I feel like Dyna never gets the love it deserves, although I guess we did see some of that during Decker...

Happy to see Ultraman Z placing so high! I really enjoyed that series.

I feel like Max is at least 11 spots too low, but I can't complain about any of those
(especially Cosmos, which I haven't seen).

I'm seeing reports that yes, this teaser was at the end of the Decker movie, so it is legit.

So I've seen the movie... and I very much enjoyed it. Just like, not getting too into spoilers but like...

There's a weird (but by no means bad) almost classic feel to it when comparing it to the rest of the New Generation Ultra Movies. The others in the past were very much a crossover of sorts, or usually pushed that to the forefront. Here we get a nice extra adventure and epilogue for Ultraman Decker and that's about it. It's very focused in what it wants to do and I really enjoy that.

So unless the Geed, R/B, or Taiga Movies do anything to blow me away when I get to them... this might just be my favorite of the New Gen Movies.

Also yes, can confirm, the teaser for the new Ultra is definitely from the end of the movie.

Heya folks, I wanna watch Ultraman Ace cause the character has caught my attention in discussion and cause of his relationship with Z. Is it worth the watch compared to the other showa ultras?

I do actually like the Geed and R/B movies a fair bit more than the other New Gen movies, think they have a bit more heart to them; so I think you might just find something there! Very glad to hear the Decker movie seems good in any case :]

Of Showa Ultra... I feel the original trilogy (Ultra Q, Ultraman, Ultraseven) is the one that's most worth the watch. Of the shows that came after those... I haven't seen Leo and 80, so right now I would say Ace is my favourite out of it, Return and Taro. I've heard Leo is absolutely CRAZY though. But if you're looking into it specifically for Ace's characterisation I don't think you'll find a lot there

I think the only New Gen Movie I didn't really enjoy was Orb's just because Orb himself gets beat up for most of the movie and Orb Trinity felt like a step-down from Orb Origin compared to other New Gen Movie Forms.

That's good to hear.

Geed will be easy since well, I've seen Geed already I just never watched his movie. R/B though I'll have to go through the series first since the only New Gen Series I've yet to see are R/B and Taiga.

Hoping to try and wrap up all the New Generation stuff before Blazar starts up this year.

yeah I'm of the same opinion
Orb Origin is a hard act to follow though

R/B would actually be my favorite because I've always resonated with somewhat aimless characters, and there are some good lines in there.

Watched the Decker movie. Something I really like about it is how like, subdued and restraint it feels? It's not as big or bombastic as many prior New Gen movies and I think that's to its benefit. The film feels a lot more deliberate in its pacing and its focus around the central characters and their struggles. Overall, a really good epilogue and send off for Decker. I hope Dinas also gets to appear in more future stuff.

Alright so...

Blazer (if that's what he's still called) looks great so far! Love the asymmetry.

Looking at that poll, I'm happy to see Z so high, but also Mebius made it to the top 10, and I really need to watch Ultra Q and Ultraseven (which I own).

I still need to watch the Taiga Movie, Trigger Episode Z, and The Destined Crossroads. I really ought to make time for those.

I love the R/B Movie (the series too!), very nice movie that just resonates with me. Leo is absolutely crazy, but it's one of my first Ultra shows that gave me something new in my foray into Tokusatsu shows.

That is all.

Ultraman Ace was... a mess. Character writing was mostly bad, the effects and suits took a hit due to the 70s oil crisis, and other writing decisions that greatly affected the premise of the series.

The only real major highlights of the show is the two hosts aspect and the relationship between the two said hosts (Hokuto and Minami) as well as having a central antagonist during the show’s first in the form of the Yapool.

Quick question, is Mill Creek known for copying fan subs? I bought the Mebius box set because I plan to rewatch / finish it and during a quick function test I noticed the translation of the OP felt very familiar. Surely enough, putting them side by side, the translation is 100% identical to the fan subs I saw a few years ago.

