Ratsuden? I have no idea what that is. This year was the first time I started to pay attention to Ultraman since Nexus was on the air.

As far as I could gather, Ultraman Retsuden was basically a weekly clip show hosted by Ultraman Zero along with various other characters in Ultra Series. It takes battles from certain episodes of shows all over the franchise and has Zero, along with whoever's host the episode for that day, providing commentary over them. Though it technically ended once Orb started, all the Ultraman Zero movies were cut up into 30 minute chunks and aired in between Orb and Geed. This was also when Ultra Orb Fight aired.

That sounds awful. Why not just reair the original shows instead?

They did, in addition to the aforementioned clip shows. I don't really know all that much about the show other then that though, since its wikipedia entries don't really go into much detail, but judging by the few episodes of the show that have been translated, some of the episodes are themed around something specific rather then just being a clipshow of a specific series and, as mentioned before, it often features returning characters or characters from the then current Ultra series providing commentary. Basically, it was a cheap way of not only keeping the show on the minds of children but also providing them a history lesson on the franchise as a whole. I doubt many kids would be interested in watching sit through a show 30 years older then they are.

Yeah, I wouldn't knock Ultraman Retsuden too hard, man. Budget conscious recycling or not, it ran year-round for half a decade and produced well over 200 episodes in the process. Clearly it did something right, or we probably wouldn't have shows as awesome as Orb right now.

Here's an example of an Ultraman Retsuden episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKbRE97nSEA

I actually like the idea of Ultraman Retsuden. Not only is it a fun way for a young child to learn about the history of the Ultra series, its a cheap way to advertise a toyline and show why kids should care about the history of a 60 year old show. Its actually really clever and something only really Ultraman could do, since it actually has continuity unlike Kamen Rider or Sentai.

So we watched 5-8 tonight and the show continues to impress. Although, it seems like Chibull is quite forgetful because he keeps telling Zero One that this episode is her last chance, she fails, and then he repeats it in the next. lol I'm really liking what they have done with Sho, but I do wish they would give Arisa and Gouki an episode each to develop their lives outside of UPG. That aside, it's pretty solid so far. Nowhere near as good as Orb or even X, but a vast improvement over the first season and maybe better than Leo. The last fight with Five King was pretty badass, especially when Five King was just leasurly landing from the sky. I was surprised that this wasn't the final battle with Chibull though.

Looks like Misuzu is back next episode... yay?

All right, so we just finished watching episodes 9-12 of Ginga S and they were a blast. Well, episodes 9 and 10 were your standard fare, but my god, 11 and 12 were hands down the most awesome episodes of the entire series thus far. They were like the Black Star Coffee from Orb and the 3 alien rugby one from X in the realm of badassery. THe first episode with Gan-Q was really cute and touching, something I did not expect to see at all from this show. It shouldn't have worked with this show's tone, and yet, it did. Then we have the last episode, which I was dreading because it brought back Helium Girl and they actually did have that she became a singer, but again, it worked. Seeing a Metron be a huge fanboy was down right hilarious. My favorite scene is when he is in the UPG car and sense Chigusa being attacked so he just says, "I'll come back later," and teleports out. I could not stop laughing my ass off from that one. Even the big battle at the end was great. I really hope the remaining 4 episodes can keep up this momentum.

The Metron in that episode was a very strong homage to the main character from Toei's 70s tokusatsu Zubat. His human disguise is modeled after Hayakawa's original costume, minus the cowboy hat.

Glad to hear you're enjoying Ginga S; it's a fun show. When you're done, don't forget to check out the post-series movie. It's available via TV-Nihon.