(Spoilers for Ultraman Decker)
Despair is something rarely seen in the Ultraman series. It is a state of mind the series is opposed to morally — We at UC personally like to see it as the moment one gives up looking for something they can do and starts looking for something they can blame. This definition forms the core of one of the most tragic characters in the modern Ultraman series: Agams, the lone survivor of Planet Bazdo.
A long time ago, in the far future (An utterly deranged sentence, we know, but that’s Decker for you), Planet Bazdo was a beautiful, technologically-advanced world, inhabited by the Bazdor. Among them was Agams, a brilliant scientist, and his wife Laelia. A kind people, the Bazdor became entangled with the future iteration of humanity during their war with the all-consuming Spheres, offering their technology to help the war effort against the existential threat of the Spheres.
Agams was on the forefront of this war effort, using his intelligence for the sake of helping the universe, while Laelia became deeply enamored with stories of Earth, hoping to visit one day. Unfortunately, as a side-effect of the war, the Sphere armada soon began to target Bazdo, wrapping it in a barrier to slowly consume it. Bazdo, the harmonious world, soon fell to the endless hunger of the Sphere… and among them, Laelia.
Driven mad with grief at the loss of his world and love, Agams blamed Earth, accusing its people of dragging them into their war — despite the fact that, eventually, the Sphere would have come to them, as they did all worlds, and a lone world would fall much faster than a united front. It didn’t matter — as we said at the beginning, Agams had given up looking for something he could do, and instead chose to blame others. He had fallen into despair.
Before this time, Agams had been working on something truly revolutionary — a time travel system to allow the people of the universe to battle the Sphere in the past with the experience and developments of the future. Instead of that, he turned his glorious development towards his own twisted revenge. Agams traveled as far as possible into the past — but not by himself. No, Agams brought the Sphere with him, hoping to destroy the Earth, and its defender, Ultraman Decker, by subjecting them to a Sphere invasion long before they could possibly be ready.
Disguising himself as Yuichiro Asakage, a TPU (Terrestrial Peaceable Union) scientist, Agams landed on Earth shortly before the events of Ultraman Trigger, starting his own personal plans during the crisis of the Dark Giants. However, his “Project DG” was held off when Ultraman Trigger appeared to defeat the Dark Giants instead. Agams was forced to bide his time for 7 years, until the Sphere finally appeared on Earth, for his project to be restarted.
During that time, “Asakage” became part of the primary GUTS-Select roster, joining Kanata Asumi and other defenders of Earth as their tech specialist, and helped to develop HANE2, AKA Hanejiro, the artificial intelligence that helped the group and co-piloted their aircraft. It was through reviewing Hanejiro’s logs that Agams became aware of Kanata’s true identity as this time’s Ultraman Decker, focusing his mind in preparation to take his revenge.
Project DG soon bore fruit with the completion of the Terraphaser robot, an incredibly powerful machine whose devastating weapons could actually battle against the Sphere. Unfortunately, its true nature was as Agams’ weapon against Earth, and he soon revealed his true identity and took control of the Terraphaser, attempting to destroy Earth’s remaining defenses and allow the Sphere to consume the planet’s energy! It was only through the intervention of the future’s Ultraman Decker, Decker Asumi, and Kanata himself reclaiming the power of Ultraman and making it his own in the form of Decker’s Dynamic Type that cost Agams the battle.
Though Agams was beaten and injured, he still had the Terraphaser, and refused to give up his mad vendetta, partnering even with the evil Yapool at times, all to achieve his imagined revenge. Eventually, his insane obsession led him to merge the Terraphaser with the Spheres themselves, sacrificing his memories of Laelia that drove him for the sake of more power. Even then, he still failed and fell to Decker, GUTS-Select capturing his emotionless husk in the aftermath.
Even this was part of his final plan, as, upon regaining his memories, was able to use the Terraphaser to construct the obelisks that would summon the Strongest Sphere Monster, the Mother Spheresaurus to Earth. Fighting for nothing but destruction, Agams’s madness was finally broken by Kanata, who was able to remind him, finally, of Laelia’s actual wishes — of her hopes to befriend Earth, and not to destroy it in the same way Bazdo was destroyed.
Unfortunately, though Agams’s mind was finally whole, his body had been fatally broken from pushing himself so violently and accepting the Sphere. After he and Decker destroyed the obelisks, Agams passed away in Kanata’s arms, the Bazdor expressing his regrets with his final breaths and going to see Laelia in the afterlife.
In a comparatively happy ending for this tragedy, Agams did find Laelia — and peace — in his death, with Kanata communing with their souls in the wake of the final defeat of the Sphere. Though his life had been consumed by despair, in the end, Agams did find his way back to the light.
Though Agams’s story is a long and engaging one, he is not the only tragic villain in the Ultraman series. If you want to hear their stories next, stay close to Ultraman Connection.