Obviously I can't speak for the entire set, but I watched a talk-heavy scene in the second episode, like 5 minutes, side-by-side, both versions, and every line was identical. And to make sure I wasn't crazy, I picked another scene, also with lots of dialogue from further along the episode count, same result, it's identical.

I mean they have the license, so that's cool, and I love having an official Ultraman box set, it's done beautifully too with the booklet and such, but - knowing they spent zero time on translation and just copied someone else's work leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Are you sure the subs you saw a few year ago were fansubs? TokuHD and Crunchyroll aired a LOT of Heisei-era Ultraman (pretty much everything from Gaia to Orb in fact, plus randomly Leo, Joneus, 80, Mirrorman and Gridman) with English subs and Mill Creek have unfortunately been known to take from those. It's most noticeable on Gridman and Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle since TokuHD's subs for those are infamously garbage

Now that you mention it, no, I'm not sure since the subs themselves aren't labeled with a group name. Or anything identifiable for that matter. Considering the translations are a bit... "sub-par", that would explain a lot.

But honestly, no big deal, it's decent enough of a translation, and if they took it from a source which (hopefully) paid their translators that works for me.

Yeah, some of them definitely come out better than others -- Mebius seemingly is one of the biggest examples. I remember when I watched Cosmos last year its subs were a little sub-par but still workable

Official subs don't always mean the best subs. Especially when it comes to older stuff. Even today a lot of my native Japanese speaking friends find modern subtitled to be off.

The latest season of Aggretsuko for example does not at all try to do a 1:1 translation of the source material, instead opts for the general intent and vibe of the dialogue.

And those are the two aspects that Ace abandons, so you're left with a second half that just feels pointless.

Ace is far and away my least favorite Showa-era Ultraman. It became a chore to sit through.

Yeah, this is effectively why I ended up meandering in finishing the series.

More than Leo?

Decker Finale! I enjoyed this thing a lot... it's probably my favourite New Gen Ultraman movie. It actually feels like a movie to me, not just a long episode of the show. It also lives up to it's name in that it does a good job of being a really good send-off to Decker as a whole.

So Dyna just goes around turning people into Ultras now? I guess that's how Decker exists? But Dinas is cool (Why couldn't we have gotten Ultrawoman Dinas?). I like the way she (he?) uses the Mons Dimension cards in battle. It's nice that someone remembered they exist.

I wish we got to see Decker and Dinas together. Probably in the next Ultra Galaxy Fight...

But yeah, it's good! I like Decker more because of it. Totally worth watching!

Both Ace and Leo have a lot of issues, but oddly they're not my least favorite to binge. They're the right amount of whacky (a fair amount of that being unintentional, I think) that I still have at least some fun. Alcohol helps, I suppose.
I think 80 is my least favorite; it's the only Showa series that I haven't been able to make it all the way through. Maybe it gets better, and I've skipped around a bit to where things with Yullian seem intriguing, so maybe someday.
This is going to be a SUPER unpopular opinion, but I actually feel like Ultraseven is a chore to sit through. Love Ultraseven himself, and how violent his eye slugger attacks tend to be, but I feel like the series takes itself way too seriously. On top of that, everything is just another alien threat of some sort that it starts to feel like the same thing over and over again. A few episodes at a time can be great, but I'm talking trying to go all the way through from beginning to end. It becomes a slog.
I know, I know, it wasn't really made to be watched that way.

I second this opinion.

The series is as dry and long-winded as its characters!

The SSSP had charm, heart, and the fact that it was a select group of characters made it easy to like them.

The Ultra Guard has too many people, you aren't as invested in any of them, and they are too suspicious of anything and anyone. The drab aesthetic doesn't do it any favors and adds to its militaristic atmosphere, though this was likely due to the inspiration the show took from Cold War tensions of the time.

There are some good episode plots, like the one where Dan is concerned about everyone's determination to build newer and bigger weapons to combat any potential threat (again, Cold War tensions).

