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.
Syrup With A Side Of Writing 