Let's Watch Wednesdays Week 3 Ultraman Nexus 4-6
 

Kazuki is forced to attack!

What secrets are held by the mysterious Jun?

What is the Meta Field?

How far will Nagi go to stop Ultraman, and why?

Watched episode 4 yesterday and was going to just watch 5 today. Then the cliffhanger was too interesting to wait a day. :lol

So Komon is still totally there. Jabi's bitchiness is getting a little annoying, though. I still want to like her, but she really needs to get that sand out of her... hat. Let's go with hat. I did like the backstory on Jun in episode 6 - it was really tragic and I feel pretty bad for the guy (also, OOO totally stole this backstory for Eiji).

Still really loving the show - the fights are way better than what I saw in the OG Ultraman (which I kinda want to try watching again now). I hope the Night Raiders are going to stop attacking him, though - I'm not a big fan of stories where the hero is unfairly attacked by people who should be his allies.

Agreed the bitchiness is getting ridiculous. The lengths she's going to, to kill Ultraman with only the flimsiest of back stories right now is killing me. I'm sorry but I continue to not see the appeal of Nagi's character or her actress for that matter. Is she like insanely hot or something in Garo? Because here she's playing the most standard asshole for the sake of being one character I've ever seen. She's taking things so far as to make her an un-relatable character.

The battle from episode 5 felt really awesome and what I've come to expect from Utlraman, but episode 4 seemed really boring and anticlimactic aside from the little tornado thing. I don't know why it just seemed, off.

And just wow. Jun has a terribly tragic past. The poor guy seems to have been through a lot. It almost makes it seem ironic that he's Ultraman's host seeing as battle is what scarred him mentally and now he must fight. You totally called it man, OOO stole that backstory.

Jabi is fucking amazing on Garo.

Jabi is a vastly much more likeable character than Nagi.

I hope we get more into her backstory because I'm finding it really hard trying to like her.It is cool though that we're starting to see stuff from The Next.The guy in her flashback was totally The One,so I can't wait to see where they go with that.

The fights in this show are really getting good.It bugs that Ultraman moves really slowly when he's fighting though.I'm sure it's to get across that he's big and powerful,but it's still weird.The tornado bit was really goofy for me,even for Toku standards.

I really like how they're presenting Jun.Having us learn about the titular character through the main character is one thing that I really liked about stuff like the Skull Man anime.It kinda makes you feel like you're in the show,learning about the world as the characters learn about it.I'm also pretty into the foreshadowing narration that Komon has.If my subs from ep 1 are accurate he said him and Nagi are supposed to hook up at some point,how that happens is a mystery in and of itself.

This show's definitely keeping me interested and I really didn't expect another Ultraman so soon.Next week looks like it's gonna be fun.

But how could it have been The One? In that flashback Nagi was like a tiny child. She couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 by appearances. The Next only occurs 5 years before Nexus so I don't think that syncs up very well.

It might not be the same exact The One,but it could be one that came to Earth earlier.I'm just referring it as The One because I don't know what else to call it.It had the twin spikes coming out its back just like Udo in The Next,I'm just thinking its the same species of Space Beast.

I've been bad about catching up on the Nexus episodes (but I will, honest), however I can safely say I have never recalled such a thing. Which version of Nexus are you watching?

We're only six episodes in by this point. We'll definitely clear up the Nagi stuff soon enough.

TVN subs,maybe I got confused because he said it right after meeting Nagi.Actually I rewatched the clip as I typed this,was it Jun who was saying that?It was the first ep,so I couldn't really distinguish everyone's voices.

ok Episode 4 to 6 were Really good i am Starting To Get the hole i hatingnigh Raiders and there idea of not Talking oer it properly or Arresting Jun and Get his Side of the Story larck and Nagi she just a Bitch that i really dont like at all. episode 4 felt slow like there was nothing going on untill the end and the last 2 where good deffent on what i mentioned about night raider for episode 5 and then a back story episode for jun and how he became ultraman.

Just my thoughts on episode four tonight, as I plan on going for a run in the morning and I want to get an earlyish night with my book rather than plow through the three episodes. It didn't help that between gardening and job searching my wrap up of OOO and Fourze and their respective films took like a week, but that is another story.

Overall from an action standpoint episode four was awesome, the production values are extremely spotty, but for the most part the action is at least well directed and staged and very, very enjoyable.

From a character standpoint (which to me is just as important as action, maybe slightly less so in this genre but still I love good characters) however this show is weak, even with fancy gadgets and weapons our protagonists are absolutely useless, taking a back seat to everything but then Nexus who actually achieves things, is even more of a non character as all we ever see him do out of the suit is wander around a forest in a leather jacket.

I know, I know, TV shows aren't movies, but in this time a movie has told an entire story, this show has yet to even establish character beyond some of the cheapest forms of archetypal character skeletons.

Also nice men in black rip off at the end there.

So, my thoughts on this trio of episodes:

-Nagi. Wow, what a bitch. I know not to let a first impression color my view of a characters, but there is absolutely nothing redeeming about this character for me right now. I'm sure she'll get better, but I really hope she dies a slow and painful death at the hands of a Beast that could have been prevented by Ultraman if she hadn't been attcking him with a Chester or something. Just go to hell you worthless character.

-Jun's backstory is really tragic. Similar to Eiji from OOO, but he was a photographer. So not only does he have to live with the horror of what happened, but the government and the like can shut him up if they please. Poor guy.

-I really liked the fights. Most fights in Toku I've seen tend to be one sided, but these felt like a true struggle for domination. It gave me an edge of suspense I haven't had while watching Toku show for the first time in awhile.

