Ultraman: The Next Generation
What They Say:
Several years have passed since the events of Ultraman, with the legendary “Giant of Light” (光の巨人 Hikari no Kyojin) now a memory, as it is believed he returned home after fighting the many giant aliens that invaded the Earth. Shin Hayata’s son Shinjiro seems to possess a strange ability, and it is this ability, along with his father’s revelation that he was Ultraman, that leads Shinjiro to battle the new aliens invading the Earth as the new Ultraman.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a whole lot of content over the years in a lot of forms, Ultraman was a property I could never get into. But this incarnation intrigued me as it’s based on the ongoing manga series by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi that began in 2011 and has eleven volumes out so far. This series captured a bit of my interested as well in that it has Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramarki directing it with both Production I.G. and Sola Digital Arts involved. And it’s also a plus in that the whole series of thirteen episodes is dropped at once for fans to binge on, which can definitely color how you view a series. I’m admitting upfront that I’m only reviewing the first episode for now, however, simply because there’s no time for me to binge that much on top of all the other commitments. But for fans who can? This is pretty enticing.
Taking place after the events of the original 39 episode series that ran in the ‘60s, the premise is given to us that we’re now in a post-Ultraman world, a thing of the past as we see from the Museum dedicated to it and the battles that were fought. It makes sense that when things were done and over with that it would transition this way and it’s cute seeing some of that original science team coming to it with their young children and all the kinds of tensions and frictions that might exist between the old guard. Shinjiro, as a little boy, is certainly cute enough here. But when we see Shinjiro fall from a pretty long height for a small boy and survive with no issues – and no heavy concern from his father – the stage is set to learn that he’s more than he looks. It’s something that his father suspected and now struggles with, something that has happened from their time long ago.
But it ties into Shinjiro’s father Shin in a big way as well, as it’s revealed that he has no memory of seeing Ultraman from his time in the SSSP, which surprises his fellow member from that time as well. Hell, the guy also seems to have some real strength to him. But that’s the opening for him to be introduced to the reality of the museum; it’s just a cover. The lower levels are fully functional because they’re not simply sitting around waiting for anything else to happen but rather to be proactive about it. It’s the kind of thing that makes plenty of sense after what happened with Ultraman and what it fought, but also to keep this part of it secret in keeping the SSSP alive. When Shin’s shown a video of a plane explosion from six months prior, it was a terrorist act at first and then a maintenance issue. The reality of the footage is that it’s anything but that, but rather a new wave from their past. And that image brings all of his memories back and that the culprit is actually Ultraman.
This stage setting is nicely done in giving us time with some of the old guard from before and that allows it to shift forward ten years to give us Shinjiro as a teenager, knowing that he’s been protected all this time and unknowing about what was really going on in the past and with what role his father had in Ultraman. Or so one would think as Shinjiro has discovered over time that he’s not “normal” in a sense, with strength and physical skills that exceeds the norm. So it’s no surprise that when he sees a group of girls that he knows being bothered by some punks that he tries to get involved, but it goes badly (as expected) and has him really questioning what this power he has is. It’s all fairly straightforward for anyone who has seen similar before in that this power exists within him and the arrival of the being we saw before is here to remove that power from the world. It’s a pretty good encounter when we get it toward the end as there’s a good sense of power there with some real sleekness of design and that combined with Shinjiro on the run with his limited grasp of the abilities works a quiet sense of dread about it.
In Summary:
I know the 3DCG thing is still not working for a lot of anime fans but I continue to enjoy the evolution and different approaches employed for the past decade+ in how it’s being done. Ultraman has a pretty good look about it and I like that Kamiyama and Aramaki go for a lot of quiet scenes, even amid the action, where the power of the moment isn’t defined by the music itself. When it swells it sets the tone just right but without it, we get some good character moments. I like that the series is moving us forward from the original and providing both an entry point and something fresh that isn’t fully defined by before. It’s a proper next generation kind of project that’s accessible but has more meaning if you’ve seen the original. While I may not get back to it anytime soon, I’m looking forward to more of this down the line.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Netflix
Please note: Netflix is streaming this in Japanese, English, German, Spanish, and French languages with subtitles in English, Spanish, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, as well as Japanese Closed Captions.
