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

Omega #12, "What I Want to Do":
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Not a bad conclusion to the midseason 2-parter. Kosei gets some sense knocked into him by a "Mysterious Researcher" (per the credits) who press-gangs him into helping her search for kaiju samples, Ayumu uses them to figure out how to stop Eldeghimaera, everyone works together, and Ayumu sees Kosei using Rekiness, finally bringing her in the loop. Good. I was getting sick of her being clueless all the time. Next week is the annual midseason clip show, and presumably the frame for the clips will be the guys filling Ayumu in on the backstory.

We even get a bit of good old-fashioned action with miniature kaiju-fighting vehicles, basically giant harpoon guns to stab Eldeghimaera and deliver an energy overdose. Maybe the defense force will be a continuing factor in the rest of the season after all. I mean, they even gave them a musical motif complete with the militaristic "bum-ba-da-ba-da" chorus traditionally used in Ultraman defense-team marches.
 
Omega #13, "Ayu Finds Out":
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They could've made a worthwhile clip show if they'd really focused on Ayumu being brought into the loop and dealing with the impact of the truth and how it affected the trio's relationship. Instead, they only spent a fairly small part of the episode on that, while the rest was pretty routine "Remember when" flashback setup and a token Pigmon appearance. So most of it was pretty dull.

As for the small part that did have actual substance, it seems the idea is that Ayumu has implicitly figured out that Sorato is Omega (or is at least connected to him) but is choosing to let it remain unspoken and pretend not to know, so that they can continue their existing status quo. Which is kind of a disappointing outcome for me, since characters who are fully in the loop have a lot more story potential. I also don't see why she thinks it matters to let them keep the secret, when they'd already decided to share the secret anyway, and when the defense force is pro-Omega as she said. It seems like an arbitrary choice to just avoid any major evolution of the story arc, which is oddly timid for modern tokusatsu.
 
Omega #14, "Omega Elimination Order":
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Looks like the story arc is finally starting to ramp up, with Sorato being attacked by an assassin apparently connected to his own people somehow, though also connected to a destroyed race called Geness, and able to turn into a Zetton-inspired kaiju form. And Sorato's memories finally start to return.

Also, it looks like Sayuki, the bossy scientist from episode 12, is a new regular, added to the opening titles and everything. The actress previously played the ruler of the underground Victorians in Ultraman Ginga S.

I had a YouTube glitch of some sort where the image froze after returning from commercial, but the audio and subtitles played normally. So for over a minute, I was just looking at the establishing shot of Sorato and Kosei sitting on the steps looking out at the vista beyond while their conversation went on. It took me a while to realize I was looking at a still frame, since I thought it was just a stylistic, arty choice to hold on a long, minimalist shot while their conversation went on. It's the sort of thing Ultraman directors have done before, after all, and they were small enough in the frame that I couldn't tell they weren't moving, since my eyes were largely on the subtitles, and my brain sort of convinced me I could see them moving slightly, because I expected them to. I finally figured it out when the sound effect of Sorato detecting something kicked in and the image still didn't change. Luckily, once I rewound and started over from the top of the act, it played normally.
 
Omega #15, "Those Who Protect":
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An okay episode, nothing special. Sorato starts to remember his life as Omega, and he has some kind of minor epiphany that's basically to be even more carefree than he was already. Kosei gets his Meteokaiju working together and adds a third one to the stable. And Sayuki coins the name "Ultraman" and recruits the trio to join a monster-fighting team, so the show is finally sort of turning into a conventional Ultra series, though I doubt they'll be getting any super-aircraft or giant robots.
 
Omega #16, "The KSCT Special Task Unit":
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So the retooling continues, with the trio formally starting as part of the government kaiju task force. Yet for the sake of the show's budget, Sayuki implausibly co-opts the warehouse as the team's base of operations. I can't shake the feeling that someone higher up ordered a retool, since the change in format feels kind of awkward. Kosei even lampshaded how weird it is for people like him and Sorato to be recruited for an official task force.

And they do get an aircraft of sorts, but just a small ducted-fan transport rendered in CGI, so it won't be doing any kaiju fighting.

I think by this point I can say that I just don't like this season very much. It's not working for me. Which is disappointing, because the last season by this creative team, Ultraman Decker, was terrific. I had high hopes for Omega because of that, but it's really been a disappointment.

King Alligatortois is a very deep cut. The original Alligatortois appeared way back in 1966 in episode 26 of Ultra Q, even predating Ultraman. It hasn't been seen since, except in a photo in one of the supplemental recap episodes of Ultraman Arc last year.
 
Omega 17, "Snow Blossoms":
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Okay, this was a fairly good one, with an interesting concept, similar to a premise Ultraman Neos did once, where a kaiju killed at the beginning of the story is reanimated by a fungus, or in this case a slime mold that proves difficult to destroy.

It turns out that Sayuki knows Kosei is a "Kaiju Tamer" (kaijutsukai, more like "kaiju user/wielder"), though I think we already knew she knew. I'd be surprised if she doesn't know Sorato is Omega, particularly after she saw him fly right over her here, and probably noticed Sorato's absence. But she didn't say so, and I'm not sure why she'd reveal knowing about Kosei but not Sorato. Maybe she's not sure if Ayumu knows about him and didn't want to out him.
 
One of the Ultraman Arc actors will be in Shogun season 2


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Omega #18: "The House of Barossa":
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Another stylish episode from top director Kiyotaka Taguchi and his frequent collaborator, writer Takao Nakano, bringing back their recurring creation, the Barossa-seijin comedy pirates. (Taguchi didn't direct the Ultraman Z episode where the Barossa debuted, but he was the series director for that one.) A fairly fun, goofy episode with a ton of franchise callbacks, with the Barossa using gear scavenged from various past aliens and kaiju. Even continuing the closing scene under the first part of the end titles may have been a callback to the seasons from the late 1990s that often did that.

Since there are only 7 episodes left, they're starting to do the usual thing of aliens starting to hint at Earth being doomed by some unspecified looming cataclysm. That's getting a bit old at this point.
 
Omega #19: "Chasing the Starlight":
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Another pretty good one from director Taguchi, going meta with a plot about a kid who loves taking tokusatsu photos of toy monsters. I'm a little disappointed that the resolution was to destroy the kaiju instead of destroying the crystal that was luring it, but I guess they need their big 'splosions.

The minor role of Kosei's old school friend was played by Amon Kabe, who was Kajiki on Kamen Rider Gotchard, the only Rider series to date that Taguchi has directed. He used Takaya Aoyagi from Ultraman Orb and Z as a guest character in his first Gotchard 2-parter, and now he returns the favor.
 
Omega #20, "Beyond Time":
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A nice story about the team helping a nonviolent kaiju, which becomes foreshadowing when the kaiju takes them to a post-apocalyptic future, another hint of the impending season-climax catastrophe that should probably kick in around episode #23 or so.
 
A brief update note: After watching most of the Heisei era Ultraman shows, and loving almost all of them, I decided to go back and watch (or rewatch in a few cases) the Showa era series before starting Ultraman Mebius, since it continues from the Showa era continuity. So far I’ve watched Ultra Q and the original Ultraman, and I’m currently about halfway through Ultraseven. I’m having a great time. These shows obviously have a different flavor than the Heisei series, but they have their own enormous charms.

One thing I’m finding very interesting about Ultraseven is the choice to have the Ultra hero assume human form, instead of merging with a human host. I feel like in some ways this works better than the more standard setup; here, we get to experience Dan as an actual character in his own right, instead of just a mute giant. I wonder why they preferred the host narrative as the default for most of the shows? (With, I gather, a few more exceptions.) Not that the host approach sucks, but I’m not sure but that the Ultraseven approach doesn’t have advantages that make it the superior option dramatically.
 
The Realist said:
One thing I’m finding very interesting about Ultraseven is the choice to have the Ultra hero assume human form, instead of merging with a human host. I feel like in some ways this works better than the more standard setup; here, we get to experience Dan as an actual character in his own right, instead of just a mute giant. I wonder why they preferred the host narrative as the default for most of the shows? (With, I gather, a few more exceptions.) Not that the host approach sucks, but I’m not sure but that the Ultraseven approach doesn’t have advantages that make it the superior option dramatically.
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Maybe they figured a human lead was easier to identify with than an alien impersonating a human, though that didn't stop them from reusing the disguise approach in both Leo and Ultraman 80. Also, the standard narrative is that the Ultra is moved by the human host's bravery and self-sacrifice and chooses to bond with them to save and protect them, so that establishes the Ultra's benevolence. There's always been a subtext of divinity to Ultraman, a grounding in Asian myth and spirituality, so I think there's a sense that the host is blessed by Ultraman, in a way.

Although my theory is that Shin Hayata in Ultraman was actually Ultraman controlling Hayata's body all along. After all, Hayata had no memory of his time joined with Ultraman after they separated, and the only other time that's happened was in Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial when Zero possessed an injured, comatose host and controlled his body while he healed. Also, Hayata had the least personality or character development of any of the characters in Ultraman. So if I'm right, Hayata was as much the actual Ultra (in personality if not in body) as Dan was.

I used to wonder why Ultras even needed to take human hosts if they could just disguise themselves as humans like Seven or Leo or 80 or Mebius did. But I finally realized that the mergers were generally with humans who'd died or been on the brink of death, so it wasn't the Ultras who needed the merger, it was the humans, who needed time to heal from their injuries. And after they were healed, the Ultras probably just chose to continue the established bond. While some Ultras parted ways with their hosts at the end -- Man, Taro, Cosmos (temporarily), Nexus, Max, etc. -- there are cases like Jack and Ace where the bonds were so permanent that the human hosts actually left Earth with the Ultras and implicitly remained permanently merged with them, as if they'd become a single blended personality (like Trill symbiosis).
 
Omega #21: "Raionji, Enraged":
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A mediocre one about the team having to contend with an obnoxious, egotistical temporary superior, who's a very annoying character with nothing to redeem him or give him any nuance. Notable for the return of Gabora, a kaiju not seen in the main series since the original 1966 Ultraman, although alternate versions were featured in the American Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero and in Shin Ultraman.
 
This was brought up in the Kamen Rider/general toku thread, the new project from frequent Ultraman director Koichi Sakamoto:

ukiyaseed.weebly.com

Director Koichi Sakamoto and B.O.S-Entertainment to Launch BEAT RUNNERS Original Tokusatsu Series

Veteran tokusatsu director Koichi Sakamoto and B.O.S-Entertainment will launch an original tokusatsu IP called BEAT RUNNERS.
ukiyaseed.weebly.com
Picture



Veteran tokusatsu director Koichi Sakamoto (Kamen Rider W FOREVER, Wingman) and stunt team B.O.S-Entertainment will launch a new tokusatsu IP called BEAT RUNNERS.



This new project, which combines "J-POP x Tokusatsu", which is promoted as "Tokusatsu Next Generation" has been in development since 2023. The series will have a total of 10 episodes, each running for about 10 minutes long, which only the characters will appear. No "face" actors, just the suit actors and their respective voice actors.

Devised by B.O.S-Entertainment representative and veteran suit actor Hirokazu Iwakami, the main gimmick of the series is that this is the world's first "beat sync action" series, in which character action will perfectly synchronize with the music and action. The series also aims to develop "suit acting" as an IP that can be exported to the world as a business, just like anime.
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This sounds similar to the Ultra Galaxy Fight/Ultraman Regulos webseries that Sakamoto's been directing over the past few years, in that it's all suit actors and voiceovers with no on-camera faces. Which makes me wonder, if Sakamoto's focused on this now, what does this mean for our chances of seeing a continuation of the webseries and a resolution to the Absolutian story arc? Although it's already been nearly 3 years since the last installment premiered in Japan, and there's been no sign of a continuation.
 
A new season of New Generation Stars was announced, starring Z, Geed and Omega. It introduces a new Meteokaiju named Gamedon and a new armor for Omega. Geed also gets an Ultra Mantle similar to Z.

tsuburaya-prod.com

New Season of “ULTRAMAN NEW GENERATION STARS” (2026) Debuts January 24th 2026 on TV Tokyo! Presenting Ultraman Omega’s New Form, the Gamedon Armor! | Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd

New Season of “ULTRAMAN NEW GENERATION STARS” (2026) Debuts January 24th 2026 on TV Tokyo! Presenting Ultraman Omega’s New Form, the Gamedon Armor! Ultraman official website by Tsuburaya Productions.
tsuburaya-prod.com tsuburaya-prod.com

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The Realist said:
I wonder how much I’m going to like the New Generation stuff when I eventually get to it. It all looks so … new. :lol:
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I think the New Generation era got off to a weak start with Ginga and Ginga S, but most of the subsequent seasons have been excellent, rivaling the run from Tiga to Mebius in the quality of the writing, and surpassing it in production values. The seasons with Kiyotaka Taguchi as head director (X, Orb, Z, Blazar) have been particular highlights, though Geed and Decker were also excellent. The era has its quirks, though, like an overdependence on toy- and collectible-based powers and alternate forms, and the incongruity of setting every series in a different universe while having frequent crossovers and reliance on past continuity (though the past three seasons have been more standalone).

It's something of a departure from the traditional pattern of Ultras bonded with human hosts or naturally giant Ultras in human disguise. Ginga and X aren't really bonded with their hosts but reside in objects that can be used to make temporary mergers. Orb is a humanoid alien who was endowed with the power to turn into an Ultra, and the leads from R/B are humans who inherit that power from the same source, so they're the Ultras themselves rather than sharing their bodies with Ultras. Geed is a human/Ultra hybrid, and the human lead in Taiga is host to three different Ultras at the same time. Trigger and Decker... well, those would be spoilers. Although Z, Blazar, and Arc followed the conventional host-Ultra formula, and Omega is an Ultra in human disguise.

In those cases where Ultras do have human hosts, they're usually treated as distinct characters and there's usually more dialogue between host and Ultra than there was in most of the classic series (aside from the '79 anime, the 1992 Australian series, and Cosmos to an extent). So the Ultras get more character development than they used to.
 
Thanks for that info. It’s somewhat reassuring (though the reference to hyper-aggressive merchandising that invariably comes up whenever people talk about the New Generation shows still makes me itchy). The variety of approaches to the Ultras does sound intriguing, and I appreciate your refraining from anything too spoilery re: Trigger and Decker.
 
Oh, and when you get to Ultraman Orb, the question will inevitably arise of whether to watch the main Orb series or its prequel The Origin Saga first. I'd definitely recommend watching Orb first. The Origin Saga spoils some things that are initially mysteries in Orb, and some things in Origin carry more meaning if you've seen the main series first. Other than that, though, the series are from different creative teams and set very far apart in the main characters' timeline, so they have very little connection.
 
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