-The Beast in episode 5 was totaly had an amalgamation of various Toho Kaiju roars :lol. I know I heard Rodan and Mecha-Godzilla in there at the very least.

Next week things look like they are going to get interesting. Can't wait.

I'm liking this series so far, the action is pretty descent and most of the characters are pretty good. However, I think i share the same opinion as everyone about nagi. In my opinion she is so much of a bitch in the series as to be the main antagonist of the series so far. And I really hope that Komon meats up with jun and they get some kind of friendly relationship going.

She's just so unrelatable. There's nothing about here even remotely likable right now. She seems to resist every bit of common sense thrown at her :lol

Toho, not Toei. And since Tsuburaya created most of Toho's pantheon of monsters, they have long used suits, pieces, and roars for Ultra shows.

Doh! For some reason when I went to type Toho I typed Toei instead. My bad.

Ok, thoughts on episodes 4 and 5, watched 4 last night so forgot about it :lol

but watching 5 now, why in the hell are they attacking ultraman for no reason? It doesnt help they gave the order to the well bitch is nice word for what I wanna call her. What in the hell is her problem?

Watched episode 4 this morning (no power at work so I had a chance to sneak it in). I really liked the use of the Chester VTOLs in their plan to take out Pedoleon in the tunnel. And the battle between Nexus and Pedoleon was awesome. I also really liked the bits cutting back to Komon's girlfriend eating dinner with her family, I thought those were nicely done little character bits. Totally loving this series; it really has a strong vibe of modernizing and updating the concepts of a show like Ultraseven, which deals extensively with alien invasion, but still keeping it grounded in the history of the series.

So I checked out five and six now and...

These two were certainly stronger episodes than the first four or so, finally putting focus on the world of Nexus and the characters that populate it. The show isn't quite 'there' yet for me but it is improving a lot.

Sadly, as I'm huge fan of characters, it's a shame that even when focus is put on the characters all it exposes is how weak they are, like the Commander who is just a archetypal checklist, rather than an actual character, and pretty much a check list of my most hated character archetypes. At least hints in episode six suggest she may actually soften soon so we can get past this stuck up the butt shit.

However I think my least favourite character is Nexus himself, Jun, whose back story instilled so little sympathy and so much disgust I almost wanted to turn it off. At least when they did something similar with Eiji in OOO it was out of his control.

And I guess if we lived in their world, we might not jump at the chance to trust Ultraman either but the fucking plot needs to progress at some point, we were fighting the same damn enemy for the first four episodes for Christ's sake, I heard this show was short but with how slow the pacing is I'm not even sure if everything'll be established in time for the show to even have a middle section.

What was more disappointing is that even though we moved on from vagina death monsters, the new monsters didn't really mix up the fighting in any particular sense. It's just a sort of sluggish brawl that makes very little use of the fact they are both giants.

Maybe I'd like it more if I wasn't saturated by so much special effects heavy action but I am and I find this pretty boring in comparison. If anything I think I get more out of the plane action, as at least those have flashy attacks and a sense of motion, it's just a shame the planes rarely look any good.

Also, dat Twilight Orgasm. http://i.imgur.com/GvB7VYN.jpg

Just watched episode 5. The Space Beast in this one (Bugbuzun) had a great design. I love the overly strange monsters and he was no exception. His swooping down and snatching cars and people reminded me of the pteradactyl from Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds, which was a film by Toei, actually. And his habit of picking his teeth after eating people totally reminded me of Gaira from War Of The Gargantuas.

One of my favorite bits of Tsuburaya shorthand gets used in this episode, with the camera lens effect to show the reporter taking pictures.

Still loving the music, incidentally.

Personally, I have always much preferred the fighting in Ultra shows, which tries to show a realistic fight in most cases, to the hyperactive and overly choreographed fights in some Toei shows. The original Ultraman clearly uses "real world" fighting styles, specifically judo, and Nexus is following that trait. Also, remember that Tsuburaya films daikaiju scenes with the camera overcranked, so when played back at normal frame rate, the gigantic characters have a better sense of mass. (This famously was done wrong in Godzilla Raids Again, so the monsters move very fast in that movie.) I get the feeling that sometimes this is done in Super Sentai, and sometimes it is not.

I am pretty sure that Nexus was shot on digital video rather than film, much like Gridman was. (Baltan II, please correct me if I am wrong on this.) This was done for easier and smoother integration of optical and digital effects, which were becoming more commonplace in the 90s and beyond. The downside of this is that the models don't look as good as they do on film. You can see it in Gridman and you can see it here as well.

Anyway, still loving the show. Can't wait for the next episode!

Finally got around to watching episode 1, and in fact watched both episodes side-by-side.

TV-Nihon fucked up with that line (among others).

That narration, as in many more episodes to come, is from Komon, not Jun, and is not supposed to be referring to Nagi as either person's girlfriend.

I'll be diverting my attention solely to one version from this point, so I should be able to catch up and share my own perspective on all the episodes soon enough.

okay, episode 5 and 6 really stepped it up, really loving this series.

Jun's backstory is very tragic and I am loving him as a character, nagi is just a bitch though :lol

really looking forward to next week to watch more

Due to some download issues I was a bit behind, but now I'm fully caught up for tomorrow!

These were another 3 episodes futher exemplifying how awesome Nexus (the character) is and how annoying Nagi is. The Chester does feel a bit out of place (well, not so much out of place and more "get out of the way and give me more Nexus action), but it reminds me of the Zero-X from Thunderbirds so I can let it slide.

Loved hearing all the Toho roars in the Beast as well :D

Oh yes, and the Illustrator reminds me a lot of L from Death Note.