[GoldenXtreme]

I watched Ginga and Ginga S. I went in with pretty low expectations given what I knew about the show's and Tsuburaya's situation at the time.

Ginga was a particularly odd show, sort of like an extra cheap version of Gridman, what with the school-aged protagonists, the socially awkward classmate guy working for the villain, and the love triangle situation going on. The video editing is often very sloppy, and the plot is running at turbo speed so things often get resolved very quickly, which gives the whole thing a certain amateur charm. It was also nice that the protagonist would fight a bit in monster form before turning into Ginga, something Ginga S largely dropped. Still, it's such a slapdash effort overall that I can't say I would really recommend the show. As a side note, this is the last Ultra thing Keiichi Hasegawa wrote for, kind of glad to be leaving him behind to be honest.

Ginga S is a substantially better crafted show overall, with much more ambition both narratively and visually. It ultimately just kind of ends up as such an archetypical tokusatsu that it's hard to find much excitement in it though. It does have a few episodes that were interesting though, especially later on! I liked the one where Shepherdon dies, the one with the girl who was from the exiled group of Victorians, and the ones with the Alien Metron who got really into idol culture (which also has him do a Kaiketsu Zubat parody at one point? What the heck, lmao.)

I also have a few observations that really apply to both shows. Listen, people always say you will ultimately come around to the wrestling-inspired fights in Ultra shows, but I never really did. Like... as far as choreography goes I pretty much only liked Cosmos before this with his tai chi moves and emphasis on subduing his opponents most of the time. But I liked the style in both of these shows a lot! They were more like what I would generally associate with tokusatsu shows, with cool martial arts combat. I also liked Victory being more of a kick fighter than Ginga, which made him stand out. Really hoping this style sticks around in future shows. My other observation was... more of something I HEARD. I noticed that both these shows, but especially Ginga S has a lot of moments where the audio peaked (but perhaps that was due to Ginga S having a lot more shouting, haha). It got me thinking about how a lot of older tokusatsu records all the footage without sound, then dubs the audio track on later, even for out of suit scenes. Was Ginga or Ginga S Tsuburaya's first show that tried to record audio alongside the footage? It would explain the issue.

Anyways I feel comfortable ranking these 2 shows separately since I feel like they both stand on their own fairly well. I'll give Ginga a D since its just a bit too janky for me even if it has some charm, while Ginga S gets a C for being perfectly acceptable but wildly unambitious.