Let's Watch Wednesdays Week 12 Ultraman Nexus 35 36 Final & EX!
 

As Kamen Rider Wizard would say, The Finale!

-The truth of The Next is known!

-A traitor is within TLT!

-Dark Zagi has come to destroy humanity, Ultraman, and the Visitors.

-And Ultraman Noa will finally be reborn through a new Dunamists' bond to the light!

Let's Watch the end of Ultraman Nexus!

Watching EX right now, as for the other episodes:

Unknown hand is finally revealed as Dark Zagi, and Ren finally learns to fight without risking his life.

Episode 36 was really emotional Ren's attempt to erase Mizuo memories in particular, as Raphael is completed Ren rises one more time as Nexus, the light leaves him but thankfully he survives. Ismael was an excellent final foe for Ren. Talking about cool monster names, does Illustrator makes the names as he goes, is there any meaning behind them?

Final was great too, Lethe is revealed to be Dark Zagi, Ishibori reveals his true intentions. And Nagi manages to be the deunamist with the shortest time as Ultraman, can't blame her, Zagi is a frigging bastard.
The final battle as Komon remembers his bonds with Jun and Ren was excellent and Noa was all kinds of awesome.
Also JUN!? the heck?

Dude I know! Jun being alive was the best surprise of all! It was awesome to know he survived, I mean if Mizorogi could have survived like he did then of course Jun had a chance.

This last set of episodes if what truly hit home for me how much I love this show. I can tell that the ending is rushed from cancellation but it's still so damn satisfying. Had the series gone on longer we would have seen Nagi be Nexus more than once. Actually in the original series synopsis, after Zagi's defeat at the hands of Noa he was supposed to return later as the more fearsome Dark Lucifer.

But this ending is satisfying and positive. Jun gets to live, Komon gets to absolutely kick ass as all 4 four forms of Ultraman, and we see the world finally remember and appreciate Ultraman as a hero. I wish this show hadn't become the black sheep of the franchise, it's just so good. But fear not as Dark Zagi and possibly Riko will be making an appearance in Ultraman Ginga later this year :D

I was like WTF!? But if Mizorogi could survive then it was fair Jun made it too.

Nexus is indeed great, everything wrapped up nicely despite the rush, sure learning more about Noa and Zagi would have been nice, and I would have loved to see more of Ren but all things considered it ended very well.

So Nexus is the black sheep of Ultraman? That's unfair it should be the W / (Insert your favorite show here), it was the show that dared to do things differently and it worked so well. And yeah I heard about Riko and Zagi returning for Ginga, so excited, I have no idea how that'll make sense but wahtever man, more Nexus is great. :D

Talking about Ginga I like how it's doing things differently too, having no earth defense force has actually benefitted the show, the Zero movies are great too and they are quite different from the average Ultra show. Continue to reinvent yourself Ultraman, the future is bright. :D

EXcellent episode, gave Shiori a lot of depth as a character, the Night Raiders were no doubt the main victims of Nexus getting shortened, seeing more of them would have been nice but overall after this episode I'm happy with them.
Why did we watch EX at the end? I know it was released after the show ending, but it took place roughly between 31 and 32, seeing more of Shiori earlier would have made her "almost murder" more shocking.

It was just at the end because it's sort of a throwaway episode with no real tie to the overall plot. It can be watched at pretty much any point just to elaborate on Shiori's character. I actually didn't care for it myself but that's just my personal tastes.

True I guess, at this point any sort of development for the night raiders is good enough for me. :lol

Watched up to Final, will finish up EX at some point over the next few days.

To be honest, I'm having mixed feelings about the finale. Content-wise I can't really fault it, but so much started going on in the last 2-3 episodes it really felt like more time should have been dedicated to them. I guess that isn't their fault though all things considered, and they really did make the best of what they had.

Overall feelings on Nexus? Hard to say really. Its strange because when Jun's uphill struggle began to grate on me the pace changed, and once it did I began to miss the Jun stuff :lol the last few episodes have been superb though. I think I need to give the show a second watch at some point to judge properly - preferably when I'm not juggling about 10 shows at once.

Some good things in these final few episodes. Overall, I liked that the show wrapped up nicely even though it was getting canned. Anyway, onto my specific thoughts

-The Night Raiders revolting was a great moment. Because fuck TLT trying to do asshole things to humanity's only defense when bad stuff is going full drive.

-Ren learning to fight without a death wish was good. And I liked that Nagi was the one who told him. Nice little growth for the both of them.

-Ren trying to erase Mizuo's memory was a powerful moment. While we might not have had much time with them, it shows how much they had bonded with Mizuo desperately fighting back.

