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Episode #54 of "Ultraman Cosmos" features the gentle monster Tablis:

Tablis was heavily inspired by Daigoro from Tsuburaya's 1972 children's movie "Daigoro vs Goliath".
Note: Though the official name of the monster is Tablis, the English subtitles spell it Toubles, which is actually closer to the originally intended name Doubles which was abandoned as it couldn't be trademarked.

 

This week, the 55th Anniversary campaign presents episode #12 of "Ultraman Orb":

 

In episode #55, an alien girl infiltrates the island where the peaceful monsters are kept to turn Mienin back into the rampaging Gamoran:


And with episode #7 of "Ultraman Mebius, we're apparently back to no English subtitles:

 

Trigger was a weird one this week, with everyone except Yuna experiencing hallucinations of their wishes being fulfilled and getting distracted from the monster attack, but with the source of the hallucinations going unexplained and left as a cliffhanger. We got a slight bit more insight into the supporting characters for a change, but not much. And I only now realize in retrospect that the three villains were all having wish-fulfillment hallucinations too.

My favorite shot this week was a "continuous" sequence of Kengo transforming in a run. A flash of light concealed the transition from Kengo running on location to Trigger running through the miniature city, but it was still a fairly good illusion and a clever idea.

And apparently I'm going to have to adjust to the show streaming an hour earlier, because Daylight Savings Time ended in the US. I didn't notice last week because my Internet was out and I didn't get to see the episode until later.

 

Trigger #18:

The wishes did not actually do much in fleshing out the one-note secondary characters, IMO, but rather re-inforced that they truly are one-note. The captain's wish is a promotion, all about his job. Sakuma's wish is to be a model for recruitment posters, all about appearing fit and strong to appeal to others. Nanase got a lottery ticket to get money to upgrade her piloting equipment. And Marluru was all about that small appartment with a dinner table. Which he kind of already got in the form of his quarters at GUTS-Select HQ. And even with the main characters, Kengo's wish was for everybody to be as enthusiastic and optimistic as him.
We learned nothing new about the characters in this episode, except maybe that they were hardly able to get their head back in the game when their wishes were crushed.

The preview for the next episode suggests this new player is Kyrieloid, alien villains of Tiga. I think I also spotted Shizuma in the preview, so my guess is he'll be able to tell the other characters about the Kyrieloid from experience in his home universe.

 

True, but at least there was a small effort made to get them out of their usual on-duty roles, to do something with them other than the same repetitive bits, and even that's a step forward. I mean, so far, the captain's been this utterly stalwart, cool, disciplined, unflinching leader, and here we got to see him show a more vulnerable and comic side for a change. And it's a relief just to see Nanase getting enthusiastic about anything other than Falcon-chan, even something as generic as a lottery, and to see Sakuma enthusiastic about something other than exercise. Okay, maybe they're different expressions of their same core interests, but at least they're different, and that in itself is progress compared to what we've had up to now. Is it entirely satisfying in itself? No. Does it give me some small hope that maybe they'll continue to give the characters a little more breadth and variation in their story roles going forward? Yes, it does, however faintly.

I thought that name looked familiar.


Meanwhile, I'm two episodes into Ultraman Taro on ShoutFactory, and I think my desire for completism has finally met its match. Apparently this was the most kid-friendly series, and their interpretation of that was to be ridiculous, and not in a good way. The team members act like clowns, and they dress like them too, in ridiculously garish red and blue uniforms. The monsters so far are kind of silly too. I'm not sure I have the patience to put up with even one more episode, let alone 51 more. I'm considering skipping ahead to Leo, though I gather that was exceptionally dark in reaction to Taro's lightness, and I'm not sure I'd like that either.

 

Two ancient monsters rise again in episode #19 of "Ultraman":

 

I decided to stick with Taro a bit longer, and I'm glad I did. After the lame opening 3-parter, there's a pretty effective 2-parter involving a family of benign turtle kaiju that are driven to revenge and madness when humans try to capture them and destroy their eggs, with Kotaro/Taro and his team wanting to protect them and wrestling with the morality of being ordered to kill them. The turtles are blatant Gamera ripoffs right down to their spinning flight, but it's a surprisingly dark and nuanced story after the really goofy premiere arc. If most of the series is more like this, then it might be worthwhile after all.

