[GuardianAngel87]

I have knocked out episodes 31-40 of Ultraman Cosmos over the last couple of days and I have watched Ultraman: The Next movie in between. I have also inexplicably started on watching Ultraman Nexus today.

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuardianAngel87

I have knocked out episodes 31-40 of Ultraman Cosmos over the last couple of days and I have watched Ultraman: The Next movie in between. I have also inexplicably started on watching Ultraman Nexus today.

Maybe a decade or so of watching Ultraman now and with many more shows under my belt, I still think Nexus has probably my favorite helmet design of the Ultrasmen.

[Frontier]

I think a lot of people can relate to Aoi's circumstances...having such strong dreams when you're young only to end up in a dead-end job, no prospects both of the financial and relationship variety, and all your friends seem so much more successful than you are. Oh, and she's Rin's friend from high school, because apparently Rin had a bad habit of knowing people in high school who would get into Kaiju trouble.

Never listen to the glowing red orb that says it will grant your wish. Wait, this actually sounds kind of familiar...

Nothing like raising a baby Kaiju creature to get over the ol' writers block!

Honestly, I don't blame Dori at all. It clearly wasn't 100% hostile or outright attacking anyone, and it just got shot for looking scary. Though I wonder if it would've found some way to force Aoi to summon KING OF MONS anyways.

GIVAS RETURNS! This time as back-up for Ultraman Arc and for a stellar and phenomenally choreographed team-up! And Givas making the sacrifice play so Arc could do the Finisher, but thankfully Arc's teleportation powers prevents Givas from biting it! He won't be catching people with his back any time soon, however!

Oh snap, Emi and Ken are coming to Gigabash!

Just like in the Battle of Hyperspace, ultimately the Sphere just wants to be wished away rather than continue to plague humanity. And maybe Aoi now has a better lease on life after her experience and seeing that even the pinnacle of human creation can have problems, so by comparison she can just make the most of the life she has now.

[SHINOBI03]

Ultraman Taiga thoughts: I call it "A series of poorly executed ideas"

To recap, Ultraman R/B was a series I wanted to get over with as quickly as possible to reach Taiga, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Ultraman Taiga on the other hand is a series I was excited to start but ended up wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.

Where to begin... How about the premise? It's a series starring the son of Taro, one of the original six Ultras and only the second son after seeing Zero; the son of Ultraseven getting most of the spotlight for the past several years. This series barely plays that as a factor.

Ultraman Taro, who was a major character appearing in previous shows as a main or supporting character is also barely a footnote. I find it hard to believe that he never once noticed or heard about his son going back to life or even attempting to pay one visit as soon as he heard the news or giving him any advice to carry for his quest, when not that long ago he was happy handing toys to random Ultras from alternate dimensions. Instead, it's ZERO who pays a visit and it's only because he sensed Belial and his meeting was a coincidence.

Then there's Tregear. A villain who didn't even debut here and yet I feel like I know less about him than in the R/B movie. I thought he was an interesting villain, but the more the series goes the more he loses my interest, His shtick got boring and we still don't know his real deal other than he was a scientist and Taro's former friend. Okay, but why did he turn evil? What made him believe the light was the true evil and his way was the truth? 25 episodes and the series never answered this question.

The Tri-Squad is another wasted gimmick to set this series apart. For all the talk about being a "team" they never fought as a team. Instead of having a true team of 3 Ultras fighting together they limited them to your standard multi-forms of Balance/Strength/Speed. Not even for the series finale they managed to pull something to have a true team fight of all 3 against Tregear. They were just taking turns fighting from start to finish.

EGIS as a team could've been more interesting if it was comprised entirely of aliens. 3/4 are already aliens so I feel they should've gone with that openly and turn this to an alien agency that serves both aliens and earthlings seeing the big theme of this series where it's very open about the tension in relationship between the races and the xenophobia it tackles, which is sadly undermined when most of the "alien" characters go for a human disguise without even showing what they look like (damn you budget restrictions) as for the conflict itself, it's only in the last 5 or so episodes when it starts to turn to a really big issue among earthlings and aliens. Wish the series always had this attitude from the very beginning to make the ending more rewarding

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHINOBI03

Ultraman Taiga thoughts: I call it "A series of poorly executed ideas"

To recap, Ultraman R/B was a series I wanted to get over with as quickly as possible to reach Taiga, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Ultraman Taiga on the other hand is a series I was excited to start but ended up wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.

Where to begin... How about the premise? It's a series starring the son of Taro, one of the original six Ultras and only the second son after seeing Zero; the son of Ultraseven getting most of the spotlight for the past several years. This series barely plays that as a factor.

