Next Blazar cast member
https://twitter.com/TsuburayaGlobal/...68937665609729

Episode 1 of Regulos is out now, be sure to change to change the audio track if you want the jp or en dub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNFdiF0Uldw

I am! It's been fun to look back on the New Generation shows, especially Geed's first episode.

I'm planning to get around to The Destined Crossroads and Reglos, along with the Final Season on Netflix, which should tide me over on the road to Blazar and Godzilla 2023.

They're doing multiple audio options which is nice, but since the English language is the default I can't download the episode with the Japanese audio because none of the software I know has the option to choose the audio to save with the video.

I'm kind of curious about the Nature of D60. The inhabitants seem normal sized and an actual alien race while the Cosmo Beast Style practitioners are giant like Ultras and all have different animal-themed faces.

Regulos has amnesia, so I wonder if we'll find out his true origin here? Obviously he looks like a traditional Ultra, Color Timer and all, but I guess the question is if he's from some unknown or hidden planet of Ultras.

Leo! It's nice to see him and acknowledging what we learned about their relationship in the last UGF. It would've been nice to see Astra too (they could've just reused a Leo suit).

Spica is a sassy and confident childhood friend type who pushes Regulos but cares for him, especially since she's the one who found him. I'm glad she's not Sora 2.0. Also her outfit, especially with those leopard print tights, is peak Sakamaoto.

Is Dias Diavolo? Obviously there are design similarities and we know about Diavolo's connection to Regulos and the Cosmic Beast Style, but he has a different VA, although he's still got that confident and aggressive personality. Although of course they would add an element of tragedy that Regulos and Diavolo were actually friends before Diavolo robbed Regulos of everything and everyone he loved.

Surprise Ultraman Leo prologue!

Ultraman Nexus was pretty damn good in the "Doing something different" kind of good. I liked how the story arcs don't just end by the end of the episode and by the next one we get something different. It's all culminating to one big payoff after another as it moves forward.

The fight scenes are on the mixed part. You don't feel much variety in monsters battles since A- The monsters tend to stay for more than one episode, B- The fight scenery got boring. I liked the idea behind the Meta Field but having the majority of the battles being in this dark, rocky space loses its charm the more you watch it. But by doing so it made the final battles in the city much more impactful.

Shame it didn't stick to its plans from what I read. Going to see The Next movie next.

EDIT: Okay now I'm more confused. Are the Next, Nexus and Noa meant to be the same Ultra or three separate entities?

My understanding is Next and Nexus are both basically restrained versions of Noa that limit his power while he's on Earth.

In the last Ultra Galaxy Fight he was able to transform between all his Nexus forms on the fly.

Good time for some Noa questions then.

How does Noa tie into Zero's Ultimate Armor form? I remember a vision of Noa appearing when Zero received that power-up.

Why can't Noa appear on Earth as Noa? Is he an overpowered Ultra god who could make or break a planet like Earth? Is he so evolved that he can't exist or remain as powerful on Earth?

Noa at one point visited the universe where the Revenge Of Belial Movie take place & left the Ultimate Aegis there.

Noa prior to showing up on Earth fought Zagi & took all of his power to the point where he devolved into The Next. It took up till the final Episode of Nexus for Noa to fully recover from that.

Masaya Kato joins the Blazar cast
https://twitter.com/TsuburayaGlobal/...05657682481154

Also episode 2 of Regulos is out now.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vFoXOcWyPdw

As of today, I am finally finished with watching Ultraman Ace and with it, I am now halfway through the Showa era Ultraman shows. The only ones that remained unaccounted for are Taro, Leo, and 80 with Taro, in particular, being the next Showa era Ultra Series I'm planning to watch next. Although, after that series, I'll be taking a break from that era for awhile and jump back into the Heisei era Ultraman series with either Dyna or Gaia. Leaning towards the latter though.

It's sad to think Regulos believes Leo and Astra are dead and has no idea he'll see them again years later...although I forget how the whole time phase worked on his side after the Absolutians were holding him.