-Ismael was an awesome design. I'm a sucker for amalgamation enemies, so I really want this as an Ultra-Act one day </Pipe Dream>

-Ishibori is Unknown Hand/Dark Zagi? Wow, I didn't see that coming. Much like the Riko/Faust twist that was well executed. Well, aside from the fact that Ishibori was such a background character compared to Riko.

-Nagi and Komon getting turns at deunamists was cool. Especially for Komon because he went through the different forms before becoming Noa.

-Jun is alive, cool. I had a feeling if Mizorogi survived the final showdown, he could have too.

-Shiori's origin story was interesting. Glad she finally got some fleshing out. Though that final scene really whiplashes with what happened in the final episode :lol.

1. Interesting to learn that. Considering the color scheme of Dark Zagi, I like to think Belial is a spiritual successor to him now.

2. They are? I might have to check that episode of Ginga out. Do we know what episode it will be?

The Dark Lucifer design is very wicked. Would have been fitting to see Zagi, who is essentially an evil clone of Noa, evolve into a form very much like the Beasts he's been sending to Earth all along. Notice how Lucifer incorporates elements (faces) of both Mephisto and Faust as well.

http://imageshack.us/a/img30/1822/go74.jpg

As for the Ginga thing I know Zagi is appearing, I've already seen the magazine scans. Hikaru will obtain Zagi's spark doll, live into him, fight a kaiju, then lose control and go crazy. Apparently though Riko (possibly the actress who played her originaly even) will appear first and Dark Live into Zagi before Hikaru gets the doll.

That's a cool design. Shame it won't get used.

I THINK its the movie rather than an episode. I vaguely remember reading about Riko for the Ginga movie anyway.

Actually it's funny you should mention that. Originally Dark Lucifer was going to be the villain for the Ultraman Saga movie. Rather than Hyper Zetton being controlled by Alien Bat it would have been Dark Lucifer being revived and controlled in some way. Considering what we got with that movie I would have been MUCH more happy with Lucifer over Hyper Zetton. Zetton just had no personality at all in that film, but being a cyborg/robot thing that's expected. Lucifer just would have been awesome.

You might be right. I just knew it was coming up this fall, wasn't aware which format it would be in with Ginga's weird release schedule.

This is pretty much my reaction, too. It was well done, but Other Dude as the surprise villain would have been way more effective if he wasn't just, you know, Other Dude.

But yeah, I watched the last three episodes (not sure if I'll go for the EX or not, considering I care about as much about Chick as I ever did for Other Dude). The finale of Ren's storyline was really well done and full of awesome scenes. I loved the Night Raiders breaking him out, I loved the scene where he tried to wipe Mizuo's memories, and I really liked his final battle scene. For me, the Ren episodes of Nexus are far and away the strongest part of the show.

The last episode didn't work for me as well. It was a good conclusion, but it was very clear that the writers had to cram a bunch of stuff into the last 23 minutes because they'd been cancelled and a much more fun Ultra series was starting next week. The ideas in it were great, but the execution was kind of a huge mess. I also can't help but feel that the last battle was a bit of a letdown because Noa really looks way less cool than Nexus. :p

All in all, though, I liked Nexus and I'm glad it got the LWW treatment as I never would have watched it otherwise. I'm going to finish up Max next, then either wrap up my long delayed Kuuga rewatch or go ahead and start Tiga properly while I'm still on a big Ultra kick. This has been a fun ride, though.

Ishiborti being the villain really really worked for me. He just came out of nowhere as the big bad. Revelaing his age, the fact that he killed Nagi's parents, that he hid himself within TLT to control and manipulate events. He made himself the wall flower so that he was never noticed. It's really quite brilliant. His reveal at the end was just perfect, just out of the blue shooting Shiori? Oh yes, just the kind of bad guys I like.

As for Noa I actually prefer his appearance to Nexus Anphans and Junis Blue. I really liked standard Junis but Noa just seems so much more regal than Nexus. The Next was organic, unrefined. Nexus is streamlined but wild and intense. Noa is powerful and again pretty regal looking. In contrast to Zagi whose just a dark inversion of Noa. I find that I like Noa's design even more when paired with Zagi, it really just works. But I'm a sucker for OP good guys too :p

I too wouldn't have watched the show without LWW. Of course I also wouldn't have forced my way through Tiga if I hadn't seen Nexus. Trust me when I say that Tiga is ridiculously passable and slow. You may get a headache watching that one like I did.

For me it's mostly the helmet. Nexus has possibly the single best looking helmet in the franchise. Noa's just isn't as cool.

