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News Stay At Home With ULTRAMAN| Ultra Science Fiction Hour on YouTube

In episode #15 of "Ultraman Mebius", the team ignores the warning of the chief engineer and take their aircraft Gun Phoenix into battle, where it soon malfunctions, while Zoffy calls Hikari home to the Land of Light:
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We've reached the penultimate chapter of "Ultraman Trigger" with this week's episode #24:
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Well, things are getting dramatic as we build to the finish. Kengo's mother comes back into the story, all the secrets come out, Yuna almost makes the big sacrifice, Ignis decides where he stands. And we still know practically nothing about the three supporting GUTS team members.

The scene of Kengo and Ignis transforming together reminded me of Kamen Rider joint-henshin scenes. I was almost expecting another KR-style trope -- having Yuna transform into an Ultra herself for the climax -- but they didn't go there.

I still wonder if Shizuma was meant to be a returning Tiga cast member, but became a new character when they couldn't get one. It's surprising how little connection to Tiga's universe this show ended up having. But maybe there will be another connection in the finale.

Isn't it weird how the Color Timer starts blinking red when the Ultra is almost out of time, but then just keeps on blinking for as long as the battle scene needs it to, even if it's longer than the amount of time it was solid blue? It's made especially weird when Trigger is able to activate Glitter mode after the Color Timer warns that he's almost out of energy. If you're going to use a ticking clock to build suspense, at least have it actually mean something.
 
And we have the first missing English subtitles of the year with today's episode #27 of "Ultraman":
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In episode #32 of "Mirrorman", the Invaders kidnap a scientist and try to lure his daughter into a trap:
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In episode #16 of "Ultraman Mebius", a large comet is set for Earth, alien sword fighters ride said comet down to Earth, and Konomi tries out contact lenses (I love that we get subplots like that):
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So Trigger has come to an end. And all I can say is, what a disappointment.

The ending was as limp and poorly thought out as the rest of the series.

Kengo is easily the worst Ultra host I've seen. Completely bland. Utterly overshadowed in his own show by not just Akito and Ignis, but even by the Commander. Most of GUTS-Select was just wasted casting, as none of them ever amounted to more than their stereotype.

There were some nice designs and some fun action scenes during the run, but on the whole this was just a complete let down, coming from Z. And my greatest fear is that Decker is just going to be more of the same, a watered down version of Dyna that spends all it's time trying to cash in nostalgia tickets it didn't earn. Ugh.
 
An okay finale, but largely just going through the expected motions of a toku finale, with a big final battle, a climactic new form for the hero (which was just a repaint of the standard suit, apparently), and a bunch of sentimental farewells that still leave an opening for the followup movie. The attempt to call back Tiga's finale with the kids giving Trigger new strength with their hope came out of nowhere; why were those kids even watching instead of evacuating?

It was a bit contrived having Carmeara summon replicas of the other two Dark Giants to fight GUTS at human scale; why not make them giant and have them just smash the ship? They just wanted an excuse to have a fight scene for the human characters.

I did kind of like the idea of Kengo/Trigger reconciling his light and dark sides to become his true self, and sort of reconciling with Carmeara at the end. And I liked the bit where Akito got mad at Kengo for asking him to smile and said "If you want me to smile, then you better come back."

This was my first exposure to modern Ultraman, and I'm very impressed by the miniature work and action staging; Koichi Sakamoto did a terrific job there. But I'm pleased to hear from others that this is not a typical season in terms of its writing quality. It was pretty mediocre on that front.
 
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Yeah, I have to agree, the effects work has been outstanding, but story- and characterwise this has been very bland. I do hope they work on improving on that front for Decker.
 
This week's episode #28 of "Ultraman" sees the introduction of the classic bizarre Dada aliens:
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The Invaders developed cloaking technology, and Kotaro repeatedly walks right into traps, in episode #33 of "Mirrorman":
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In episode #17 of "Ultraman Mebius", Ultraman Hikari says goodbye to Earth:
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Hm. Since Ultras are "beings of light," Ultraman Hikari (Light) seems like kind of a redundant name.

Meanwhile, I'm having trouble getting into Ultraman Leo. I'm up to episode 7, and every week it's the same thing. Gen/Leo fights the monster and fails, Dan gets incredibly abusive and unhelpful in "training" him in a new technique, Gen pushes through and finally masters the technique. Do they ever vary the formula?
 
I've only seen two or three episodes of Leo, but when he appeared in Mebius, the characters there pretty much described that same formula.

Well, the first episode of "Ultraman Chronicle D" is up, and in it we are introduced to the New Generation Heroes via footage from "Ultraman Taiga: The Movie - New Generation Climax", as well as see fight scenes from the first episodes of Z and Trigger, before getting a re-telling of the first half of the opening two-parter of "Ultraman Dyna", so pretty packed:
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So these Chronicle shows are basically just extended recaps of the franchise's history to provide context for the next new series?
 
While the gold-eating monster Goldon threatens the region around an old goldmine, Captain Muramatsu and Ide are trapped underground, in episode #29 of "Ultraman":
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In episode #34 of "Mirrorman", the Invaders devised a plan to play the SGM and Mirrorman against each other:
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In episode #18 of "Ultraman Mebius", Mirai feels the pressure now that Hikari has left him as the sole Ultraman on Earth:
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From a digital modeler and animator I've followed for a few years. He has a moderate collection of kaiju themed slapstick shorts, but this is one of the few featuring Ultraman.
 
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