Nanase's "FALCON-CHAAAAAN" voice works surprisingly well for a psychotic twintailed Alien Magma.

It's funny how the Alien Magma grunts are the only ones whose mouths are allowed to move.

This episode was about showing off all the Cosmo Beast style practitioners and how cool they are and they succeeded.

Dias fights like Diavolo and already has his eyes on Diavolo's signature move.

Is that Kazuma Kiryu as Volcan!?

Poor Regulos thought he could take on the Final Boss in the second episode. Though Volcan having an imitation Empera Armor didn't help.

I'm guessing Regulos is the only one on D60 who can fly since he's an Ultra. Not that he does it well.

The only thing more classic than a martial arts protagonist obsessed with vengeance is finding a disgraced mentor in the least likely spot. I'm assuming the guy who saved Regulos from that random Basser is the other vengeance-fueled guy who left the Cosmo Beast Style school.

Just started watching Ultraman Taro today and the show is already off to a very good start.

Blazar's OP and ED artist have been revealed. OP will be sung by ani-singer Hiroshi Kitadani, best known for his various songs on One Piece. ED will be sung Thai artist MindaRyn.
https://twitter.com/TsuburayaGlobal/...42373324496898

Hiroshi Kitadani(北谷ひろし)-san is a member of JAM Project, which it's members, Hironobu Kageyama(影山ヒロノブ)-san and Masaaki Endou(遠藤正明)-san, did the ED themes of Ultraman Decker and the OP theme of Ultraman Z. Kitadani-san did the OP of Madan Senki Ryuukendo (魔弾戦記リュウケンドウ/龍剣道), and the insert themes of Kamen Rider Ryuki (龍騎): Hatenaki Inochi (果てなき希望)/Ungraspable Life, Revolution, and Reborn (with Rica Matsumoto (松本梨香)). And also did the OP theme of Transformers: Super Link (Energon in the US), Taiyou no Transform(太陽のｔｒａｎｓｆｏｒｍ)/Sun's "Transform".
Side note, I predicted that Kitadani-san wil be the OP singer of Blazar, because both Endou-san and Kageyama-san perfomed both of Ultraman NewGen shows' OP and ED themes.

Ultraman Max time.


EDIT: First episode was really rushed. Action immediately starts and we barely established any of the characters.

Ultraman Regulos is pretty fun. It's a change of pace being a smaller scale story compared to the EVERYONE IS HERE style of Ultra Galaxy Fight.

I didn't see the twist at the end of episode 4 coming! Of course I did. Come on.

10 episodes of Max and so far the character with most personality is the robot.

LOL Mill Creek got the "illegal footage" of Ultraman Max episode 11 :lol.
https://images2.imgbox.com/87/83/mtlEY8bV_o.jpg

Blazar press conference happened recently, we also got a new trailer to go along with it
https://youtube.com/watch?v=odNbFW5gVCc
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EF0H6sCUCWE

We're getting a lot of original kaiju this season

Oh man, that's a whole bunch of cool-ass monsters. What's up with that fish thing? (edit: oh it's baby gavadon thing. right.)

Earth Garon is still cool.

Looks interesting i guess….

But I so wish for the next Ultraman for a Next Gen Gaia.

So far, everything looks amazing!

From what I can see, it looks like a return to formula for Ultraman, but very Ultra N. Heck, that one Kaiju looks like something straight out of Nexus, and I love it (unless that IS a Nexus Kaiju and I just can't remember at the moment...)! Also, I see Demaaga (kind of dieted) and Gabora (I think that was it's name?), so some returning faces, but I love all the new Kaiju shown so far, very strange but very cool.

And since I've been watching the New Generation Stars, I do know some of the stuff they mention at the end of the episodes leading up to Blazar, like his finisher being that spear of light, which is simply amazing. I still love Earth Garon and the fact that Blazar seems very return to form, in having no alternate forms so far, not that I mind, but I feel they might be very interesting given how Blazar is shaping up to be so far.

