ANI-MOVIES, *Ultraman: Rising

After completing a made-for-streaming series adaptation of the historic live-action tokusatsu saga, Netflix put together an all-new take of the tall silver alien fresh off the heels of the recent Shin Ultraman revision. Ultraman: Rising can't completely be considered an anime as most of the production was handled by Industrial Light and Magic, but it takes great influence from anime such as Akira and Evangelion in its character, monster, and mecha layouts. This westernized version takes a Dreamworks approach by deconstucting the kaiju genre and changing it into a family bonding feature. Animator Shannon Tindle is a director and head writer on this production who formerly worked on Kubo And The Two Strings. Fans of the original Ultraman may not fully appreciate this total reboot as a great portion of the lore is abandonned for a fresh take on the lore such as where this brand of Ultraman actually comes from and how his legacy is passed on to the next generation.

For the last four decades, Japan has constantly been raided by giant monsters called kaiju who randomly show up and cause some damage leaving the whole thing to be cleaned up the tremendous hero known as Ultraman. The big metal monster fighter is actually Professor Sato whose somehow has access to futuristic technology that allows him to grow big and provides him with an underwater base but it doesn't take him away from having a family. Years later, Kenji Sato takes up the mantle of Ultraman from his dad after his mother goes missing, but instead of being a sentai hero Ken wants to be a professional baseball player. He comes back to Japan when his tour of duty in America is finished to join the ironically named team of the Giants, although the kaiju start showing up at the same time and Ken has to become Ultraman to keep the city safe. An old foe labled Gigantron attacks during Ken's opening game to retrieve its egg from the Kaiju Defense Force, a special anti-monster force lead by the main antagonist Dr Onda who has a major beef with giant monsters as they caused his family to be killed. Ken defeats Gigantron as Ultraman only to have its egg hatch on him with the baby kaiju, so now his has to act as newborn's surrogate parent. The bachelor ball player/superhero can't juggle both careers along with playing daddy to a young dragon-like creature, so Ken asks his own father to come in and help raise the little monster named Emi after Ken's missing mother. Dr. Onda has in the meantime been turning the surviving Gigantron into a cybernetic nightmare to hunt down Emi so he can find the illusive Kaiju Island where all the monsters supposedly come from. Ken as Ultraman along with his father as Ultraman, Emi, and a freed Gigantron all team up to stop Dr. Odna who gets into a final clash while operating a huge mecha that was clearly inspired by Pacific Rim.

Ultraman: Rising does commit a cardinal sin by using the word "Rise" in its title which never seems to work for any existing franchise branching out into a new media, although this is a welcome addition to the sentai series. You can tell that the conversion of this Japanese property into an American production was sticking to its guns when keeping it tied to its own continuity and not having be a sequel to any existing Ultraman titles. The entire film is CGI-animated, but you can see glimpses of startling American productions like the Spider-Verse and even Hasbin Hotel. This is a groovy throwback to the original Silver Age superhero era while still being a crisp viewing for younger audiences.