the Night Raiders retired to run a hot spring town.

Does Ichika know a lot about legends and history because her family runs a temple? Seems like she's very well-informed about this stuff.

Mons-Aghar lives up to its name of being a destructive monster because it wastes no time blowing stuff up.

I thought Mons-Aghar was like some kind of ancient beast disturbed by excavation...but no, it's basically an artificially-made, civilization-destroying, Kaiju created by Planet Merani to destroy any civilizations who get too big for their britches and try to leave their corner of the world by going into space. And they're using Earth as a test-bed for their product. And I thought Galactron was bad.

I don't know what's better, Decker using Hot Spring Water to cool off the GUTS Falcon, the mayor being so delighted it helped, Hanejiro playing Kanata to ward off Ichika and Ryumon, or Decker's grunts in disapproval.

Strong Type is still the GOAT.

I guess it makes sense that an artificially created Kaiju would have a defense against it's obvious weakness...though they didn't expect for someone to go for the eyes.

I thought Kanata would be in the Falcon when they eventually formed the Guts Gryphon, but it was all Hanejiro. Still pretty cool that it got the Finisher instead of Decker, though Decker kicking it in its crystal was pretty awesome.

I wonder if Ryumon ever gave in on the Hot Springs...

Next time...Ichika, Eleking, and Miracle Type!

Aliens sales pitching Kaiju? I love it!

And I love this episode as well. It was fantastic!

More GUTS Select Training (kinda) and Asumi and Hanejiro being an iconic duo, I already love this cast is already.

The hot springs setting plays a role, we get the aliens sales pitching Kaiju to potential invaders, an amazing fight, heck, it very much reminded me of early Ultraman, which I adore. Also, Hanejiro, best robot.

So many great moments, from Kanata nerding out over combination mechs, Decker saving the Falcon, and Hanejiro voicing Kanata. This show just knows how to put a smile on my face. And Mons-Aghar being smart, countering his own weak spot, and Decker kicking him right there. Boy, did I enjoy this fight.

Gosh, I'm loving this show more and more as we continue the run, and we're still at the early stages of the show.

Next Episode: Eleking's (not) shocking return, and Miracle debuts.

If I can describe this episode, it's wonderfully delightful.

Kanata and Hane-II just make an absolute great team with their banter, teamwork, etc. The bit where Hane-II had to cover for Kanata, and then you just get Decker looking at the Hawk like "Really dude?" and Hane-II responding killed me.

This was just a nice self-contained episode, while we get some more mystery about the Sphere and what Earth hopes to do to deal with the veil, we focus on the two focal points of the episode, hot springs, and mail order Kaiju.

There's just something nice about having a good location like the hot springs with it's backstory too and the mayor! The mayor was a joy to watch. Also add in an aliens deciding to test Kaiju on planets they think will invent space travel, honestly it's a funny combination.

There's just something about these one-off plots that really make Ultraman for me. We get to find out a bit more about our characters, Earth, and the worlds around Earth. These are the kind of things I feel Ultraman excels at aside from really heavy sci-fi plots.

I'm also always a fan of cute Ultraman moments, so Decker grabbing the Falcon and then using the hot spring geyser to put out the fire was absolutely fun to see.

That being said, Eleking next time? And it's an Ichika focused episode too? Sounds like fun, and sure, Miracle type as the cherry on top! Really enjoying Decker more than I thought I would.

For the last few days, I have been watching Ultraman Ace and this series has what’s probably my favorite opening theme song of the franchise within the Showa Era and the concept of two people becoming one Ultraman is very interesting to see. Would have loved to see that idea be brought back for a future series/season somewhere down the line. TAC, the defense team of this series, sadly does leave quite a bit to be desired so far.

Part of the NHK Ultraman poll results have been revealed (with the full one coming in September)

https://www.nhk.or.jp/anime/ultraman...HWmPq7QR0Z4KZM

To translate, 11-20 on the too 20 Ultras are Taro, Geed, Ace, Leo, Jack, X, Dyna, Agul, Trigger and Max

11-20 on the monsters list are Jamila, Alien Mefilas, Ultraman Tregear, If, Tyrant, Hyper Zetton, King of Mons, Zamsha, Pigmon and Evil Tiga.

and 4-10 on the Attack Vehicles are Guts Wing No. 1 from Tiga, King Joe Storage Custom from Z, Gun Phoenix Striker from Mebius, Jet Beetle from the OG, Guts Eagle from Dyna, Hyper Strike Chester from Nexus and XIG Fighter EX from Gaia.

Pigmon only being at 19 REALLY shocks me, wow!

This week's Decker was surprisingly fun. A simple story, a really awesome monster (gotta love the commercialized apocalypse marketing) and lots of fun miniature work, like the camera shot from within the traffic mirror or the river flowing behind the knocked down Decker. Action was on point too.

