[Kiwami]

I'm still watching 80, but since I'm caught up on the official upload schedule, its one episode per week now for me. The series has improved lately, more fun, character driven plots and less of the same-y UGM battles.

But that's not why I’m writing this post, I have completed a show I've never seen before - Ultraman Nexus!

This was one of the shows I initially heard the most praise for when I started watching Ultraman. The franchise wasn't as accessible back then as it is now, so I had no real chance to watch it and bookmarked it in my mind to watch later. And when Tamashii Nations announced the new Figuarts Nexus I remembered - and could just pick up the entire show for 20 bucks on eBay. Crazy how easy all of this has become!

So I watched all of it (+ "The Next" movie) and, well, it was not what I expected. At all

It was good, really good, I binged one disc each Sunday, which is like 7 episodes, and it was never once boring. But I was speechless how far, very far removed it seemed from the Ultraman shows I know. It is really scary, super dark and plain unfriendly. Like, everyone hates and mistrusts each other, the monsters are frightening to look at and act brutal and cruel, it’s more like a horror series than anything.

That's what I thought at first and was feeling quite unwelcome, at that point I was very much ready to quit and go back to a simple, colorful and fun Showa series!

But I couldn’t stop watching. The strong narrative and serialization kept me hooked. This isn't one monster per week in a self contained story, this is an ongoing story in which battling a single monster can take 3-4 episodes! Wow.

And the more I watched, the more I could see the light. The message of Ultraman is there, but it takes time to unfold. You are confronted with darkness at first, but the more you watch, the more you understand the message of this show. "The light is a bond and it will always shine again!".

The characters are really great too; their growth is fun to witness. But they and the story face a difficult situation - the show was wrapped up early. "Only" 37 episodes! It's not hard to guess why - if I am troubled with what I'm seeing, no way a preschooler is enjoying any of it

This show is way too grim and evil for children, no matter what cool gadgets the good guys have and how awesome Ultraman is at beating the monsters. Any sane parent will ban this show from their household after the first nightmare happens, which won’t take long at all. Speaking of nightmares, the monsters, those are a good point to talk about another thing that makes this show very special - there are no Kaiju! The monsters are instead "Space Beasts" and their existence is a secret as this show has their own "Men in Black" who go around and erase memories of them and Ultraman. Which makes for a very unique setting and tone.

And our protagonist with whom we spend the most time– is not Ultraman! In fact, Ultraman is not a part of the defense team at all. He’s an individual who found the light and uses it to protect the Earth. And who is later replaced, as the light chooses different people to fight! That makes for very unique situations not found in most other Ultraman shows.

It's a shame though that due to its nature Nexus wasn't received favorably and was thus not able to be finished properly. The ending they went with isn’t bad by any means, but the last few episodes pick up an insane pace as the writers try to wrap up the story with the little time they have left.

Man, what an insane ride this show is. At first I disliked it, but couldn’t stop because it was so good, then I started to love it and then it was already over

But hey, now that I do love it there’s no use crying over spilled milk and wondering what could’ve been; now I have a new favorite show to rewatch every other year!

Lastly, I want to finish this post with “The Next”. So Nexus by itself is part of a project with the goal to revitalize the Ultraman franchise, which also included stage plays and a big screen movie. That movie, only called “ULTRAMAN” on screen but titled “The Next” nowadays, is a prequel to Nexus and essentially a remake of the very first Ultraman episode. It’s about Ultraman’s arrival on Earth and his battle with Bemular.

It’s – also very different. It’s a reimagining of sorts, there’s really nothing familiar in here aside from Ultraman himself. The setting is about two colored spheres arriving on Earth, a blue and a red one, like in the original show, but the blue one creates a Resident Evil monstrosity and the red one strikes a jet fighter plane and the pilot becomes the host to Ultraman. The entire movie is basically a self-contained story about what happens next. Heh, “Next”.

But, that movie is canon to Nexus. That Ultraman is the Ultraman of Nexus, it’s his first appearance on Earth and some of the events of the move are later mentioned and shown in the main series.

An interesting watch for sure, but kind of like other superhero movies of the time it doesn’t do a great job of adapting the source material. But that was intentional I guess, much with the decisions that make Nexus so different. They wanted different, not traditional.

The last point I want to make, and that’s why I had to mention “The Next” – the effect work, both in Nexus and “The Next” is simply stunning. So good. It was that weird era of special effects, during which the CGI technology wasn’t quite there yet but so much more care and work went into trying to make these effects work. And they are coupled with practical effects, so what you see here is a visual spectacle. Especially the Space Beasts are so terrifying because they seem real, even when they are fully computer generated. And when Ultraman takes to the skies and battles while flying – yes it looks like a Playstation 2 era cutscene, but it works. It’s fun and looks cool.

So yeah, all in all, it was a great experience. And I am not at all surprised that they went back to a more traditional show after this!