With so much going against it (depending on the episode), you start to focus on the battles, but it tends to take too long to reach that point and some battles are unsatisfying. I seem to remember a few instances where Dan transforms, but doesn't enlarge to giant size (though some New Gen Ultras could learn from this, and Z kinda did)!

There are some recent UltraSeven episode reviews on Ultraman Connection and they do look interesting. The Violent Cigarette episode with Alien Metron was noted for its themes which made the episode seem good save for a few missteps and unavoidable details.

The Alien and Kaiju designs are one of the redeeming qualities about the series. Dinosaur Tank is just a zany triumph, and it's so simple! Even Hot Wheels cars which riff on the same concept can't compete with the Dino!

I didn't quite understand this idea that the series shouldn't be viewed from start to finish in linear fashion.

The Ultra Guard really grew on me, same way MAT did, as we got more focus episodes of them though I thought Kiriyama was pretty dry as far as Captains go.
And I just started Ace too XD.

I mean I don't think any of the old series were intended to be binged, but rather watched one episode at a time whenever it aired, if you could catch it. I think that's a contributing factor to why they can feel like a slog the way we watch them now.
It's nice having them all on DVD or streaming, being able to watch one episode right after another without wait, but the flaws can start to feel more intense. Some of them hold up to this style of viewing better than others though. I think Ultra Q in particular works better for this because each episode feels so different from the rest, and tends to have a more light-hearted and fun atmosphere. It's also a much shorter series.

Ultraseven was written differently from Ultraman due to the decline of the Kaiju boom at the time and chose to go full Sci-Fi instead of a Kaiju battle series, hence the aliens and many other sci-fi heavy plots over rampaging wild earth monsters, and the writing was aimed for more mature audience than little kids.

I know, but the change in direction made it less enjoyable to watch. Or at least watch for extended periods. I think it was moreso because of aiming for mature audiences with a more serious tone that did it for me. It just came across dry.
The emphasis on Sci Fi on its own would've been fine, but it got repetitive how often it was just some new alien race wanting to invade/exploit/destroy Earth. Ultra Q had a few kaiju-free Sci-fi episodes that I really enjoy- The 1/8th Project is probably my favorite episode in that series. Then again, Ultra Q didn't have a titular super hero that needed to fight someone, so probably not a fair comparison.

A lot of time in the first half of the series Seven doesn't even go giant, he fights human-sized.

I can wholeheartedly agree with the comments above. I watched the OG Ultraman, absolutely loved it, then went into Ultraseven expecting something even better given how insanely popular it is but so far I’m not very impressed.

The Ultra Guard isn’t nearly as fun and likeable as the SSSP, the constant alien attack plots are tiring, and I overall don’t really get into it as much as I did with Ultraman.

I can appreciate Ultraseven for the gorgeous and creative effects, suits and sheer atmosphere, but – Ultraman had all of this too. And I liked it better.

And yes, sometimes Ultraseven is very good at addressing how constant aggression against your “enemy” isn’t helping anyone, but then again there’s episodes where they find an underground city, instantly assume it must be an alien invasion force and blow it to kingdom come. Without a threat being declared let alone one alien being seen.

I generally watch Ultraman series one episode a day to keep that episodic nature in mind. Though I make an exception for stuff like New Gen, Nexus, UGF etc since those shows are more about the overall plot like Rider rather than the individual "kaiju movie in a TV episode" format used by Showa and much of Heisei

I do find it kind of funny how every episode in Ultraseven is an alien invasion and Ultraseven is literally seemingly the only alien in the whole show who isn't out to take over the Earth, although I guess we don't often see as much "good" or "nice" aliens until later in the franchise. I think even Orb made a joke about all the aliens trying to take over Earth when they all leave en masse and one makes a joke about how finding another planet to conquer is like moving on to another man.

I really liked Dan and Anne though, even if their relationship wasn't in-your-face about it but I feel like it set the tone for later Ultra Romances. The reveal scene was handled really well.

