It’s 2022 and Monster By Mistake is still an awful Canadian cartoon

Yes, the show really did look this bad.

Hey everyone, I’m back! Did ya miss me? I figured I’d celebrate my return by revisiting a post that riled up controversy a few years ago, with at least 1 person. Ages ago, I made a rant about Monster By Mistake. To be fair, I had not seen that show in ages. And when I made the rant, I mainly stuck to the first 2 seasons.

However, I decided to do a deep dive this time and watch most of the third season as well. It’s still bad, but it did surprise me in some ways. Before we get into that, allow me to explain what this cartoon is. Monster By Mistake was a semi-popular (at least at the time it came out) Canadian cartoon on YTV.

It came out in 1999, when cartoons made in CG were all the rage. The story revolved around a young boy named Warren who was accidentally hit by a magical spell, causing him to transform into this giant blue furry Frankenstein every time he sneezes. His sister and novice spell-caster, Tracy, spends most episodes trying to fix her brother (or pretty much any problem they come across) with magic.

All the while, an evil wizard trapped in a ball named Gorgool is after them, helped by his nameless henchman known only as “The Servant”. Also, there’s a ghost that lives in the attic named “Johnny” that helps the siblings out on their various adventures. On paper, a show like that could work. The problem is that Monster By Mistake devolved into episodic garbage right away. Most episodes are just Warren and Tracy dealing with a relatively minor problem, they use magic to try and fix it, Johnny warns them not to do it, the magic makes everything worse, Johnny waves his finger at them, they fix the problem, and then everybody laughs before the credits roll.

While that formula is indictive of the era the show came out in, something that elevates it into a whole different realm of horrible-ness is the animation. The show looks incredibly dated, more so than other shows of that era. I’m pretty sure they just reused CG models from the pilot episode, released 3 years prior to the show’s release.

They didn’t bother to touch up these designs initially either, so they ended up looking pretty bland when the show was released in 1999. And then, season 3 happened. Most people don’t talk about season 3, because I don’t think many people actually watched it.

I’m pretty sure after season 2 of Monster By Mistake, interest completely waned in the series. I think that explains why season 3 tried to mix things up. First off, there’s the character design changes. Almost every characters looks phenomenally worse than they did in the first 2 seasons. They tried to give the faces a more detailed look, but it made them look much worse as a result.

What about the show’s general plot and setup? Well, the most this show has for plot is the eternal quest to change Warren back to normal. While this season doesn’t change that, it does add a bit more to it. You see, the jewel they use to cast spells is called the “Jewel of Fenrath”.

Season 3 is very heavily focused on travelling to Fenrath, the dimension where the jewel originated from. This changes the setting from suburbia to a fantasy setting, allowing for more distinct and varied backgrounds. In Fenrath, our heroes have to contend with Gorgool’s previously unmentioned brother, Morgool.

You’d think that this change of setting and villain would allow the show to evolve or grow, but it doesn’t really do that. The formula remains the same: The kids screw up with magic, things go wrong, they fix it, everybody laughs, the end. The change in setting doesn’t change much about the show, aside from adding in more fantastical elements from time to time.

Whenever something about Fenrath shows up that is actually interesting, it’s usually only around for an episode or two and then forgotten about. A big example of this is time slowing down in Fenrath, along with it being connected to the town the siblings live in. The spend an entire episode using Fenrath to jump back and forth from earth to get somewhere in time, which was honestly the most creative use of the setting in the entire show’s run.

I imagine the shoehorning in of Fenrath was due to the fantasy obsession at the time. You had films and games like Lord of The Rings and Morrowind coming out, bringing fantasy-based projects back into the limelight. However, I just don’t feel like Monster By Mistake was a good choice for this kind of setting.

While the show had fantastical elements, its severe lack of actual stakes or engaging characters made these fantasy realm adventures rather dull and bland. Now, you may think I’m being hard on this kids show. To be fair though, I grew up with the show and was in the target demographic at the time I watched it. Even back when I did watch it back then, I rarely enjoyed it.

I only watched it when stuff like ReBoot or Beast Wars wasn’t on, because I was obsessed with CG animation at the time and would watch anything in that animation style. Monster By Mistake was my biggest regret when it came to my passion for CG animation and I would often be reminded of the show every time I saw a film or show with bad CG. It stuck around in my head long after I had stop watching it, despite its terrible-ness.

