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Still smaller than actual size, though.

 

Well, I finished my rewatch of Tiga, which really is one of the very best Ultraman series, if not the best. Very few Ultra shows have had such a rich cast of well-drawn, textured characters played by strong, charismatic actors (mostly -- I never really cared for Yazumi's performer). And the stories were smart and interesting too.

Now I'm a few episodes into rewatching Dyna, which should help contextualize Decker for me going forward. But I'm really having a hard time understanding why Shin Asuka was deemed worthy of being an Ultra. He's arrogant, egotistical, overly aggressive, insensitive, and inexperienced, and he doesn't really show any Ultra-worthy qualities beyond refusal to give up. So why did the light choose him? My best guess is that it has something to do with his father, who had his own contact with the light (and I know in retrospect what specific light that turned out to be).

Although that would suggest that Dyna is not from the same origin as Tiga and the Ultra-Ancients. Yet he looks a lot like Tiga and has similar powers. So that's mysterious.

 

Once, Yapool sent out the Ace-Killer against Ultraman Ace. In episode #43 of "Ultraman Mebius", Yapool sends out the Mebius-Killer against you know who:

 

Beware the Demon Woman of Hotarugawara, in episode #17 of "Ultraman Ace":

 

Decent Decker episode today, with a brand-new monster for a change. It was an engineered alien bioweapon that was basically a demo model for a line of civilization-destroying kaiju, so it seems to me that it's really more of a Choju, though that term only seems to be used for Yapool-enhanced cyborg kaiju.

Since the episode was debuting the new GUTS Gryphon formation combining the Hawk and Falcon, the ending was unusual, in that for once Decker just assisted in weakening the kaiju so the Gryphon could deliver the finisher. The more usual pattern is for the defense team to weaken the monster and Ultraman to finish it, or for them both to finish it off simultaneously, which sometimes feels like Ultraman just trying to hog the credit for the defense team's victory. So it was nice to see this variation. Some clever action gags too, like the use of the geyser to put out the burning Falcon.

Interesting to see that Kanata almost summoned his henshin device by accident, as a fear reflex. It reminds me of how the Dyna episodes I've been rewatching have occasionally shown Asuka spontaneously transforming into Dyna when under great danger or stress, something that was really only ever done before with Go in Return of Ultraman. Although unlike Go, Asuka does have a henshin device; he just doesn't always need to activate it manually.

This episode confirmed something I thought was the case about Hanejiro, but that was ambiguous before. He doesn't physically move from the control room into the Hawk; he has two bodies, one installed in the Hawk, and he transfers his consciousness between them. That's very interesting. I wonder if he has more than two bodies.

 

Actually, Mons-Ahgar did appear twice on the original Ultraman Dyna. Between that, and the episode having a bit more humor than the previous three, this felt quite more in line with the show that inspired it.

Reminded me a bit of TNG's The Arsenal of Freedom.

 

Oh, okay. Haven't gotten there yet. I should've checked the Wiki. I heard they were going to do new monsters this season, and I just assumed. Now that I think about it, the vulnerable part on the head does seem familiar, and so does the bit about the monster emerging from a capsule (though that was done in the original series with those red and blue monsters that fought each other, so I thought that's what I was remembering).

Ahh -- on checking the Wiki, I see that Mons-Ahgar debuted in the same episode as the original Hanejiro, so it makes sense that they'd bring it back here.

I'm 9 episodes into Dyna now, and though it's okay, it feels more ordinary than Tiga. The plots are fine but don't seem to have the philosophical edge of Tiga or Gaia's episodes, and the characters are broader and less complex, with the actors not leaving as strong an impression either. The one thing about it that I find an improvement on Tiga is the music. Well, that and Mai, who's adorable and a lot more appealing than her predecessor Yazumi. Otherwise, at least so far, it just isn't on the same level as the two shows bracketing it. Quite a contrast from Decker, which I'm so far finding an improvement over the disappointing Trigger.

 

Koichi Sakamoto, the onetime Power Rangers stunt coordinator who went on to become a frequent director for Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and most recently numerous Ultraman series and movies, has been honored with an award:

https://tokusatsunetwork.com/2022/07/action-director-koichi-sakamoto-wins-best-variety-award/

 

Episode #44 of "Ultraman Mebius" continues the confrontation with Yapool from last week's episode:

 

In episode #18 of "Ultraman Ace", TAC wants to study a boy's pet pigeon to model a homing beacon for their new unmanned aircraft after it, but unbeknownst to them said pigeon is really a Yapool agent in disguise:

 

A very nice Decker episode today. It brought back the perennial favorite kaiju Eleking, who's usually portrayed as quite a nasty villain, and offered an unexpectedly sympathetic portrayal, as the grown-too-big pet of a Pitt-Seijin who'd been stranded on Earth by the Sphere barrier. It was a pretty sweet story. It's nice to see the defense teams helping to protect aliens and kaiju instead of just killing them. And it offered some nice character development for Kirino, and some for the captain and vice-captain too. (Plus Kirino turns out to have a really pretty smile.)