Very excited to see it next month! But first, I need to finish the Destined Crossroads and Regulos.

While this is hardly a obvious tribute to Gaia, it is Ginga's 10th anniversary this year and those crystal things on his head could work as a tribute to Ginga I guess? Of course Blazar does feel like it borrows from other shows/movies as well such as Nexus and its prequel movie looking at the suit design and the fact that Gento is a dad like Shinichi aka Next. And while it is farfetched I guess the red and blue bloodstream markings could be a "nod" to Gaia and Agul since they were red and blue respectively. Again I wouldn't say this is a Gaia Tribute but if I had to pick it would be Ginga and the Nexus Prequel.

Aww yes, Shin Ultraman is going to be showing near me. In a month. Still excited though!

Since all of Regulos is out, final thoughts on it, overall it's fine. Out of the post UGF1 webseries, I think this is probably my favourite. Since it's a comparatively smaller and simpler story, it doesn't suffer the bloat issues that UGF2 and 3 had. There's also a nice charm to seeing an Ultra story take on all these wuxia and kung fu story tropes.

That being said, it's not without problems. While it does have a better showcase of Regulos than UGF3, I'm still not too sold on him. In particular, I don't really jive with his arc. He's repeatedly told to not "give into his emotion", which feels like a very vague message and one that I'm not even sure fits his character. He doesn't seem that particularly impulsive or hot-headed, in fact Dias had more impulsive moments.

How he gets his Cosmo Beasts also feels a bit lacking. The way they were building up the Cosmo Beasts, about them having their own personalities and such, gave me the impression that they bonded with specific people who match their temperaments and style. So I was thinking that Regulos was going to have to find a balance between the strict Phoros and the free spirited Tubahn. But instead they tied it back to his whole "not giving into his emotions" thing, which again feels like a vague and underdeveloped message.

Action and choreography wise, I think Regulos is also really showing the limits and constraints of the green screen production. The action in UGF have never been particular "great", but they've always been saved by the pure fanservice aspect. Regulos doesn't have that going for it, and it exposes just how static and limited the camerawork and framing are. While I understand the pure green screen production is what allows these to even be made on the cheap, I think adding in some amount of physical sets would greatly improve the aesthetics and fight scenes. Like this week's New Gen Stars showed scenes from Ultra Zero Fight, which did have a combination of physical sets and green screen, and I'm reminded just how good those looked.

To end things on a somewhat positive note, I'll say that this is the most that I've actually like, cared about Diavolo. In all his appearances beforehand, he was just a boring, arrogant strong man for other people to beat up. Here, fleshing out his relationship, rivalry and betrayal of Regulos makes him more interesting and makes me invested in seeing where their dynamic goes in the future.

I feel like they set Regulous up to be a bit of a hot-head who goes on your typical martial arts protagonist journey (is really cocky about their skills, becomes obsessed with revenge, has to learn to temper their feelings and not give in to vengeance, etc.) I think that's what they were going for.

I also assume he bonded with Tubahn and Phoros' Cosmo Beasts because both were training him and both on some level chose him as their successor. I think there was even a scene where it showed him resonating with their Cosmo Beasts.

I definitely think this puts Diavolo and his whole conflict with Regulos into proper context. It's also the first time Diavolo's actually won, even if it wasn't through a straight fight.

Just finished watching the English dubbed version of episode 24 of Ultraman Z and I got to say, even though I am more partial towards binge-watching when it comes to watching various TV shows, Toku or otherwise, I really have a fun time viewing Z in this format (still have yet to watch it in its original Japanese) on a weekly basis for the past few months and now they are now down to its final episode that will be released at the end of this week, I am honestly going to miss it once all this is said and done. Not to mention that Z has really become one of my top favorite Ultraman series in the same vein as Mebius, Tiga, and Ultraseven. On a somewhat related note, I just got my copy of the Blu-Ray series set of Ultraman X from Amazon three days ago and I am currently waiting for my order of Ultraman Orb Blu-Ray series set to arrive from that same website which should be in around two weeks.