Ultraman Taro, who was a major character appearing in previous shows as a main or supporting character is also barely a footnote. I find it hard to believe that he never once noticed or heard about his son going back to life or even attempting to pay one visit as soon as he heard the news or giving him any advice to carry for his quest, when not that long ago he was happy handing toys to random Ultras from alternate dimensions. Instead, it's ZERO who pays a visit and it's only because he sensed Belial and his meeting was a coincidence.

Then there's Tregear. A villain who didn't even debut here and yet I feel like I know less about him than in the R/B movie. I thought he was an interesting villain, but the more the series goes the more he loses my interest, His shtick got boring and we still don't know his real deal other than he was a scientist and Taro's former friend. Okay, but why did he turn evil? What made him believe the light was the true evil and his way was the truth? 25 episodes and the series never answered this question.

The Tri-Squad is another wasted gimmick to set this series apart. For all the talk about being a "team" they never fought as a team. Instead of having a true team of 3 Ultras fighting together they limited them to your standard multi-forms of Balance/Strength/Speed. Not even for the series finale they managed to pull something to have a true team fight of all 3 against Tregear. They were just taking turns fighting from start to finish.

EGIS as a team could've been more interesting if it was comprised entirely of aliens. 3/4 are already aliens so I feel they should've gone with that openly and turn this to an alien agency that serves both aliens and earthlings seeing the big theme of this series where it's very open about the tension in relationship between the races and the xenophobia it tackles, which is sadly undermined when most of the "alien" characters go for a human disguise without even showing what they look like (damn you budget restrictions) as for the conflict itself, it's only in the last 5 or so episodes when it starts to turn to a really big issue among earthlings and aliens. Wish the series always had this attitude from the very beginning to make the ending more rewarding

Show wasn't super impressive except for the designs of the Ultra hero suits, 6.5/10 for me if I had to rate it. I didn't hate it, but in retrospect there seemed to be a hint of fatigue for a lack of better words. Loved his upgrades, one of them was hilariously very GARO because of the gold and black color scheme.

[Byg42]

Personally, Taiga is one of my fav Ultra shows. I found the show to be very nuance and bold in terms of its themes and what subject matter it was willing to explore. There was a lot of stuff in Taiga that I just didn't expect from a modern Toku.

However, I do think the biggest issue with the show and what I feel is the reason it has a somewhat tepid reception from most people, is that the aesthetics of Taiga doesn't really match what the show is about.

Taiga was advertise as being the son of Taro and that he would be part of a team of Ultras from other worlds, fighting a former friend of Taro. Thus, I assume most people went into the show expecting it to be a Taro tribute show with maybe a Den-O esque dynamic with the Ultras.

What the show actually ends up being about is exploring its world setting of "aliens secretly living amongst humans", using that setting to explore all kinds of stories and other sorts of allegories. The stuff with Taro, the Tri-Squad and Tregear is present, but its really more in the background until it comes up for story purposes.

Like I said, I really do love Taiga and what it set out to explore. However I do feel its aesthetics end up setting the wrong expectations for the show. It made people think the show was going to be about something else rather than what it actually ended up being about.

[SHINOBI03]

I've finally done it...

My 4 years journey in the Ultra Series... It's finally over. Could you believe it? And it's all because Tsuburaya made Ultraman Z easily accessible worldwide. If it weren't for that then this entire franchise would never go beyond a pinned note on my back.

[Switchblade]

Getting caught up on Arc and I finally hit the much-anticipated Blazar crossover. What the fuck was this bullshit? You couldn?t get a single cast member back? Why even go to Blazar?s world if all you going to do is stick the same cast in different costumes? Loved seeing and hearing Blazar again, but this episode was incredibly disappointing.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Getting caught up on Arc and I finally hit the much-anticipated Blazar crossover. What the fuck was this bullshit? You couldn?t get a single cast member back? Why even go to Blazar?s world if all you going to do is stick the same cast in different costumes? Loved seeing and hearing Blazar again, but this episode was incredibly disappointing.

Apparently, the creators felt obligated to pay tribute to Senpai, but at the same time, Tsuburaya did not prepare anything for this. Personally, I also think that at least a couple of actors from Blazar would have helped a lot even with this crossover concept. And ideally, I wouldn?t mind seeing a complete exchange of roles.

[GuardianAngel87]

I thought this whole crossover arc would be far better as a plot line for Ultraman Arc’s own post-series movie complete with a more straight forward crossover with Blazar and actually feature most of the main cast from that series.