Ultraman Ginga Series Review

Ultraman Ginga is a TV series that commemorates the 50th anniversary of Tsuburaya Productions. Part of the New Ultraman Anthology programming block, the series is divided into two parts and follows a group of friends living in a small town. 

​Prior to the start of the series, a great war called the Dark Spark War raged in the cosmos. The end of result of said war is that the Ultramen and their allies and monsters are turned into figures called Spark Dolls and scattered across the universe. At the present, we meet Hikari Raidou, a man who returned to his hometown and stumbled across an item called a Ginga Spark, and once its tip touches a Spark Doll, he UltLive into the said figure.
 
With this power, he fights people being controlled by a similar item, the Dark Spark as Ultraman Ginga and with the help of his friends, Misuzu, Kenta, and Chigusa, they'll discover the secret behind these items and how their old elementary school becomes the center of this conflict that started in space.

​Ultraman Ginga is one interesting entry to the franchise as it tries to cram in a lot of ideas in 11 episodes (plus 2 movies and a special), even though its ideas are good enough for at least a 25-episode TV series. This gives me an impression that the series doesn’t know what it wants to be for the most part of the series. Yes, it has an overall theme of pursuing or following your dream, but the way the series handled its overall tone felt like they want to burn as many stories in its short amount of time. To give you a better idea about the said tone issue, the first six episodes of the series all have the same tone of humans becoming monsters thanks to main antagonist’s agent who used their evil hearts to summon the monster of the week with a satisfying mid-season finale featuring the end of Tomoya’s initial character arc. 

​These six episodes all have a single goal, to make us care for the show’s support cast and did care for them after the end of the episode. But all these six episodes have the same problem, it barely features any Ultraman. Unlike past Ultraman shows, the show’s main protagonist, Hikaru has the ability to not only transform into Ultraman Ginga, but to any of the past Ultraman monsters with the power of the Ginga Spark and the Spark Dolls. For the most part of the episode, Hikaru is transform into any of the monster Spark Dolls that he owns or he obtained from the previous episode. The only time he transforms into Ginga is by the tail end of every episode. It’s a quite a problem especially for a series titled “Ultraman Ginga”. This is where the movie that takes place in between episodes 6 and 7 comes in. 

​The movie culminates of all the character stuff that we got in the first six episodes of the series while transitioning viewers into a more Ultraman heavy second half while at the same time, being an extended episode of the series, making this movie the episode 6.5 of the series. The movie introduced plot points that are brought up in the second half of the series. Most notably Hikaru and Misuzu’s relationship and the escalating problem with the series’ main antagonist. By the time the film ends, not only we got a really cool fight between Ginga and Dark Zagi, but it pretty much sets up what we should expect in the show’s second half. 

​By the time the series entered its second half, we got a lot more Ultraman action, but it felt like the action was there to fill up the lost hours not seeing Ultraman in action. To make it worse, the character stuff from the previous half of the series now feels rushed in the second half of it. I mean, we were introduced to Misuzu’s father, but we barely got a chance to see how Misuzu feels about him or how their relationship originally worked prior to the character development they received at the end. We never got a chance to savor how Misuzu feels about her father and vice versa. The only thing we know is that he overworks a lot, neglecting his family. 

It is also thanks to the show’s length that Tomoya’s supposed given dream of defeating Ultraman Ginga was forgotten in favor of him becoming more of a support character to Ginga via Jean-Nine. By the time second half started, we all just assumed that he changed him dream from wanting to beat Ultraman Ginga to fighting along Ginga. There was no proper transition into that status quo change. They just let the viewer assume that after the movie, Tomoya reconsider his life choices that instead of following a dream given to him, he’ll just follow his own.

​It is also because of the show’s length that the reveal of the series’ final boss, Dark Lugiel feels a bit rush in my opinion. We know that he exist and in the second half of the series, the school’s principal was made aware of his existence. Out of nowhere, we got this plot twist that she is Dark Lugiel’s host. No build up, heck, even just a hint about it. Only one big reveal that she is related to the series’ primary antagonist and the story on how she became Dark Lugiel’s host. To make it worse, the most important aspect of Dark Lugiel’s character, namely that he is Ultraman Ginga’s dark half was only revealed in a later episode of New Ultraman Anthology, and not in the series.
 
