Ultraman Ginga Episode 2 Review: Oooh Scary!

I am even going to look back on Ginga, the first episode was a really sad attempt, but will this episode get even worse? YES!

Oh what should I bring up first? I know the fact that Hikaru's actor is laughable. In the last episode he had a hard time with his performance as he tried a little too hard at times. In this episode, every time we were closed on his face he looks like he is going to burst out laughing. I am not kidding he couldn't pull off a convincing face at all. There are many times where he has a constant smirk and again it makes him look like he is going to laugh anytime soon. Unlike the first episode where he tried too hard, this time it felt like he wasn't even trying as it seems he is already laughing at this show like I am.

Now with Hikaru's character he doesn't really get any development which is bad because this is easily supposed to be about his relationship with Misuzu and only she had the development. All he learned is why he fought the way he did for the first time, which is pretty easy and I'm glad he didn't start talking to himself about why he did. I will say how he was treating this situation wasn't good at all either. Misuzu is constantly doubting herself and Hikaru never says any words of encouragement at all. All he does is listen which isn't a bad thing, women like good listeners, but they need people who respond as well. Hikaru didn't even improve as a fighter in this episode so for the second episode of an eleven episode series, Hikaru has no movement has a character so far.

As I stated before, Misuzu was more the developed character for this episode, but it's not any good. Her part of the story is that she finds out how much of a coward she is. She starts to pick this up when a biker was chasing her and all she did was running away from him. I have to say for a girl who isn't dealing with constant fears of what the next Kaiju is going to be I think she is fine. Now she does bring up how she froze when the first Kaiju appeared yet she brings up something else first. She tells Hikaru the story of when she was alone in the forest when it was dark. This comes out of nowhere and the only reason this was brought up was because of the Kaiju for this episode. I even have to call bull on the fact that she didn't remember how Hikaru even saved her from that time. I have to say if I was her I would be right next to the guy since he is the only person saving her. Then let's just cross that off the checklist of cliches as well, the fear development.

It's sad when the only realistic character in this episode is yet just another cliche. The foe of this episode was a rebel biker who loves to scare people with his bike. He just has fun with what he does and that alone is all we get from him. Again this is the only character that seems reasonable since he is just a sadistic biker, that is all. I'm actually surprised we didn't get a sad story about him or some out of place back story for why he chases people. Even his actor was more convincing that the main cast because he may be overreacting, but at least it's his sadistic side he is showing off.

Reminding me of over the top performances, the main villain the gold creepy guy was just doing the most random of movements. Then for some reason this jumps to the Kaiju of this episode. The Kaiju is called Kemur Man as he appeared in Ultra Q and the first Ultraman. I don't know if this guy was so goofy like he was in this episode, either way though it was so dumb. This guy just does the most random of movements and just had me laughing when I know I was supposed to be afraid of this guy at times. The whole time he is chasing Misuzu I never felt scared, I just wanted to get to the fight. Even when it got to that he was just goofing around, so I'm calling bull on the villains for picking this monster. I mean you have a rebel biker give him a monster that will ram people.

There was a new character that got introduced in this episode and boy the checklist of cliches just keep getting constant check marks. Ichijouji, the silent kid. The two minor characters talk about him being a smart kid who is really athletic, but is not sociable whatsoever. Okay this is really getting annoying, this show feel more like a live adaptation of a bad anime series even more. What makes it worse is that all of a sudden Ichijouji starts talking with Hikaru, what a surprise... I can even tell he is going to be a future villain since after the big fight he was in the background watching the whole thing, oh no now he knows Hikaru's secret... I will have to ask why he is looking into Hikaru like he is right now since I don't want to say he is the main villain since that would be really stupid. Maybe he just as an interest for giant monsters, who knows and I don't really care either way.