I started watching Ultraman X last night and as of today I already finished the first disc of the Blu-Ray series set and I am finding the show to be very enjoyable so far especially the dynamic between Daichi and X who serve as the human host and the Ultra hero of this series respectively. I even just started watching the original Japanese version of Ultraman Z which I know I'm going to outright love since I already watched most of the show in its English dub format.

I always felt like Daichi and X were a precursor to Haruki and Z in their show...I guess there was kind of Hiroyuki and Taiga, but it felt different.

I finished Return of Ultraman today! That was just a dang good show, very pleased with it.

The Good

• The episodes were not only generally high quality, but varied as well! A lot of older tokusatsu can get too formulaic, but I was consistently interested.
• Go was an unusually flawed protagonist for the 70s. Generally likable, but there were many episodes where he messed up or even just annoyed everyone around him with his behavior. Quite ahead of its time!
• I don't think I ever got tired of how MAT was constantly given a hard time by both ungrateful civilians and government higher-ups. Really made you want to root for them since you know how hard the organization is trying against such an overwhelming threat.
• There are a lot of very serious episodes. Go has friends die. Kishida's father was involved in making a terrible chemical weapon. The ugly side of humanity leads to the death of a friendly alien. This show is what I THOUGHT Ultraseven was going to be like when people described that show as "dark". It was fascinating!
• While generally serious, the show did offer some levity, which generally struck a good balance.

The Bad

• I think the members of MAT weren't too interesting overall and they generally blur together.
• Sometimes the editing of the episodes felt strange? Music cutting out abruptly, disorienting cuts, some weird things with continuity, etc.

The Other

• Y'all, so many monsters from Wild Arms are based on Ultra Monsters. It's so funny to see kaiju in these shows and go "So that's where the design is from!" I'm probably one of the only people in the entire English speaking world who cares about this, but care about it I shall!

I am currently up to episodes 14 and 15 of Ultraman X and I should be able to finish this series and its movie, and with them, its entire Blu-Ray set, either by the end of this week or at the start of the next. I did pretty much skipped its first recap episode though and will most likely do the same with the second.

Well, my friends... Ultraman Blazar debuts next week!

With all I've been seeing and New Generation Stars, I'm certainly excited for Blazar moreso than before. Maybe it's because Trigger and Decker were flawed Anniversary Shows (I still found enjoyment in them), but there's just so much more to this one that's exciting to me. New Kaiju (some returning ones, unsurprising, and a correction to a statement I made in the past: it was just the angle of Demaaga in that promo shot that made me think they removed his crest or something), back to basics, a mysterious Ultraman (he has spikes in place of a fin), and the very Ultra N feel it has going.

Also, I still need to finish the Destined Crossroads and Ultraman Regulos...

I was all excited to watch Blazar today.... but that's next week. :(

Finished Ultraman Max. I liked the return to formula and reintroduction of the classic Showa monsters, but the tone was a hit or miss. The series was too lighthearted, almost targeting really young kids. As in a younger age group than the usual target. There's too much focus on cool action scenes and random gags thrown at you and the characters suffered from being underdeveloped beyond the quirks they were given presumably because kids won't care about that and would just tune in to get excited over the stuff that'd draw their attention. Even Ultraman Xenon was barely a note he makes Yullian a fully fledged character in comparison.

Good to know that you caught on to the intent of the show being back to basics. As for the tone keep in mind this show came out right after Nexus, and at the time I felt like they were trying REAL HARD to try and make it nothing like it. My take is regardless of how it was received their Project N which mainly included the prequel movie and Nexus was not a huge success so they had to reassess the direction of the franchise and came up with Max.

I watched the English dubbed version of the 25th and final episode of Ultaman Z and the show truly is a very fun ride from start to finish. I am also down to the final four episodes of Ultraman X, watched the first four episodes of Z in its original Japanese and even started watching Ultraman Max as of last night.