[Shin Henshin]

Dinas apparently being able to utilize the Mons cards in combat actually highlights my biggest issue with Decker now that I think about it.

They did nothing with the card gimmick.

Like yeah, he could summon the capsule monsters, but you'd think they'd play into that more as a utility rather than just as a form swap mechanic like any other gimmick. Imagine how cool and even more fitting of the diversity angle the finale hit on if Decker just summoned the capsule monsters and purified versions of some of the monsters he defeated in past episodes to fight Mother Sphere alongside GUTS Select. All different species, all of which caused conflict due to those differences, coming together for the same cause of saving the Earth.

[SHINOBI03]

And Decker is finally done. Slightly better than Trigger. I liked this rendition of GUTS-SELECT, Agamos was slightly more engaging than the giants, Hanejero was actually likable over the Furby from Dyna. But watching the series weekly was not good with the abundance of delays it suffered through. I know delays are nothing exclusive to this series but it wasn't handled greatly here. The card gimmick was surprisingly lacking. The Capsule Monsters were forgotten and there weren't many forms or abilities to utilize. Agamos had the right idea of having cards with monster powers but neither Decker or GUTS thought about it.

[Layton13]

This is easily my favorite Ultra series I have seen till now, by a long shot.

It's just great. Fantastic characters, great direction, incredibly good one-offs, and a solid plot. This is peak Toku!

Kanata is a very fun and engaging character that really makes seeing him grow super fun.

The entire GUTS-Select team is incredibly well characterized and is used exceptionally well. They really feel like a tight nit family. From robots to grumpy coworkers!

The action and fights are shot fantastically and are never dull, so typical for Ultraman.

Agamas is a good villain, not fantastic, but he works perfectly well and creates exactly the amount of development and conflict he needed to do.

And that last scene with the spaceships coming home was just... surprisingly moving.

This show just radiates joy in every second it's on air, and I'm going to miss it hard. Without a doubt, the best Toku of 2022, even better than Geats and my new 3rd favorite Toku in general.

In short, this show is beautiful!

[Androzani84]

Well, Decker is over and all I can say is… Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But I should probably elaborate, so here’s my full review.

The good:

The show starts off fairly strong with an invasion and the idea that the Ultra can call upon monsters to fight him.

The shared universe aspect gets some prominent focus, with Kengo and Marlulu getting to make comebacks (and Kengo actually gets to keep his own GUTS Sparklence rather than converting to the D Flasher), so there?s also that.

The Terraphaser. I just love that thing’s design and functionality.

Epsidoe 10, for the fact it introduces a tangible villain who actually makes a very good point about humanity’s relationship with monsters.

HANE2 and Asakage, mostly because they stand out among the cast not just for having actual personalities rather than archetypes and their believable relationship with Kanata (Kaizaki fits into the former, but not so much the latter, so she half-counts).

The acting. Not only is Asakage practically a completely different character from Agams, but the fact the rest of the cast spent half the season pretending they didn’t know what was going to happen (an odd choice, since most directors would just not tell them what?s going to happen until they?re actually filming).

The bad:

The characters. Aside from the aforementioned three, none of them have any real personalities and are basically left to fill some stock plots. And there’s a reason I specifically listed Asakage above…

Agams. He’s basically a completely unnecessary addition to the show, who is far less sympathetic than the writers are going for. And the actor is so over the top he idea that he could ever pretend to be normal is ludicrous. The lack of foreshadowing as to his existence really doesn’t help. By the time he died, I felt it was “too little, too late”.

The early episodes. Besides Hanejiro and Kanata buddying up, nothing happens at all until Trigger shows up. They were so boring that I almost quit the show after 5 epsidoes, while someone I know who seldom posts on this forum actually did quit the show after 3 episodes.

The Shield Caliber toy. It’s probably one of the cheapest functioning weapons I’ve seen, to the point it seems like a defect waiting to happen.

The inclusion of past monsters. A lot of them are massively shoehorned in, with Gregorl-Man, Pandon and Geomos feeling like their episodes were written by people who were unfamiliar with the monsters beyond thinking they looked cool.

The second half’s approach to exposition. Things revealed to one character (like the whole deal with Agams, the nature of the mysterious Yuzare and Kanata being Decker) or only to the audience (like Dyna actually being in the show inspired by him) are suddenly known by everyone, with nary an explanation.

The future Decker. Like Agams, he’s an unnecessary addition to the show who does nothing but rob Kanata of having a real goal in favour of railroading him to follow his own goal. And his lack of foreshadowing or later appearances make it clear he was only there for exposition Agams himself could’ve given.

The lack of characters in the know. I singled this out near the start of the show?s run, and my fears were founded. Kanata has no real chemistry with any of the cast as a result and no reason is given as to why he has to or wants to keep it a secret.