Finally, I can talk about the action as last time that was a saving point for the first episode. This episode though decides to keep up the bad comedy. Hikaru transforms into Thunder Darambia and cannot defeat the Kemur Man with that. Really, Hikaru is a huge thunder Kaiju and cannot defeat a quirky monster. The monster even farts in Hikaru's face, I'm not joking! Then when Ginga comes out again, it's just Ginga winning like last time and unleashing a finisher move. I will say though I did like how Hikaru just tosses the monster into space and there he performs his finisher. It was the only thing that got me excited in this episode since the finisher was impressive to look at. The move is called Ginga Fireball as Ginga's light becomes red and he summons fireballs, it's pretty basic when I describe it, but with the space environment as the background, it made the attack look better than it sounds like. Sadly, the camera work couldn't have been this good for the whole episode...

The camera work in this episode was really bad. We had a very shaky camera for no good reason when things could have been still. So many scenes that were shot in the day, but were just tinting the colors to make it look like it was at night. I mean there are some scene that are actually shot at night time, so why not just have the other scenes actually shot during the night? I mean the whole chase scene was convincing enough, so why not just shoot scenes in the night light? The fight also had this problem, but it wasn't as bad though since some areas looked dark for the most part and having Ginga's light glow made it more convincing. Next time however, if they can't shoot things in the dark just don't shoot things in the dark! There are ways to have scary moments in the day time.

This episode is a complete failure in many ways. The acting got surprisingly worst for many parts as even Ichijouji is not a convincing actor as well. Hikaru just wants to laugh the whole time and Misuzu can't even show fear correctly. The Kaiju was presented in a poor manor and the fight really downgraded because of this. The only saving factor was the finisher, everything was terrible. I give this episode an F.

Next Time: Burn baby burn!

Ultraman Ginga Episode 1 Review: Insert Anime Trope Here

With me being down with season two of Akibaranger I decided to take a look into a franchise that hasn't had a series for a long time. Now I'm not the biggest Ultraman fan, but I try to find series. I saw the first episode of Max and I don't want to touch that again, I saw halfway to Nexus, and I'm still going through Ultraseven. So I may not know everything that this series is "being a tribute to" even though I don't have that feeling from this series.

When I heard there is going to be a new Ultra series, I was happy. I can finally watch an Ultra show the whole way and I will since it's only eleven episodes! I know Akibaranger had thirteen episodes per season, but that's a parody series. Ginga is supposed to be an anniversary series. I can see eleven episodes for Ultraman Zero since he already had many movies. I guess that makes too much sense though so here take this new Ultraman, we don't care about him so he gets eleven episodes. I can easily see this series is going to be ignored since if it doesn't pick up from the very very boring first episode, it will be more shunned than Decade. Decade was a bad series, but at least the first episode was good. The premise was interesting and how it was introduced was well done. Too bad there are so many unanswered questions. Decade also has another step up to Ginga that it felt like it's own show.

Don't worry Decade this is not your fault this time.

So what I am getting at with this new Ultraman is that it doesn't even feel like Ultraman in the beginning. The show starts with the main character returning to his hometown and then an old friend appears from a hijinks moment. Already those are two really big cliches in many anime series. It's not even Ultraman cliches! At least with those the show would feel like an Ultra show. Here it just feels like a very boring romance. Cause it's very obvious that the Hikaru is in love with this girl, oh and their old childhood friends, GAH! Now cliches aren't bad I made that clear in my Pacific Rim review. The thing is though, if they are used to make a good feeling in a movie it works. As I said before with Ginga the cliches are from J-dramas and anime series so it doesn't feel like an Ultra series. I bet there were some forced romances before in the franchise, but I wouldn't think it was as bad as these two.

Heck I can't even say these characters are bad since they don't have many traits to really look into. Hikaru, boy coming back to his hometown and falls in love. Misuzu, a girl who is just around to be the damsel in distress. Hell that was her introduction to the series, she fell into a cradle and it went downhill. These are out leads! The only thing that is only interesting with Hikaru is his reasoning for coming back. It's weird though and barely makes any sense. He has been gone for a long time and now he decides to come back just because he was curious about an idol from a church. It took him this long? Is it that hard to visit the area? Heck the idol is what gives him powers so.... it's like Kuuga, a rider series, what is this show called again? Does it get worse though, yes it does.