Going back to it now and seeing that third season finally, I have to say that my opinions have not changed. It’s as bad as it was back then, even if the third season did try to change things up a bit. I’m sure people have fond memories of this show, and I respect that. Please keep in mind that these posts are just my personal opinion.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

The Kaiju/Giant Monster Fascination

If there’s something I love, it’s old movies. Sure, a lot of old films don’t age well, but they have a certain nostalgic value that is unmatched by most modern cinema. The biggest example of this are “Kaiju/Giant Monster Movies”. Kaiju films often revolve around giant monsters destroying the world, or destroying other monsters.

The genre started with older films, like Godzilla and King Kong. To this day, giant monster movies are still around and getting made. Despite the updated technology newer films in the genre use, the movies have roughly stayed the same over the years. With a genre that doesn’t tend to innovate very often, it’s a wonder people still come back for these films year after year!

However, there’s a ton of really big reasons why “Kaiju Fascination” is so prevalent and never truly goes away. The biggest reason is that giant monster movies often show a lot of destruction. It’s rare to see a film that shows as much collateral damage as a Kaiju movie. Going to a film and seeing Godzilla destroy an entire city is something that never really gets old.

Mass destruction on a scale such as this is horrifying in real-life, but ends up being a ton of fun in a fictitious space. This is because film (and most forms of media) are “escapist” entertainment, which means they let us escape from reality. They let us see a fictitious account of what would otherwise be a dangerous scenario in real-life. It’s why “Disaster Movies” tend to be so big, people come to see them mostly for the explosions and destructive spectacles.

Another reason people like Kaiju are because of the designs. For example, Godzilla looks like a cross between a dragon and a T-Rex. His design is simple, which is why it’s remained mostly consistent over the years. It just works, and is often considered one of the most iconic giant monster designs of all time.

Characters like King Kong and Mothra are easily recognizable, while being landmarks of the genre in their own right. Another big pull when it comes to Kaiju are the scenarios it presents. Seeing 2 or more giant monsters duke it out in a city is an enticing premise, one that you don’t see too often in film.

I think this is also the pull of something like Ultraman or Power Rangers, which is just seeing these behemoths duking it out in all their glory. And with Kaiju movies, you just can’t get that kind of experience anywhere else. Be it CG or guys in rubber suits, giant monsters are always cool!

Ultraman Tiga’s 4Kids Dub Was a Mistake

“Larger than life, ULTRAMAN!”

This probably isn’t the first time you’ve seen the words “4Kids” and “mistake” in the same sentence, yet here we are. Ultraman Tiga is considered the “holy grail” of the Ultraman franchise, so to speak. It’s a series with over 50 episodes, a movie, 3 sequel shows, and crossover movies with said shows. And of course, with any big series there must come attempts to bring it over to other countries.

While the series was big in Japan, the initial attempt to bring it to North America was not. Let’s talk about the infamous 4Kids dub of Ultraman Tiga! Airing in the early 2000s on the Fox-Box, Tiga followed a man named Daigo as he worked for an elite earth defense team called “GUTS”. Of course, when 4Kids bought the rights to dub the show, they didn’t exactly know what they were getting.

For one thing, Tiga had quite a bit of violence in it, along with references to older Ultraman shows that Americans wouldn’t get. Hell, there was an entire episode where Tiga met the original Ultraman and the series creator, Eiji Tsuburaya. If that episode had been dubbed and aired over here, most American kids would’ve been totally lost. It doesn’t help that 4Kids ended up toning the dub down considerably. While death got referenced here or there, the darker themes of the source material were given the standard 4Kids censorship.

On top of this, we had lines like the infamous “she looks like my yoga instructor” added to the mix. Suffice to say, the dub is terrible. However, I do have quite a bit of nostalgia for it. I think a lot of that comes down to it being my introduction to Ultraman as a series, since I had never heard of it before this. Plus, the English theme song (as linked above) is surprisingly catchy.

The show gave off this “poorly dubbed Godzilla movie” vibes in my eyes, which I dug. One of my favorite movies as a kid was that absolute garbage dub of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Naturally, I ended up really vibing with 4Kids’ god awful dub in my younger years. Going back to it now, I can say that it hasn’t aged well at all and doesn’t really hold up.