Episode 4’s attempts at comedy. They were massively out of place with the previous somber tone, and not at all funny.

The lack of any real connections to Dyna. Yeah, the Spheres are there, but they have a completely different design and MO (destroying planets rather than absorbing them). Yes, there’s a few monsters, but they’re limited to filler episodes (and like I said, other than Mons-Ahgar, come off like they were written by people who’d never seen their original episodes).

The fact that the Synthetic Beasts in this series are simply called Sphere (name of monster). Compared to Dyna’s more creative names for its Synthetic Beasts, it comes off as lazy and uninspired. (I mean, what sounds cooler. Neo-Darambia, or Sphere-Red King?)

The whole of episode 9. From the obnoxious teenage daughter, to the health problems that never get resolved in any meaningful way, to the returning alien feeling like name-slap rather than an attempt at a homage, it’s easily the worst episode of the series.

Basically, I?m going for a score of 5 over 1.8 out of 10. Not a recommendable series.

[Layton13]

This is the stuff I love the Toku community for.

You can have a post saying it's one of the best Toku's they've ever seen, followed by one tearing it to pieces, and both are valid. Such a diverse fandom always makes a discussion interesting.

That said, I can not stand for the slander of episode 4!

A made-to-order monster infomercial is a genius idea that left me wheezing once it was clear what this was about! And I will not accept any disagreements!

[Kurona]

Pretty good series overall, then! Not one I found particularly exceptional, but it easily passes a bar for me and was just a good, fun show every week. A likable cast, a strong premise, a wealth of fun individual episodes that Ultraman is so good for... yeah, I was pretty happy to have this one on every week! Not my favourite but you can do a lot worse; it's another great New Generation Ultraman show to add to the list :]

[Kiwami]

I found Decker to be even less enjoyable than Trigger and am firmly in the "good riddance"-camp, but it wasn’t bad. It was just way too mediocre and boring for its own good. Trigger was worse as a show overall, but stood out more IMO, the Trigger-cast was so inflated that you didn’t have a lot of time to focus on each character, meanwhile Decker has good focus episodes but they are just the same boring old stuff. Not once did this show anything to surprise or excite me.

I have high hopes for the next show, I just want to have fun watching a new Ultra series again.

[Byg42]

As far as finales go, Decker's finale was pretty standard. It doesn't introduce any big bombshells or revelations, it doesn't end in some unexpected way, it simply does everything it needed to do and wraps the show up neatly. And I think that itself is kind of a perfect summation of what I really love about Decker. That outside some specific references and elements, it's very much just a traditional Ultraman show that's executed and done really well. It simply nails all basic fundamentals and concepts of Ultra, showcasing how well those elements hold up even in modern toku. The show also probably has one of the better balances between episodic and plot related content in New Gen. There's certainly some things that could have been improved, I understand the heavy Agams focus in the second half turned some people away, so perhaps some additional non-Agams related episodes could have help with that. In the end though, Decker left me joyful and satisfied, reminding me exactly why I love this franchise so much. Here's looking forward to the movie and what's next to come for Ultraman.

[ShiShiLeo]

Did anyone else feel like the commercial breaks and segments really took away from the tone of the finale? Normally I don't mind them and fully understand their need, but they were a real clash in this episode.

Anyway, I ended up liking Decker more than I was expecting. I was let down with Trigger and could not finish it. Decker did feel like it was missing a true standout thing, though Hane2 and Terraphaser are really great and I hope we see more of them in the future. About the coolest thing for me was the meta-awareness of Future Decker being Masashi Taniguchi and therefore making him the 2nd person ever to be a main character in the big 3 toku, but that has nothing to do with the show itself.

I will add that I really appreciate the new Ultraman series' being just 25 or so episodes. Keeps things nice and cohesive for the most part, though I did feel like Decker could have used more episodes due to how grand the story tried to be.

[Switchblade]

Personally, I consider Decker to have been a better version of what Trigger was trying to do. I thought it was really solid, but still below the standard set by shows like Orb, Geed, or Z. That’s a very high standard, though, and I would definitely never call Decker bad, just unremarkable.

I did appreciate how this show brought the supporting cast back into the foreground again. After Trigger made the Captain, Workout Bro, and FALCON-CHAN!!! into glorified extras, it was nice to actually care about Ryumon, Kirino, and the commanders. I especially liked Kirino’s reaction to Kanata’s secret and how much that visibly hurt her. I didn’t think Agams was nearly as successful as a villain, but he worked well enough for me.

I know we’re probably stuck with New Generation TDG for one more year, but I feel more hopeful for Gaia Redux now than I did a year ago.