The only other time we saw a "good" Eleking was in Mega Monster Battle after Rei defeated an Eleking and captured/tamed it rather than destroying it. Also Rui in X was fond of the Eleking Spark Doll and based one of X's armors on it, though that doesn't quite count. The story here reminded me of Eleking's appearance in Ultraman Max, which also included a larval Eleking being raised as a pet by a lonely woman (in fact, it used the same prop), but there the woman was being manipulated by the Pitt as part of an Evil Scheme. (They also did a callback to the original Ultraseven Eleking episode by having it fight Miclas.)

We got the debut of Decker's Miracle Type, much later than Dyna's debut of the equivalent form, which came in episode 2 of his series. It's pretty impressive, with the rainbow aura when he materializes/disappears. And he can create some kind of dimensional rift that's shaped similarly to his breastplate.

Dang it, next week's a recap special already.

 

Yeah, sweet is the right word for this episode. It's certainly the most sympathetic depiction of Eleking to date. And I have a feeling Decker's miracle mode is heavily inspired by Cosmos.

One bit of critique, it turned dark pretty quickly between overfeeding Elly and Decker appearing to fight it. Maybe they wanted the night-time lighting because it suited the lightning effects of Eleking, but then they should have opted for the location-shot at the lake to be after nightfall. But maybe that wasn't in the budget.

Another thing, the conversation between the Captain and the Vice-Captain at the end (still haven't memorized their names, but it has only been five episodes) really felt like their position in the hierarchy was reversed, the way the Vice-Captain called the Captain's decisions into question (saying she never would have allowed it), and the Captain actually apologizing to her. The Captain being mild-mannered and the Vice-Captain being stern towards the other team members is one thing, but this felt weird.

 

Interesting thought.

I noticed that too. Or perhaps they could've done that thing I noted in a Trigger episode last year, where they started the fight scene at twilight and it got progressively darker in a very effective way, realistic in look if accelerated in timing.

I saw that as more about their personalities than their ranks -- that Captain Murahoshi (I looked it up) is more sentimental and willing to bend, while Vice-Captain Kaizaki is more pragmatic and provides a check on his judgment. So he knew he'd made an irresponsible decision and that she would've protested and perhaps talked him out of it if she'd been there. Or more likely, told him how to do it right, like she did in the video at the end.

 

Upon her return from the moon, Phoenix' Nest with the whole Crew GUYS sans Mirai on-board appears to explode, with only George surviving. Could the rest of the team really be dead? Ultraman Jack guest-stars in episode #45 of "Ultraman Mebius":

 

I'm well into the latter half of Dyna now, and it's gotten much better. It feels like they started out trying to make it lighter and less adult-skewing than Tiga, but then had second thoughts and went back to Tiga's approach of more thoughtful and character-driven stories. Not to mention bringing back most of the Tiga cast more than once, and doing loose sequels to a few of its episodes.

Asuka remains one of my least favorite Ultra leads, though. He's not quite as obnoxious as he started out, but I still don't like him much. He's better in his later appearances in the movies and Orb: The Origin Saga, where he's gotten more mellow.

I do like Dyna's music a lot, though. There's this one memorable cue that I've often found popping into my head over the past few years, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it. I'd narrowed it down to probably coming from one of the first few Ultraman series I saw, so I was pleased to be proven right when it finally showed up in episode 16 ("Battle! Monster Island"), where versions of the motif were featured heavily throughout the episode. It's been frequently used as stock in later episodes, which is how I came to memorize it the first time around and have it pop into my head later.

 

This week's Decker is a recap special, but somewhat less obnoxious than last year's were. Instead of a host monster narrating to the audience, it's an in-universe sidebar story set in the TPU research department, a two-hander between its main employee and a returning Marluru from Trigger, who'd worked there before and has now come back. It's basically just the two of them standing around giving exposition to frame the clips, but there's more time spent on the two characters and their interplay than on the clips, so it actually feels like it has a bit of substance.

While the clips were mainly recaps of the Decker episodes so far, it got into recapping the Trigger finale and also spoiled the Episode Z sequel movie which I haven't seen yet. I guess that was to advertise the Blu-Ray release of same.

 

Here is said clipshow "special episode":


And as I hadn't gotten around to it yet, here is also this week's episode #19 of "Ultraman Ace", featuring Super-Beast King Kappa. which is based on the Kappa creature from Japanese folklore:

 

Episode #41 of "Ultraman Mebius" continues the parade of guest Ultras, this time with UltraSeven:

 

They pretty much kept that up right through to the finale, didn't they?