Also it's just amusing to me how they start reusing actors. Yuriko becomes Akiko, Arashi becomes Furuhashi (and is basically the same character), Ippei, Jun, and Ide make random Ultraseven cameos, Muramatsu plays a fisherman whose daughter ends up replacing Aki in RoU.

I actually just finished Ultraseven myself and while there were some elements I liked, overall I didn't actually think it was that great. Definitely agree that a lot of it felt like Ultraman... but worse. I'll admit that it had some really good episodes and that I liked Dan and Anne quite a bit, but the show felt like it didn't even want to be a tokusatsu a lot of the time. It's not like I'm against moving away from toku tropes either, but I *am* here on Tokunation and don't think you can exactly replace the creative kaiju plots of the original with far more rote alien invasion plots and weaker suit design and fights and call it an improvement. Not to mention that the series gets notably worse later on. I dunno, I don't hate it but I don't think I'd recommend this show to someone. Very overblown reputation for sure.

I mean, given when Ultraseven came out, a lot of the things that would come to define and characterized tokusatsu hadn't even been codified yet. Early Ultra was much more in the vein of other anthology and sci-fi television like The Twilight Zone and such.

I'm also watching Ultraseven right now. But unlike everyone else I'm gonna break the cycle & say I'm really enjoying the show so far.

I'm halfway through right now & I think Seven is a stunning show. The show aesthetic I can only describe as retro-futuristic that gives it a clean edge to the show if that makes any sense to anyone else.

There some fantastic episodes I've seen that I wanted to highlight.

Such as Episode 6 "The Dark Zone" a somber episode as a result not of an invading force but a horrible necessity of the destruction of Ailen Pega. One of the best early episodes that demonstrates Seven somber tone in juxtapose it hope for humanity future.

Or Episode 16 "The Eye That Shine In The Darkness" striking episodes with rural country town. Using the beauty of night contrasting glowing lights. A simple episode that I can just plop down and enjoy.

And one of the most recent episodes I've just finished Episode 24 "Return To The North!" An episode that forces it's focus on Furuhashi in a life threatning situations that despite that fantastical grounds itself well in reality of mortality. Wrapped up in warm connection in family. That truly gives the supporting cast of Seven a human element that makes it so iconic imom

That tracks, given that Ultra Q is very much situated within the tones and themes of The Twilight Zone. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that The Twilight Zone may have directly inspired Ultra Q, but that means that either The Twilight Zone was exported to Japan or Tsuburaya himself saw it in some manner.

Designs and specific episode plots are the redeeming qualities of UltraSeven.

That said, I even bought some fan-art of UltraSeven from a vendor at a convention who said that he liked that show better than the OG Ultraman!

We who are the detractors have our issues with it, but we still respect it up to a point and try to find the little things which did it for us.

If I have one negative to Ultraseven I'd say for a lot of times the battles end too quickly. You don't get the same struggle or tension other Ultras would get and Seven finishes his opponents without wasting time with either his eye slugger or beams

Though on the flip side when his opponent does give him a challenge then you know shit got real.

I am not watching Ultraseven at the moment, but I’ve absolutely loved all the episodes I’ve seen (which is around 2/3s of them).

Putting the "Is Seven overrated or not?" debate to the side for the moment, I wanted to broach some things from the first three episodes of Taro.

WTF!? The series literally opens with an episode in which a Kaiju (Astromons) attacks a dog and eats another a Kaiju (Oil Drinker)! The fate of the dog isn't even brought up.

Next episode, the protagonist and another dog (at least this time someone cares about the dog) end up in the stomach of Live King (or Raiveking) after it already consumed the Kaiju Cosmoliquid (who already had a knack for using its tongue to snatch humans)!

So, Kaiju eating Kaiju is one thing, but what do these writers and producers have against dogs!?

The other thing comes from Mother of Ultra herself, as the dialogue makes it sound like Taro is being BORN and not just JOINED with Kotaro!

That... doesn't... sound right... does it?