 

Watch the Invaders use their laboratory of test tubes filled with multi-colored liquids to create bug monsters, in episode #25 of "Mirrorman":

 

A Kappa attacks disrespectful young campers, in episode #56 of "Ultraman Cosmos":

 

This week's entry in the 55th Anniversary Campaign is episode #40 of "Ultraman Taro", in which the mash-up monster Tyrant defeats Taro's five older Ultra-Brothers on its way to Earth, giving us some nice new Ultra fight footage mixed in with flashbacks to the previous four Ultra's series, while Kotaro is trying to teach a kid to ride a bike, all in one half-hour episode:

 

In episode #57 of "Ultraman Cosmos", a lonely old man calls upon a legendary creature of the cold to take him to the land of memory:


And in episode #8 of "Ultraman Mebius" (which does come with English subtitles again this week), a chibi-Eleking is the side-product of giving capsule monster Miclas Eleking's electric powers:

 

Pretty impressive, action-packed Trigger today. (I finally caught on that it's livestreaming at 7:30 Eastern now because the US went back to standard time, so I was able to catch it nearly live again.) The running battle in the city among the Giants of Darkness and Trigger began just before sundown, with some beautifully done shots of the sun reflecting off the buildings' windows, and continued through sunset and into full darkness, with the transition done very convincingly, if time-compressed. Then we got an effective nighttime battle as Yuna realized her father carried the light of Ultraman Tiga with him from his home dimension, and she was able to draw it out and manifest Tiga to fight alongside Trigger against the Kyrieloid. Really effective miniature, lighting, and camera work.

Seeing Tiga again was kind of nice, but I would've rather seen Daigo return. Also, the Kyrieloid's motives were kind of vague. Did it really want to find a savior, as it said, or was that just how it tempted Yuna since she was immune to its illusions?

 

Sorry for the delay, I was off to ComicCon in Stuttgart, and visiting my brother and his wife who live there, over the weekend. Anyway, here's Trigger episode #19:

I also had hoped to see Daigo return. My guess would be Hiroshi Nagano's agency being difficult again, as that's the usual reason for Nagano not appearing (as well as being edited out of the Tiga episodes of the Chronicles series).
When Tiga appeared, I was kind of expecting this to be another cliffhanger, as the fight with the Dark Ultras was over and the Kyrieloid just appeared at the very end of the episode. They really packed a lot of action into this one.

Also, episode #20 of "Ultraman" has the monster from the imagination of a dead boy come to life:


And if that's not enough, here's also episode #26 of "Mirrorman":

 

So, I was watching Ultraman Tiga, and this space station showed up (this isn't a story spoiler, its a briefly seen location in the episode but not connected to the overall plot):



This was from Ultraman Tiga episode 7, which apparently aired in October 1996. This can't be a coincidence, right? The corners and central hub look way too much like DS9 to be a coincidence. I mean, I don't know when Deep Space Nine aired in Japan (assuming it ever did), but it had been on the air in the US for 3 years at this point. If this is somehow a coincidence, its one of the biggest ones I've seen.

 

Episode #58 of "Ultraman Cosmos" unfortunately comes without English subtitles again:

 

The 55th Anniversary Campaign presents episode #7 of "Ultraman Orb", in which a girl has visions of upcoming monster attacks:


The Chaos-Ultraman returns in episode #59 of "Ultraman Cosmos":


And for some reason, Tsuburaya uploaded episode #46 of "Ultraman Mebius":



Edit: That bonus episode of Mebius did not affect the regular weekly upload, as that just continued with episode #9:

 

We got another of those "Deban" clip shows this week in place of a new Trigger episode. The first half just recapped recent events, and the second highlighted various evil characters, including Evil Tiga and Belial from years past, making me wonder if they're going to play a role in upcoming Trigger episodes.

 

For those who want to watch said clip show:

 

In episode #21 of "Ultraman", Fuji and Hoshino investigate poisonous gas at a dormant volcano: