Ultraman Ginga

[H-Man]

Huh, I thought GAMERA THE BRAVE was the right direction to go after Kaneko's trilogy. Yeah those are great movies, but it was his take on Gamera. I appreciated a film that was a good update of the Yuasa Gamera movies. Plus, it was a good movie.

[MekaGojira3k]

[kiryugoji04]

[MouthForWar]

[ultrasanto]

[kiryugoji04]

[MouthForWar]

[MekaGojira3k]

[king_ghidorah]

[ultrasanto]

[kiryugoji04]

[Gman2887]

[StevenScrivello]

Wow, well, um, okay... I came here with the intention of discussing ULTRAMAN GINGA. Is that still a viable option?

Anyway, I finally watched the first episode, and posted my thoughts in a review at Kaijusaurus: . In short: I liked it!

[ultrasanto]

I actually dont like to be so negative on something that i have loved since 1967-68 the first time i saw Ultraman on telivision.

The best thing about the new show is the professional quality of the show despite its low budget production...Its well filmed, edited, GINGA is beautifull and the 2 music themes are quite good.

where it falls is the absurb concept of the show itself.....

It stripped the monsters of their individual personaly.... they are nothing but a shell of whoever is put indide the bandai doll by VALKY who is treated like a court Jester,
KEMUR is not KEMUR but the idiot inside of his body....KING PANDON is not the all powerful opponent of Ultraseven but a frail little girl with a trauma.

And seing the coming up monsters ...we can see more flaws into this concept.....
HOW CAN THERE BE TIGA DARK ? or ULTRAMAN TIGA for that matter ?

TIGA DARK is simply TIGA 3000 years ago....if he was transformed into a bandai doll when he was TIGA DARK ....he should not appear as regular TIGA.
The same with JEAN KILLER.... it is no longer JEAN KILLER...it is now JEAN 9.
Well ... maybe i m taking the ultra cannon too seriously and i m just supposed to enjoy the 25 mins Bandai commercial without asking questions....?

And where is the drama.... SO FAR the monsters have terrorise nothing but the 4 kids in the closed down school .....i doupt that the population is even aware of those events....Without any back story to the monsters/aliens or whatever ......the title of this show should be called....PLAYING WITH ULTRAMAN DOLLS
AT SUMMER CAMP....

I hope Tsuburaya wake up and kick some juices into this show......
GOD I LOVE WHAT GINGA LOOKS LIKE.....

[MekaGojira3k]

[ultrasanto]

[MekaGojira3k]

Episode 4 was kind of fun....but man...there's a shot in which you can clearly see Ragon's suit actor didn't have the mask on.

I dunno, the episode kind of worked for me. Admittedly my standards are lower for this thing, but I enjoyed it. I feel like the introduction of Jean Killer will indicate some neater things to come.

[StevenScrivello]

All of my reviews for the first block of episodes are now up on Kaijusaurus!

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:

[MekaGojira3k]

I still need to watch episodes 5 and 6 but here's an article on tokusatsu which discusses Ginga a bit
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/world ... =pl-share&

[StevenScrivello]

^ I liked that article. It doesn't have the stigma that a lot of western writers still have about the genre. It's a bit melancholy but it's not untrue or unfair.

[MekaGojira3k]

Watched Episode 5. I still like this show. It's not mind-blowingly awesome like Neo-Ultra Q was, but I still find this slice of life teens hanging out over the summer premise interesting enough to make this feel distinctive.

Also toy Taro makes me laugh...

[UltraBunny]

Well, I found an interveiw with a marketing Tsar at Bandai somewhere; In Chrome with google trans you're never sure where you are But, yes, the show IS made for for three to five year olds. That's the Spark Doll idea, small, cheap, made for little kids. The older market is all about Kamen Riders. Five to ten year olds aren't interested in Ultraman anymore. We'll have to content ourselves with old stuff. Bandai has pretty much written off Ultraman, which seems odd. But you never know...