It’s pretty clear 4Kids was trying to make Tiga the next Power Rangers or Big Bad Beetleborgs. And while they failed at it, I can at least give them props for trying to dub something that isn’t an anime for once. It was definitely a failed experiment and one of the few shows on the Fox-Box to bomb so poorly that it was never fully dubbed. Maybe that’s for the best, since I don’t think 4Kids could’ve handled later episodes that well. Regardless, it did pave the way for the cheesy-as-hell Ultraman dubs we’d get later, so there’s that.

Monster Hunter Freedom Review: 1st Gen or Worst Gen?

Ah, the “classics”!

Gosh, it’s been a hot minute since I talked about anything Monster Hunter related! So, let’s talk about the first generation of Monster Hunter, specifically the handheld spinoff: Monster Hunter Freedom. First, let’s travel back to the year 2005. The first Monster Hunter had been out for over a year and a half at this point, so it was only natural for Capcom to try and cash in more on the concept. And thus, Capcom took both Monster Hunter and Monster Hunter G (an expansion for the first game) and converted it haphazardly into a PSP game.

And the results were… Mixed. Look, I’m not going to beat around the overly pixelated bush with you, this game stinks. This was my first introduction to Monster Hunter and it was just really bad. Between the long loading screens, the unforgiving difficulty, and the lack of any real narrative, I found myself getting bored real fast.

The whole setup for the game is that you are a rookie Monster Hunter sent to the village of Kokoto to hunt monsters. That’s pretty much the whole game, you just hunt monsters, gather items, forge new gear, etc. While later titles would make this a more fun affair with a larger array of weapons, styles, special moves, and even animal sidekicks to take along with you, Freedom is lacking in those areas.

Now, Monster Hunter is definitely a game that shines in its multiplayer. The problem? Getting people to play any of the Monster Hunter games on PSP with you! Yes, the PSP wasn’t as much of a big seller in America as it was in Japan. So, when I played this game as a teenager, I had no one to play the game with. No one had a PSP or had even heard of Monster Hunter at the time, so I was stuck playing this game alone and getting frustrated at how long it took to load and how annoying bosses could be.

Freedom Unite and Portable 3rd (the successors to the first game) had more options and things to do, even if they still didn’t have online multiplayer. Kokoto Village felt pretty bare in this game, not helped by the fact that it lacks the big online towns that the console games had. It feels absolutely miniscule compared to villages we get later.

Going back to this game after a decade feels like going back to my first pair of shoes: It’s uncomfortable, doesn’t fit, and makes me want to just slide my favorite sneakers back on. The game’s NPCs are bland and not fun to talk to at all, along with Kokoto itself just not being as interesting as later villages like Yakumo or Pokke.

To be fair, Monster Hunter Freedom does play like your average Monster Hunter game. You go out and hunt monsters, gain new weapons and items, and give into that sweet dopamine rush. I can also forgive some of its limitations due to it being a new venture for the franchise. After all, Capcom was working with new hardware and a handheld Monster Hunter game was a foreign concept at the time.

Nowadays, Monster Hunter practically lives on handheld. Outside of games like Monster Hunter World, you’ll often find most modern Monster Hunter games on handheld devices. In a sense, Monster Hunter Freedom was paving the way for the future of the franchise.

Sadly though, it was a rocky first entry in this series of handheld adaptations. The lack of a lock-on feature and a rather awkward camera makes this game a chore to play at times, yet it still sold over 1 million copies in Japan. A lot of that comes down to Japanese players being able to find other people with PSPs and copies of the games, giving them more access to multiplayer options.

This would grow and evolve, resulting in Monster Hunter Freedom 2 being pumped out not long after. And while I do have grievances with this game overall, it did introduce things like the food buff system and the farm. These features would become mainstays in the series, with Capcom still putting them in modern games today.

Even though I don’t like this game, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t important. It’s the first Monster Hunter game to do gangbusters in Japan and introduced the world to the idea of a handheld monster-hunting action RPG. To me, that’s an impressive feat in spite of its quality.

City of Heroes In 2021: A Review of a Classic

Yep, I’m talking about City of Heroes again! I last talked about the game 2 years ago, back when the private servers surfaced. Today, I want to do a full-on review of my favorite game! City of Heroes is one of the games that allowed me to nurture my creativity, while also providing me with one of the best superhero video-games I’ve ever played. Today, I will fully review this game and look at what made the original release back in 2004 so great.

First, some backstory: City of Heroes was a game that was announced in the early 2000s. It was advertised as a “Superhero MMORPG”, one that would allow you to fully create your own superhero and venture into a massive open city with it. You’d do battle with super-villains, establish your own super-team, and gain new powers and abilities along the way.