If it's the episodic nature of the show, that won't bother me. Max is highly episodic, too, and I love the hell out of it.

Bingo! Nexus helmet is simply great, Noa's on the other hand is rather generic.

You know, you're right. Usually when we have a consumate schemer or manipulator they are all out in the open. The show never drew attention to Ishibori so him being the grand manipulator was a big twist. Maybe if we had a few more episodes to deal with the fallout I would have been really happy with it.

Yeah, Nexus has a really good helmet design.

It is kind of a good point, yeah. I guess I'm more ambivalent about it. On the one hand, it was cool that the secret traitor was the guy who never did anything but stand around in the background - the true secret mastermind. At the same time, though, it's hard to feel really shocked at his betrayal because he was never really a character that we got to know.

35: TLT how could you?! good for the night raiders for standing up for their horribly corrupt world saving organization. Really nice seeing them all work together outside of the fight.

36/37: Wow, Ren really cares about her so much he wishes to save her the pain of losing him by erasing her memory of him. And losing the ultra power, pretty predictable. But NAGI GETTING IT! I screamed No at my computer screen almost continuously until she gave it to Komon, she soiled the power with her bitchiness. It was actually shocking when zagi just shot shiori out of nowhere. I loved the scene where the captain is going into battle and he looks at all the empty elevators, really nice scene.

And did anyone notice his hand tied to his thruster?I really thought it was appropriate for Komon to get the power and he used it well, but I do wish his fight with zagi was a bit longer and with more going on, especially with the final version of nexus. Overall the series had it's ups and downs, I'd give the whole thing something like a 6.8/10 as a number rating.

As for the EX episode, I thought it has one of the best, if not the best story of the entire nexus series, and some of the best acting, why couldn't Shiori have been the lead? in this alone she has shone she can act in a far wider range than Nagi's actress, and her story was more interesting than Nagi's too. I also thought that the smaller monsters were underutilized in the series, this really being the only other time they were used. Sure the point of ultraman is giant monster fights, but I would have liked to see more of these kinds of enemies sprinkled through out the series. for me the EX episode is really kind of everything the show could have done right, but chose not to for some unknown reason.

I've been so busy the last couple of weeks,I haven't been able to do weekly posts or even be caught up with the show until now. :lol

Overall,I like Nexus.Personally,I found it to be a great introduction into Ultraman.It had great action,great suit and monster designs and for me,a cool cast of characters.Yeah Nagi's a...you know.Ishibori and Shiori are pretty under utilized throughout and if she actually just died from that gunshot,I probably wouldn't have mourned for too long.Wakura's a cool guy and Komon,he really ends up being a good character.Being able to become four different Ultraman forms really helps.

A lot of great moments in these episodes and finally,Ultraman fights in a city.Although I'm happy Jun and Ren survived,I don't know,it kinda feels like a copout to me.The show doesn't even end very happily,the world's still being threatened by Beasts,people are still getting killed and TLT finally has the budget to recruit more than five Night Raiders.

All in all this series did what I hoped it did:Make me wanna buy Ultra Acts.And with Dark Zagi and Noa coming...as exclusives...fffffffffffff

I'm thinking if I wanna start on any other Ultraman thing,I kinda want to see the Ultraman Zero movies.I really want to see what Koichi Sakamoto does with Ultraman.And I want to see Revenge of Belial because I love the look of all of those suits(Glenfire,Jean-bot,Mirror Knight,Belial),except for Zero funny enough.So thank you LWW for making me want to spend more money. :p

Mega Monster Battle, Revenge of Belial, Saga. Those are 3 very awesome, very solid, movies. You need to check them out if you have a taste for Ultra.

What I took from the ending of Nexus is that everything actually ended happily for all involved, and I really liked that after the tragedy from the early part of the show. Mizuo got to be with Ren, Jun survived in hiding, Komon finally became the hero he was destined to be, and TLT finally made themselves public. They had to. I recall a line from one of the final episodes to the effect that people thinking of Beasts and the terror that creates attracts those creatures to Earth. Now that the memoraser was useless to them TLT had to go public, everyone remembered the beasts thus more of them would come to Earth. And using the technology in the Evolthruster TLT was able to create weapons to effectively combat the beast threat. I didn't take it that tons of people continued to die, I took it that now humanity had a fighting chance.

I haven't had a chance to see Saga, but the other two Zero movies are really good, especially Revenge of Belial. A lot of money went into that one and it really shows. If you want to try out another series, though, I have to recommend Max, the show that came after Nexus. It's much more lighthearted, but it's a really, really fun show.