If this project was meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Tsuburaya Productions, this is a poor way to celebrate it by limiting a project to its full potential. Speaking of limiting its potential, the mere fact that an 11-episode series was divided into parts with at least the first part of the second half of the series and the first few minutes of the movie being recaps limits what the show can do. You can do a good TV show in under 11 episodes, but in the case of Ultraman Ginga, this series doesn’t know how to use their limited run to its fullest 

​Even with all its faults, the second half of the series was satisfying to watch. From seeing dark versions of Ultraman and Ultraseven attack our heroes, the side characters getting their moment by transforming into Ultraman, Ultraseven and Ultraman Tiga, and finally, that final fight in the moon. One of the show’s biggest moments involved Ultraman Taro and how I got invested from this tiny Ultraman’s desire to return to his original size. At the very start of the series, we meet Ultraman Taro, but not in a manner we expect to meet an Ultraman. We first see him as a tiny Spark Doll, a complete opposite on what we usually see them on screen. For the most part of the series, aside from serving this mentor role to Hikaru, we saw him get kidnapped and be a butt of jokes as his only desire is to become big again. We got this at the second half of the series.

​Seeing Ultraman Taro transform back into his original size is one of the best moments in the series. It also helps that those short Spark Doll Theater segments at the end of every episode further establish Taro’s need of wanting to go back into his original size. We got the whole shebang when we see his return to his full size. From the use of his theme song, to that epic rise and how it all lead up that moment was beautifully done. As much as I criticize the second half of the series for forgetting some of its character stuff, this is one of the things they absolutely nailed to a tee. As for his mentor role in the series, he was an okay mentor. He didn’t teach Hikaru a lot, but the time they spent together was just fun to watch. 

​Hikaru and Misuzu’s relationship is easily one of the best parts of the series. In under 11 episodes and a movie, the series was able to evolve their relationship from good childhood friends into this sort of romance that can make this man scream in his screen to say, “Just admit that you like each other!” It also helps that both of them are teenagers, making this “will they or won’t day” relationship more engaging to watch. Oh, and their other friends not named Tomoya are also fun to watch and seeing them eventually get their spotlight in the extra episode after the finale and finally seeing them fulfill their dreams in the sequel series, Ultraman Ginga S really worth watching. 

Finally, the series’ main protagonist, Hikaru Raidou, he’s pretty cool. His entire character arc in the series and in the sequel series, Ultraman Ginga S is that life is an adventure and the series shows us why is that. We learned that he wants to be an adventurer, something that was lightly explored in this series and in Ginga S. But him as an Ultraman? It took a while for me to accept that he is an Ultraman. The fact that we barely get to see him fight as Ultraman makes it even worse. Thankfully, they were able to solve this issue in the final arc of the first half of the series. More of him as Ultraman, he’s unique case as the series didn’t have iconic “Ultraman flying out of the scene after the battle” trope and barely featured a blinking Color Timer. The only time we saw Ginga fly out after a big battle was in the series finale and in Ginga S… and that’s about it. He an unconventional Ultraman for a new generation. 

​Overall, Ultraman Ginga is a decent entry to the franchise. Like I said, it’s a series that tries a lot of things but didn’t have enough time to explore said concepts introduced in the series. It is not sure if it wants to be an Ultraman vs. Monster series or a Monster vs. Monster series early on, but it was able to find its unique identity later in the series by embracing both aspects. It’s a series that deserves to have at least a few more episodes to explore its concepts and its further expand its characters, but with the time they had, they managed to at least cram most of the essentials.
 
Thankfully, these concepts were further expanded in its sequel series, Ultraman Ginga S and its first episode is in my opinion, 10 times better than the first half of Ultraman Ginga. It also helps that it is 7 episodes longer than Ultraman Ginga, but that series is for another day.