The game was advertised heavily in gaming magazines in the years leading up to its release, before eventually coming out in 2004 to glowing reviews and praise. City of Heroes was and still is a game like no other, due in large part to the fact that it had no real competition for the longest time.

Champions Online and DC Universe Online cropped up later, but only after City of Heroes had been out for a few years. City of Heroes was a truly masterful superhero MMO, but was unfortunately shut down back in 2012. With no real reason given for the shutdown and no way feasible way to play it, the fan-base became disgruntled.

NCSoft, who is City of Heroes’ publisher, dealt with a ton of backlash as a result. The backlash was so massive that the fan-base never truly forgave them for the closure. Almost 7 years after the shutdown, City of Heroes returned in the form of private servers! So, what makes this game so great?

For one thing, the character creator is amazing! You can customize your superhero’s costume, size, and even the look of his/her superpowers! The game provides thousands of different clothing options, along with many different sliders for each part of the body. This gives the game one of the most extensive character creation systems ever!

Before creating your character, the game makes you choose an “Origin”. You choose your origin from one of 5 different paths: Magic, Natural, Science, Mutation and Technology. Your origin defines what enhancements you can get for your character. Then you dive into the INSANE amount of powersets and abilities you can give your character.

You have stuff like claws, martial arts skills, the ability to shoot lasers, super strength, gadgets, and even radioactive powers! Of course, because of the insane amount of servers, there are many different powers divided between them. A lot of content is restricted between servers, depending on who owns them. Of course, they all have the base game powers.

The combat is pretty basic, nothing too special. You press different number keys to activate your abilities, use them on your enemies and try not to die. It’s often quite repetitive, but the large amount of abilities and powers on display here do make up for it.

Of course, the big thing about this game is its lore and characters. From the heroic Freedom Phalanx to the villainous Arachnos, there are tons of super-powered organizations and characters on display here. Your hero, villain, or anti-hero exists within one of the game’s various cities and takes on missions within. A lot of these missions are part of story arcs, some of which are pretty awesome.

One of my favorite was a sort of fantasy-based story that a trio of magical floating books sent me into. From there, I saved a random farm from an army of robots and it was great! Then there was a tournament I did on the villains side, where I fought other villains and eventually teamed up with all of them to defeat an even greater threat.

Stuff like this is what makes City of Heroes great. Couple that with an intensive upgrade system that doesn’t rely on randomly dropped weapons or armor, along with a vast open world filled with colorful characters and you have a recipe for success. And successful it was, for nearly a decade. Even after the official servers shut down, people are STILL coming back to play it on private servers and I think that’s great.

However, having grown up with the game and playing it now in modern day, I can tell that there are parts of it that have not aged well. While the dated graphics do have their charm, it can sometimes hamper the whole “create a character” experience. You can make a custom character look nearly identical to a copyrighted character, but they’ll only ever look like a PS2 version of said character. That doesn’t change how extensive and awesome the system is, but the lacking visuals does leave a bit to be desired.

Also, there’s the combat system I brought up earlier. It’s one of the reasons that I often quit the game and wouldn’t come back to it for months, it came down to how repetitive it was. It doesn’t help that 90% of the areas you go to in the game look identical. There’s little that differentiates one warehouse interior from another. So when you couple a dated combat system together with a multitude of areas that are all identical to each other, you get a rather same-y feeling after a while.

City of Heroes is still a good game, even in 2021. Sure, it’s not pretty and its dated systems would probably turn a lot of people off. Still, it’s character creator is second-to-none and the amount of super powers you can get in this game is insane. I have yet to see a superhero game that tops this one, aside from maybe Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Once more I recommend this awesome game to those who haven’t played it. There are tons of great private servers now, way more since the last time I talked about this game. Give this classic a shot sometime!

2009’s Infinity War: Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle Movie Review!

No, those silver guys are not robots.

Man, that’s a mouthful! Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy is a rather forgotten entry in the Ultraman series. It’s one of those series that has very little to do with actual Ultraman stuff. Ultramen only make slight cameo appearances in the show here or there, with most of the focus being on Ray and the crew of ZAP Spacy dealing with crazy Kaiju on another planet. Ray would often summon his own Kaiju to do battle with ZAP Spacy helping out in their own way.