How does it get worse, the acting is horrid. I know this is a Toku show, the acting is never top shelf acting. Recently though there wasn't really bad acting, the closest one was probably Go-busters. Hikaru's actor is very stiff and he even expresses the wrong emotions at some points. When he heard about a church being burned down he has a little laugh. I get it that he didn't believe it, but why a laugh? Then whenever he does express emotion it feels like it stretches his face so he doesn't fully express these emotions. Then there is Misuzu who expresses too much. Sometimes her voice even breaks when talking and sometimes her pitch goes up a little too high. She still isn't has bad as the side female character who I won't even bothering naming since she was just there for two scenes, but her voice.... man her voice. At least the two older actors are okay at best, but our leads are bad actors, thank goodness this is only eleven episodes.

I mean look at the left, she is standing way too straight. At least the other three look relaxed. She looks like she's doing a school play performance.

Now let's get to the premise of the show. The premise is that there was a war and all the Ultramen and monsters were turned into dolls. So not only do we have the war story like Decade and Gokaiger had, but also the powers being lost like Gokaiger. There are different ways to tribute a franchise, look at Metal Heroes. They had Gavan reappear in Gokaiger and they made a new Gavan. Then Akibaranger is a parody and does a great job of praising the franchise. Ginga doesn't do any of this, so far the only Ultra character that appears was Taro, who is a doll. So now Taro wants Hikaru to use the Light Spark because he saw him saved a girl, that's it. At least Zordon had a description of who he wants. Taro just saw Hikaru do one thing and thinks he's the one. Maybe this episode could have worked better is we saw Hikaru do more good deeds to make him feel like a hero a little more.

I will say I do like how the female lead does know about Taro and then this leads to her knowing that Hikaru could be the chosen one. A lot of Ultra series always have people hiding their identities as an Ultraman. I do know there are others that don't do this also so it's not the best thing, but at least it's something a like a little. Then Hikaru can turn into the Kaijus which is a cool idea. The Ultra Kaiju are pretty iconic and now we can see some fights between different Kaijus. Too bad this series is only eleven episodes! Now lets get to how Hikaru transforms into Kaijus and Ginga. He does this by linking a doll with his Ginga Spark. This is the worst collective transformation items ever. They couldn't make an item like cards or keys, but no just dolls. Also they have their own special stamp on the foot so you need to buy new figurines just to use these. That is a huge waste of money for people who are going to buy the merchandise.

Now at least the action was good. We had a Kaiju fight which was done well. Hikaru was inexperienced and gets his ass handed to him. He is Black King and he doesn't know what to do with it since he transformed at it by accident. I will say I do like the transformation since it reminds me of the old Ultraman series and seeing that for the monsters is sweet. The other monster was Thunder Darambia which comes from using two people who were just dumping trash illegally. Then the fight with Ginga's reveal came and it was okay. I didn't like that Hikaru all of a sudden gets better in fighting just because he is using a different power. At least Ginga's designs look great. It's a really big change compared to other Ultramen designs and at least that makes Ginga look like his own hero. Then I did like his finisher as his blue parts on his body changed to yellow and summoned a huge lightning attack. The effects were great as well, maybe this is why it's eleven episodes because the budget seems pretty high for the effects.

I'm not even going into the villains since there isn't much. The only thing is that a creepy dude can use bad people to control Kaijus. Not really much there. So overall the story and the characters are very weak, but at least there could be some nice action scenes with some good effects and I do like his theme as well. So at least I got something to look forward to the fight scenes, but I have to bear with everything else before that! So I would give the first episode a D- as it really fails to feel like an Ultra series and does poorly to introduce this premise.

Next Time: Glowing in the dark.

Adding To The Name Megaforce

This is going to be a quick post because I think a couple of sentences will explain this easily. Saban has now registered "Ultra MegaForce" Really at first Megaforce was bad, but now its even worse with the name Ultra! First it is classified as live action, but why Ultra? I am thinking Ultraman when I here the word Ultra mentioned with live action, so is this an ultraman adaption? Probably not, but the name got worse thats all I have to say.