I’m not too knowledgeable about Ultraman, but my understanding is that this takes several major story beats from the original series and condenses them down into something resembling a compilation movie.
At the same time, it also feels like that as we progress through the movie, the whole aesthetic of it all moves from the jazzy, snappy 60s to increasingly “modern” vibes. The score changes as the movie goes on, with the early scenes reflecting that 60s TV feel, and by the time we get to the Melifas fight we get an electric score filled with choral chanting. The monster designs reflect that as well, with the early kaiju looking very rubber suit-like despite being CGI, while the later ones have more of a jagged, angular look to them you wouldn’t see until later incarnations of the series. And the design for Zetton looks straight out of Evangelion, Anno’s original homage to the series.
So while this is textually a throwback to the original series, everything else going on here is Anno and Higuchi synthesizing all the things they love about the series as a whole into something that could only be made NOW. They’re the best sorts of fans-turned-creators, as they take what they love and do FAR more than just regurgitate back the literal things they remember loving. It’s knowing that they may love Ultraman, but that why they love the character is more than just the summation of his parts. Yeah, you don’t really have Ultraman without all those things, but you also don’t have Ultraman if all you do is recreate him like he’s a gunpla kit.
It also acts as a pretty appropriate sequel to Shin Godzilla. It’s almost as if the Japan in this movie has reacted to the ineptitudes of the one seen in Shin Godzilla. Youth and competence is valued far more, as seen in the diverse-by-Japanese-standards team that handles these kaiju crises. People complain about bureaucracy, but they also gasp in amazement at how fast those paper pushers react when billions of dollars worth of monster-busting bombs need to be bought from the US to (fail to) kill a burrowing creature. Leadership is still corrupt and narrow-minded, but it also knows when to back down and get out of the way.
I dig that they didn’t shy away from the whole Ultraman is Jesus thing. The creator(?) of the series was in/ended up in one of those specifically Japanese pseudo-Christian cults or something like that, and plenty of that imagery apparently pops up at times in the series. That the SAVIOR element is right there for all to see, and that the last two villains are basically VS Satan and VS God’s Final Judgement, and that everything gets resolved not through zapping and punching but through sacrifice and convincing that higher power to show some grace is definitely SOMETHING.
Not sure if I need to go back and watch much of the series– I feel like I’ve gotten the point of a lot of it, outside of “COOL KAIJU OF THE WEEK,” which admittedly is a very cool thing– but now I’m hankering to check out Ultra Q.
I’m even less well-versed in Kamen Rider than I am in Ultraman. I know he’s a dude with a grasshopper theme who rides a cool motorcycle, has a cool scarf, beats up other monster dudes, and was the main inspiration for Skullomania in Street Fighter EX. I also know about the joke from Anno’s wife’s manga or whatever where she claimed Anno wanted to wear a Kamen Rider costume to their wedding.
The sorta breakneck pacing of the first half of this was pretty darn great. Each “monster of the week” had a lot of personality, and their “save the world through really screwed up plans” bits were a lot of fun. I even got a kick out of how the Scorpion lady got offed off-screen after getting a lengthy set-up set-piece.
But then the Butterfly gets introduced, we lose one of the leads, we gain another, and things slow down to a more reasonable pace that doesn’t feel right given everything that came before. Butterfly guy’s scheme, to send everyone to “heaven” when in fact this place is actually more like “hell” and he’s just too unaware and obsessed to know the difference, is a great accidentally evil scheme befitting this sort of final boss type. It’s a shame that the movie loses a lot of its charm in the process, as it dwells on things in ways we know it doesn’t need to in order to get its ideas across.
That pacing might not be as much of an issue if Kamen Rider had a bit more meat on it the way Shin Godzilla and Ultraman did. Ultraman was pretty breezy in its own way, and wasn’t nearly as TOPICAL as Godzilla, but its quasi-religious vibe in the second half added something to it all. All Kamen Rider has going for it outside of its “isn’t Kamen Rider RAD” vibe is some standard angsty stuff about one’s place and how far one needs to go to save their loved ones.
So, yeah, it’s REALLY fun up to a point, then it’s just kinda fun. “Let’s Party!” but only so far.
SHIN MECHA GUIGNOL 