The series could be best described as a live-action version of “Godzilla: The Series”, due to its focus on Kaiju fighting each other. The show proved popular enough to get its own movie, which also happened to be a massive crossover that featured all of the established Ultramen from across the franchise in it. Mega Monster Battle: The Movie takes place after both the Mega Monster Battle series and the Ultraman Mebius specials.

The plot is that an ancient evil named “Ultraman Belial” is freed from his eternal prison and wants revenge on the Ultras. The first 20 minutes of the film is him UTTERLY wrecking the Land of Light, the homeland of the Ultras. He steals their power source and freezes the planet solid, forcing Ultraman Mebius to travel to another universe and request the aid of Ray, who happens to be a “Reionics Warrior”.

Belial is possessed by the alien Reiblood, making him a Reionics as well. Ray joins Mebius as they venture to another world and team up with other Ultramen and heroes, all of whom join up for the big battle with Belial at the end.

Mega Monster Battle feels like the Japanese equivalent to Infinity War, despite predating that film by nearly a decade. MMB is a film that was ahead of its time, one that celebrates half a century’s worth of amazing superhero stories. I think the best part of the film comes down to the fact that you don’t even have to watch a lot of Ultraman to properly enjoy it.

To prove this point, I showed this film to a friend who only had minor exposure to Ultraman at the time. Despite not knowing 90% of the characters, he was able to follow the film quite well. There were a couple parts he had to ask questions on, but other than that he was able to easily piece together what was going on and get behind these characters.

Also, the movie has surprisingly good effects wise for a 2009 film. Watching the film in HD is a real trip, since it shows off how amazing the CG and effects were for the time. It’s a shame that more people don’t know about this film, considering how good it is. I won’t lie though, it does have some problems.

For one thing, the fight scenes don’t really match up with classic Ultraman most of the time. Most Ultraman shows and movies often had wrestling-like combat, while this film focuses on more flashy and energetic fights. The fights are still good, but they do lack that level of uniqueness that the series often brings to the table.

I also feel like the stuff revolving around Ultraman Zero felt tacked on, like he could’ve used some more screen-time and development. Regardless, the film is fantastic. It’s one of those films that takes the concept of a “massive superhero crossover” and goes nuts with it, while also doing it in a way that pays homage to over 50 years worth of stories and characters.

Every Ultraman that had been made at that point in time was in this film, even from more obscure films and foreign collaborations. This film knew what it was trying to do and did it. I think that’s extremely commendable and I’m glad the film turned out as great as it did.

Ultraman X Review: The Ultraman In Shining Armor

I’ve covered a few entries in the Ultraman series so far: Geed, Orb, and the parody film duology Ultraman Zearth. However, this time I thought I’d tackle something a bit more underrated. Ultraman X is the third show in the “New Generation Heroes” line of Ultraman series, with it coming out a year after Ginga S. X tells the story of a young man named “Daichi”, who works for an organization designed to stop aliens and kaiju called “Xio”.

In this universe, Kaiju get turned into action figures when they’re defeated. Daichi is desperately trying to find a way to bring back one such Kaiju, Gomora. Why is he doing this? So he can figured out a way to bring back his parents, who also got digitized! Along the way, Daichi bonds with the titular Ultraman X and the pair unite to take on the usual Kaiju threats you’d expect from Ultraman.

Now, if you’re going into this expecting a narrative, well… You won’t get one here. Ultraman X is a series that doesn’t really have a plot until the last couple episodes, when a powerful alien named “Greeza” shows up. The show itself does have a three-part arc featuring a crossover between X and the Ginga S series, along with several other crossovers with other Ultramen.

Despite this, the show doesn’t have anything connecting a lot of these episodes together, aside from a weird magical storm that supercharges Kaiju. The show also features a TON of crossovers and teamups. This includes episodes featuring Ultraman Zero, Ultraman Nexus, and Ultraman Ginga! This was clearly the season they wanted to pay homage to a lot of the older Ultraman stuff.

As a result, the show kind of lacks an identity at times. That being said, the crossovers and callbacks are still great, and it’s a good way to reacquaint audiences with older characters or concepts. Something I do like about X is how the transformations are handled.

Unlike series after this which normally feature the “combined powers of old Ultramen” shtick, X uses armor based off various classic Ultramen Kaiju. This includes monsters like Gomora, Eleking, or Bemstar. These armors generally looked cool, and I like that they didn’t completely change X’s appearance. They felt more like upgrades upon an already badass superhero.