Hanejiro is also very enjoyable in the role as the only "person" to know Kanata's secret, their banter is great.

More episodes like this one please!

Really loved the premise of the latest episode of Decker. I know it's probably a real challenge to come up with 20+ reasons for a kaiju to attack a city every year, so I always appreciate it when we get something unique and while I know we've seen "monster for sale" before, I think this is the first time we've gotten "please enjoy a free demonstration of destructive kaiju; operators are standing by!" That is a ridiculous premise and I love it.

I also retract everything I said about the monster fights last week. The showdown between Decker and the fire-breathing lizard was fantastic. Also got a huge kick out of Decker expressing Kanata's frustration at Hanejiro's impression of him.

Oh yes. I want more of this. An interesting (and kind of messed up) spin on the weaponised kaiju story, really good miniature work and action scenes and jokes that made me genuinely laugh. This was a great episode.

Plush Hanejiro

Slight detour from Decker, but between yesterday and today, I watched a couple of the last Ultra Fight miniseries - New Generation Heroes, and Absolute Conspiracy. And... yeah, they're enjoyable! NGH is definitely the weaker of the two, having a barebones plot in exchange for an ever increasing amount of CGI fightscenes, but having Rosso and Blu around (plus Geed a little) helps out since I know who they are. Also, Ribut best boy.

Moving onto Absolute Conspiracy, and Ribut continues to be best boy. As the movie/miniseries progresses, you can sum up 90% of fights as "Ultras almost lose, but are bailed out by a different Ultra who gets their theme music", but theme music makes all fights cool, and even though I don't have any emotional connection to any of these guys, the choreography and effects are great. I do wish we had some better miniature work, the constant CGI backdrops would be my main criticism there, but I get it, YouTube miniseries while Z gets the bulk of the filming there. Character-wise, this one fairs a lot better, getting into the backstory of Tregear (Hey I've seen the R/B movie I know this guy!) and Bellial (Hey I've been an Ultra fan in the last decade, I know this guy!) and having them be, while not sympathetic, given some nuance in their falls. It's unfortunate they overshadow Tartarus, who I assume is meant to be a big impressive villain, but he falls flat, caught between the emotional drama of our two regular villain Ultras, and the immense casting call rota of the Ultra side. Because there are a lot of Ultras here! For someone like me, who's seen like 2 series, you just have to go with it. These two (Cosmos and Justice) can fuse together? Sure!

Spoilers for Return of Ultraman (The Jack Series)!

WTF! This series has a weird handling of its characters. The initial Team Captain is switched out and then they go further with the sudden and callous fate of the Sakatas during the Alien Nackle and Black King episodes.

I can only ponder if there were reasons behind this or if this was planned.

Yeah, the Sakatas getting killed off was PRETTY brutal and it's just how some Showa series rolled in attempts to get better ratings (admittedly not exactly dissimilar to modern Rider...)

Something like it would happen to an entire defence team in another Showa Ultra. And yeah the actor for the original captain just left for reasons iirc, that also happens in a bunch of other Showa Toku

Resuming my Ultraman run I watched Ultraman USA/The Adventure Begins, which was rather good for what it wanted to do. When I saw the Hanna-Barbera name I was expecting the usual H&B animation quality but it was actually better, almost 80s Toei film quality which was nice to see.

English voice acting was a bit of a hit or miss since it was Ultraman "USA" and the majority of the cast was speaking in stereotypical American accents it gets laughable across the movie. The three Ultras did fine, but their characteristics were a bit on the flat side. Though I wouldn't say it's entirely their fault since this was meant to be a pilot for a series that never never got made and so they didn't get the chance to explore and do everything they planned to do.

I'm amazed they got Adrienne Barbeau (DCAU Catwoman) in this.

Did more Tiga on Tubi, and "Toku Stitched Version" is now a very loose phrase cause the few that I did had "Take Me Higher" in the opening and during the battle with the Kyriel! I was seriously under the impression that they didn't have the rights. Given that the earlier clip show opener is subbed and TMH is not, I almost feel like this is a recent addendum to the streaming version.

Take Me Higher was left intact for Episode 3 and 4 only nobody no why this is. But every other episode has the replacement op. Also as far as I can tell toku stiched means. Nothing as other Ultraman shows like Dyna and Gaia also have that.

I wish they could've kept Take Me Higher as an insert song for a few more episodes...

Watching Ultraman: Towards the Future/Great. Pretty much your standard Ultraman plot for the 90s, the effects are okay, but the acting is so laughable.

Don't you just hate it when a stray Eleking pops out and ruins your fishing?

"You electricity glutton!" Eleking actually looks like it took that personally.

Wow, that debris hit Ichika so conveniently!