Four year olds don't take cues from adults the way they do from older kids, so a teenager selling the vinyl works for Bandai squeezing the cash out of the toys. And really little kids are apparently not picky about a very small world and a pretty lame fight scene. I'm not too impressed by the "Guys in rubber suits wrestling" aspect of this show, but I'm a bit older than the target demographic. The teenagers don't thrill me either, but then again - there aren't even any new monsters!

The New York Times tells us this is the last of the true tokusatsu shows, so its already the end of an era. There are stage shows of Ultraman that likely use those new rubber suits, but I get the sense that Ultraman may be being pushed towards mothballs.

[Silver Kamen]

I've just watched Episode 6 of Ultraman Ginga, and here are my thoughts...

After the end of the previous episode, Taro manages to teleport Hikaru and Tomoya (along with himself) to safety, away from Tiga Dark. Why Tiga doesn't just look for them, I don't know. In fact, Tiga pretty much disappears with no trace until much later in the episode. I guess even dark Ultramen have some form of time limit here.

Anyway, since they were back at the school, we get to some backstory explained for Tomoya. Apparently, his father is the head of "Ichijouji Group", whatever that is. Apparently, that means they're rich, and Tomoya himself doesn't have any dreams or desire because he can easily get anything he would want, since he's apparently heir to said group. I'm not really sure how to feel about this, but he would probably be more sympathetic if he was say, worried his future is already planned out or stressed about any possible responsibilities that might get handed to him. Tomoya's lack of desire is also sort of used to explain why he's different from the other Dark Spark users, but it doesn't really explain why he needs to use the Gunpad to control Jean Killer.

Tomoya also appears to have some father issues here, and that allows Taro to relate to him with some backstory of his own. Speaking of which, Taro's flashback is at least neat in that it's an attempt to convey a positive message, even though it's not something that's actually demonstrated. On a less positive note, Taro still doesn't make it clear if he's an alternate version "native" to this universe (like how the Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers universe had it's own version of characters from different continuities, including Daigo, Asuka and Gamu) or if he's the "regular" Taro who travelled to this universe. It's not really an important issue, but it's worth mentioning.

On to more significant things: Hikaru offers Tomoya the challenge of defeating Ultraman Ginga in a fight, as something that would require effort to achieve. Surprisingly, Hikaru transforms into Ginga straight away without changing into a monster or alien first. Impressively, Hikaru (as Ginga) easily defeats Tomoya and Jean Killer by... "phasing" his hand into the giant robot's control room and snatching Tomoya's Dark Spark. It comes of as a little too easy, honestly.

Afterwards is the big fight for this episode with Ginga against Tiga, who made Alien Valkie giant-sized to help out. I do not recall Tiga ever having this kind of power. Seriously, it's just weird.

As promised by the preview for this episode, Jean Killer suddenly becomes Jean-Nine, and Tomoya is able to help Hikaru. Jean-Nine having his own version of the Gunpad doesn't feel right, due to how dinky the thing looks when held by such a bulky robot, making it one of the more intrusive examples of toy advertising in this show.

The fight scene itself just doesn't impress me. It didn't combine use of miniatures and scenery with clever camera angles well enough to reinforce the illusion that the combatants are actually gigantic. And the lack of special attacks on the Ultramen's part (besides Ginga's arm beam) doesn't help either. At least the insert song during the battle was great. Too bad it's pretty much the only good music used during any episode.

All in all, not a very impressive episode. But that's pretty much how every episode of Ginga has been so far, so um... it's consistent, I guess. But not in a very good way. It's a little disappointing that Tiga Dark was just a mindless super minion under the mysterious main villain's control, instead of another human. Sure, the episodic villains didn't have great characterization, but it was at least something.

The episode ends by blatantly pointing out that there's more to come, since the show will be on hiatus for a little while. The viewers are reminded that the main villain is still unknown and Ultraman Ginga himself is still a mystery. Speaking of Ginga, he gets a little dialogue as a separate entity from Hikaru, but it doesn't amount to much, besides confirming that Ginga is himself a sentient entity.

[kiryugoji04]

Man, I still haven't had the heart to watch episodes five and six.

[Silver Kamen]