[macblo]

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Well with Geed now in full swing I figure it's a good time to go back and fill a few gaps in Ultraman-wise, starting with Ultra Fight Orb and The Origin Saga.

Ultra Fight Orb is what you'd expect. A quick little thing with a thin plot and tons of action. It's fun for what it is, and I'd be lying if I pretended seeing various Ultramen team up isn't always a good time. It's also sort of an impromptu Geed prequel? Not directly, unless his seemingly nonsensical cameo here actually gets explained later (which would be both crazy and awesome), but Zero is as big a part of the whole thing as Orb, and Belial comes up a few times, so it sorta kinda preps viewers for Geed in that sense. Although the segments aired as part of Zero's own "show" that was definitely meant to catch people up for Geed, so I guess it's not really that surprising.

Of course The Origin Saga is the main event here. Overall I'd say that, while it wasn't anything spectacular, it was pretty good and an interesting, experimental take on an Ultraman series. Which was already kind of what Orb was, but this takes it to the next level. The narrative is completely serialized, the tone feels noticeably more "adult" without being too alienating to kids (it's not Amazons, basically), and the style can adequately be summed up as "What if we made Orb the star of a fantasy space opera?".

Strangely the actual origin part of The Origin Saga is only slightly less glossed over than in the TV series. I actually really like that they went this direction as I feel it's ultimately unimportant how Gai became Orb. What is important, and what this series does focus on, is how the events taking place immediately after he gains his powers shape him and Jugglus Juggler into the characters we saw on TV. In that respect I think the series succeeds spectacularly, adding a lot of depth to the both of them and giving them each very solid arcs.

The actual plot is where things get a little crazy. This post is long enough as it is so I won't go into too much detail, but basically, Gai's adventure here makes everything that happens afterwards feel like a vacation. Dude had to save an entire universe on his first day as a hero. There are a few elements that fell a little flat for me (like everything with Shohei, even though it IS important), but it was still pretty interesting. One thing I was very impressed by was how the other Ultramen didn't feel shoehorned in. Dyna comes the closest, acting as sort of the idealized hero Gai wants to be, except that he never really does any mentoring or anything. Cosmos on the other hand fits in quite naturally, being the pacifist(ish) Ultraman in a story revolving around the irony of trying to create peace by fighting. Similarly Gaia and Agul serve as a nice mirror to Gai and Juggler's relationship as it starts to fall apart.

At the end of the day I had a lot of fun watching it. This is sort of a weird compliment but I think you could conceivably watch this and Orb proper in either order and both shows would add to the other. Ultimately I don't think there's much higher praise you can give a prequel than that and it's kind of a shame The Origin Saga isn't more readily available outside of Japan.

First off, there's an actually Ultraman discussion thread. Not really important, especially since it seems kind of silly to go to another thread to continue this conversation, but it is there. Second, I also enjoy Origin Saga very much. It was very different then I expected and, while I may have been a bit disappointed at first, the fact that I blew through all 12 episodes in three days when I normally don't watch more then a couple of episodes of a show at once means I warmed up to it real quick.

Something that I'm also excited to see is the rest of the Ultraman Orb 10 Episode Plan. I'm specifically interested in seeing how Orb got the Orb Ring and Juggler got the Dark Ring.