It's a tale as old as time...Alien Pitt raises an Eleking through all its stages, comes to care for it so much, but then it turns into a giant monster because of it's insatiable need to eat electricity.

I never thought about it before but there are probably aliens stuck on Earth because of the Sphere.

Ichika has people she cares about in space too? Like Kanata's family? Is it members of GUTS who got to go to Mars?

I just love the idea of Hanejiro knowing all the seedy secrets of the new GUTS-Select.

That scene at the elevator was hilarious, especially with Kanata and Ryumon's faces.

Maybe it's for the best that Ichika didn't steal a battery designed for powering cities during an alien occupation just to feed one Kaiju, but it did give Murahoshi a chance to show off his magnanimous and understanding personality and command style.

I love how they had to write off Kaizaki so the teams' monster expert wasn't around to tell them how dumb a plan it is to feed Eleking too much electricity. Her scolding Murahoshi was pretty fun.

In hindsight, a giant being of light/energy fighting an electricity monster near water seems like a really bad match-up. But it was nice to see Miclas for five seconds.

Was Eleking playing around with Decker to lull him into a false sense of security before attacking him? That was...surprisingly devious. Although them doing the Ultra Beam pose together was really cute.

When you need creative solution, you need Miracle Type! And it brings out a giant electric storm from space to basically overload Eleking and regress Elly back to its larval stage. Nice!

I was worried we'd go three episodes in a row without Decker flying off, but I'll take him just vanishing using Miracle Type.

It was nice to see Ichika in civilian clothes at the end!

I guess it's nice to see Marluru back for a recap episode.

There's nothing more adorable than Ultraman and Kaiju playing around with each other like Decker and Eleking in this episode.

Very cute episode, with a lot of sweet moments and focus on Ichika. Yuka's relation with Eleking was nice and seeing her posing with it was just plain adorable.

We also get the debut of Miracle form, which is a neat form, and helped Eleking in the end (looks like we don't need New Generation Cosmos, ha ha!). But the fight scenes were strangely very satisfying, and the shot of Eleking leaping into the lake gave me Godzilla nostalgia (I seem to be getting a lot of that this season).

Next Episode: Marluru returns... For Recap!

Finished Towards the Future/Great. Same thoughts as the start, though between the 2 arcs presented I'd prefer more of the Gudis storyline.

Really liked this episode of Decker. Eleking is one of my favorite kaiju, dating all the way back to it’s appearance on Max. I’m a big pet lover, too, so I’m happy that Decker found a peaceful solution to Eleking’s rampage.

Less happy about the return of Trigger’s “the show literally just started, time for recap episodes” scheduling. I get why Ultraman does the mid-series and post-series clip shows, but these early ones feel really pointless and they absolutely hurt the shows’ early pacing. Lord help me if it’s two weeks in a row of this again.

From what I saw of episode schedules, it's thankfully just one week of clipshows, so Episode 6 should be the week after that.

Thankfully though they at least waited 5 episodes instead of going for four episodes and then doing two in a row. Not the best but we got off luckier than last time.

Anyway, I think I can describe this episode as oddly wholesome. The idea of a pet Eleking is cute and I'm glad we had a peaceful solution. Plus Ichika has a new friend now and it was nice to get a focus episode on her, with her and our Captain being some of the standouts for this episode.

Also that bit of Eleking copying Decker and it's like aw how cute as he goes to pet it and then it just starts attacking him again. Like yes, this is the kind of fun Ultra stuff I want!

This episode was nice! Eleking is a good boy. Mostly. It's fun to see the different stages of Eleking growth in one episode.

A very Cosmos-y resolution thanks to Miracle Type. Like Strong Type, it;s also a good looking form! The shot of Decker over the lake at the end was very cool.

next week is a clip show yayyayyayyy

So after putting it off for a long time because I kept forgetting it exists, I finally watched the R/B movie today. Like the series itself, I ended up enjoying it a lot. There were some really great jokes in the early part, like the whole "Falcon One" thing and the bit with Katsumi/Isami, and Riku awkwardly trying not to transform in front of each other. I'm not a huge Tregear fan, so the main plot didn't do a lot for me, but the character stuff was really good. Katsumi's whole "dreams don't have wings, they have feet" speech resonated a lot with me.

I'm not an Ultraman Gruebe fan. First of all, the name is terrible; I actually groaned out loud when I first heard it. I also hated how the suit was entirely done in CGI. Some of the fights were good, but there are some shots that fell very firmly into uncanny valley territory.

that was pretty much my reaction. Not a grand movie like most try to be, but a nice little story about characters

I like how the movie tried to give Katsumi a character arc and showing both brothers moving on...and Isami possibly getting another chance with his rich girl love interest.

Also, a nice introduction for Grigio.

All the CG with Gruebe kind of took me out of it even though as far as CG goes it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I'm glad they eventually made a suit.