X also focuses a lot more on its defense team than other New Generation Heroes shows. We get to see Xio helping out X a lot and even saving him on occasion. It’s quite fun to see all the crazy gadgets they use, which includes flying cars and the like!

So, is Ultraman X worth watching? I’d say that it varies, depending on what you’re looking for in an Ultraman show. It’s very standard and doesn’t do a whole lot that other shows in the franchise don’t already do. Still, the show is pretty fun and it can be worth watching it for the teamups alone.

Ultra Series Retrospective: Ultraman Zearth 1 and 2 Review

Man, I wish brushing my teeth in real life turned me into a superhero…

I honestly don’t know how to feel about the first Zearth movie. Ultraman Zearth is a pretty… Unique film. It was made in 1996 and came out the same year as one of the best shows in the series, “Ultraman Tiga”. It was also a parody of the general Ultraman concept and was attempting to do something unique with the series.

Ultraman Zearth focuses on a wayward man named “Katsuto Asahi”. Katsuto works for “MYDO”, an Earth Defense Force located within a dumpy-looking gas station. Katsuto is secretly the eponymous “Ultraman Zearth”, but he has a problem… He’s afraid of dirt.

The first film revolves around him fighting his fear of dirt and filth in order to defeat a group of invading aliens and save the world. It’s kind of bland and not super fun at times, which definitely works against it. I think a big part of the film’s problem is that the film focuses more on MYDO than Katsuto/Zearth. It’s honestly them bumbling around and failing to defeat the monster each time.

Zearth is meant to be a parody of Ultraman, but it’s attempts to be a parody tend to fall flat. Interestingly, the sequel is WAY better. Ultraman Zearth 2 starts off with Zearth getting his ass kicked by an evil version of himself called “Ultraman Shadow”.

Ultraman Zearth gets his eye injured during the fight, which causes him to become afraid of fighting altogether. As such, Katsuto’s arc is once again him overcoming a fear to topple an alien threat and defeat Shadow. It’s the same plot, but handled WAY better.

For one thing, there isn’t a bunch of forced MYDO scenes where they try to fight the monster. Also, Katsuto feels more like a protagonist and actual character here, with him going through a personal journey in order to find the will to fight again.

Here, it feels like a more grounded and realistic story. It’s very equatable to something like Karate Kid, about someone who has to work up the urge to stand up to his “bullies”. The second film also has a better villain, who puts the first movie’s villain to shame. In the first film, the villain was just this generic alien dude who wanted to destroy the earth.

The villain pulling the strings behind Ultraman Shadow is actually a fairly intimidating villain, who mind controls most of the populace. Zearth 2 is just a more solid film, helped by the fact that it tries to stray further from the parody aspect and tell a more complete and entertaining story.

Honestly, Zearth works better as a more straightforward version of Ultraman, rather than just a simplistic parody. Zearth 2 fleshes out the concepts presented by the original and is all the stronger for it, even if the plot is a retread.

To me, Zearth represents what long-running franchises should do: Taking a simple parody concept and go nuts with it. An official parody doesn’t need to just be a basic comedy making fun of small elements of the original, it can be something more than that.

Ultra Retrospective: Ultraman Geed Review

Man, look at all the toys!

Ultraman Geed is a pretty fascinating show in the Ultra series. Unlike the show that came just before it (Orb), Geed isn’t a show about some lone wanderer fighting off an old friend. The story of Geed revolves around a young man named “Riku” and his struggles to fit in. Riku and his alien friend Pega one day discover an underground base, while Riku himself finds out that he’s an alien.

Not just any alien, but the son of Ultraman Belial, a terrifying corrupted Ultraman who threatens to destroy the entire universe. So, Riku transforms into “Ultraman Geed” to fight against Belial and the various Kaiju under his command. Meanwhile, a mysterious author named “Kei” is working under Belial and hopes to further his plans.

Then we have Ultraman Zero coming down to earth, Riku’s childhood friend working for a Men In Black organization, and a young woman with a sword named Raiha who’s after Kei, etc. As you can tell, Geed has a lot more going on than Orb did.

Orb had 6 primary characters and a handful of recurring characters, while Geed has well over a dozen primary characters and a fair bit of recurring ones. What this means is that the show feels a lot more dense than Orb did at times.

The show also tries to balance Geed’s crimefighting with him struggling to be accepted due to his appearance. As previously mentioned, Riku is Belial’s son and as such, his appearance as Ultraman Geed is based off this.

