[GoldenXtreme]

I guess because I didn't like rewatching Kamen Rider Geats much I completely blitzed through Ultraman The Next and Ultraman Nexus.

The Next is interesting, it is definitely an Ultraman film, but is a little more serious than normal and takes some notes from Kamen Rider and full-blooded Kaiju movies. Lots of great spectacle, but it feels so radically different from its followup that I can barely accept them being in the same universe.

Nexus was a wild, wild ride. Once again it becomes immediately obvious that this show really wanted to copy the success of some of the darker, early 2000s Kamen Rider shows, but it did plenty to make itself stand out as it went along. It was really interesting how they kept the viewpoint character Komon and the characters who were Nexus separate up until almost the end. Previously I have often slightly disliked Hasegawa as a writer, but I thought he did quite well here. The first 2/3rd of the show with the Himeya arc was some truly special stuff, with the way it blurs the line between truth and fiction for both the characters and the viewer themself as they wonder what and whom can even be trusted. The way it gets your guard down by acting like it is going to play out a more simple story arc before sucker punching you with something much more insidious, such as how they give Komon's girlfriend Riko a bunch of death flags to distract you from her actual nature or give the Night Raiders shiny new powerups only for something terrible to unfold after they use it. It created a truly oppressive, fearful atmosphere, yet ultimately let hope bloom. Awesome stuff, I was completely addicted to watching one episode after another during this part. Unfortunately I didn't like the Ren stretch of the show nearly as much. It seems like Ai Ota was the writer who took charge of most of that stretch of the show and typically I like her, but I was just kind of meh on the Ren arc with it's predictable plot beats and lighter tone. The Himeya arc of the show tended to have very grounded character drama for the most part, but between the more soap-operay concepts (a kid who is dying from cellular breakdown! Mizorogi has amnesia!) and adding a bunch of extra characters instead of fleshing out the existing ones it just didn't really grab me. I don't think anything really happened during this part of the show that surprised me, except for the sheer frenzy of a final episode (and that didn't surprise me in a good way). Of course, the show was supposed to be longer initially too, which means many story elements had to be compressed into the Ren arc or flat out dropped, which just generally made it feel sloppier too. Would have loved to have seen a fully fleshed out Nagi storyline like was originally planned! Some issues plague both parts of the show. The budget for the series is blatantly rock bottom, which results in a low amount of effect sequences and fights. There was also a truly comical amount of flashback sequences in this show, likely to pad for time due to the aforementioned budget. So... I liked it, but it definitely had a lot of problems. I think if I suggested the show to someone I would actually just suggest watching the Himeya arc, because I felt more satisfied after that was over than when I finished the whole thing!