A lot of the series is spent with Geed trying to fight giant Kaiju and also battle with the public’s perception of him. It creates an interesting angle that the show uses to bounce off of from time to time. However, the show isn’t perfect.

For one thing, it feels like it takes a while to get to the really good stuff. Orb was pretty high quality throughout, but the first few episodes of Geed are a bit too standard and it takes a while for the primary cast to become interesting. There’s also the fact that Kei takes over main villain status for most of the show’s second half and I wasn’t a huge fan of this.

Kei isn’t really as interesting as Belial or Juggler from Orb, so he often comes off as a try-hard supervillain fanboy at times. They also introduced this idea of giving various characters these shining balls of energy in their chests called “Little Stars”, which give them superpowers. However, they never really use these powers to help out Geed, which I find to be lame.

Instead, they manifest these powers, use them maybe once or twice, then hand them over to Geed so he can get a new upgrade. It’s kind of infuriating that they have this concept of super-powered normal people in an Ultraman setting and just never really utilize it in a meaningful way.

That being said, I do like Geed A LOT. The show’s second half is actually REALLY damn good and does some interesting stuff with the Kaiju battles. One episode that stood out to me was when Riku and friends had to deal with a Kaiju that would keep regenerating at the same time every day, no matter when or how it was destroyed. This meant that they would constantly try to come up with new ways to kill the Kaiju so it stays dead FOR GOOD.

It was a fun concept for an episode and it definitely worked. In general, I liked Geed a lot. Not as much as Orb, but that’s a pretty high bar to surpass. Geed is what it needs to be, an entertaining action show that takes the “hero is the son of the villain” concept and tries to have fun with it. It’s not a perfect show, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s just a jolly good time!

Tune in next time when I review an Ultraman movie: Ultraman Zearth!

Ultra Retrospective: Ultraman Orb Review

What’s this?! A review of a TV show?! Yes, in the past few months I’ve been getting into “Ultraman”. It’s the longest running Japanese show of all time, with a crap ton of spinoffs and a massive worldwide fanbase. To summarize the series briefly: It’s a franchise that revolves around humans that bond with gigantic alien men from a planet that kinda looks like Krypton, who then do battle with Kaiju.

The lore is immense, there’s an entire multiverse that the Ultramen frequently traverse to team up with each other, and there’s over a thousand episodes and two dozen movies based on this series thus far. So, I thought I’d tackle this series and give my opinion on its various entries! After all, who doesn’t love trying new things?

Let’s start with one of the newer shows, “Ultraman Orb!” Ultraman Orb revolves around a mysterious drifter named “Gai Kurenai”. He meets a gang of would-be paranormal investigators, who call themselves “Something Search People”.

Gai usually hangs out with these monster-hunting dorks and often finds himself getting roped into epic Kaiju battles. Gai also can’t use his original Ultraman form, meaning he has to rely on borrowing the powers of previous Ultramen. He does this by combining their powers, thus granting him new forms.

Gai also has to deal with his former friend, Juggler, who’s plotting to awaken an ancient planet-destroying Kaiju using his dark powers. It’s up to Gai to do battle against Juggler and the Kaiju that he frequently awakens, while also discovering new powers and growing closer to the Something Search People.

What makes Orb stand out so much to me is its small yet very strong cast. The series only has 6 primary characters: Gai, Juggler, Naomi, Jetta, Shin and Naomi’s uncle Shibukawa. The cast is kept relatively small in this series and as such, the show does a good job of building them up and focusing on them individually.

Shibukawa himself works for the “VTL”, who kind of function as the Kaiju-fighting military force in this series. However, they mainly deal with aliens and it’s usually Orb who has to take on the big monsters alone. Think of VTL as the “Men In Black” and Ultraman Orb as the “the guy who does all the heavy lifting”.

The show is honestly great fun to watch! There’s a small yet stable cast, tons of solid action, and plenty of fun character interactions. It’s nice seeing Gai start off as a hermit not wanting to be involved with the Something Search People, to basically becoming an official member as the series goes on.

If I had any complaints, it’s that the characters don’t change a whole lot over the course of the show. Sure, new forms get introduced and there’s some character development throughout all of its characters, but its very rarely something that changes their dynamics all that much.

Regardless, the show is solid. It is available completely for free on Shout Factory’s TV service, along with its film adaptation, and a few spinoffs. I’ll tackle those spinoffs in time, but next time we’re going after a different show: Ultraman Geed!