EJ
Hi folks! Today’s going to be a special, but more importantly, topical discussion! As usual, I’m EJ Couloucoundis, Editor-in-Chief of Ultraman Connection.
SL
And I’m Sarah Last, staff writer and content creator for Ultraman Connection! And boy, is our topic today one that I’ve been waiting to do for a long time!
EJ
Now, Sarah, we both saw Shin Ultraman. We both LIKED Shin Ultraman. Our discussion today isn’t on how good it is, because you’re not going to hear two big Ultraman fans on an official Ultraman website talk down on the movie. It just isn’t done!
SL
I mean even if I wasn’t getting paid for this, I’d still be talking about how much I liked this movie. That’s the honest truth.
EJ
What we are going to talk about is what Shin Ultraman means. Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi created… quite a spectacle, didn’t they? And while I love them both, I’ve never known them to lean on subtlety, especially in the series that Shin Ultraman is part of. All the same, let’s really dig into what was actually said, what was implied, and what we (lovingly) got slapped in the face with, metaphorically.
SL
This really is a movie that could only have been made by creative producers like Higuchi and Anno, who are not only fans of the innovative special effects used in the original series, but also of the themes and storytelling characterized and conveyed by those dramatic visual effects. In fact, wasn’t there a segment from Shinji Higuchi during the Ace 50th Anniversary Holiday Special that aired live back in December, talking about exactly that topic?
EJ
There was! Higuchi has been an absolute evangelist for the film, having poured endless amounts of time and care not only into making it, but in helping it reach fans all over the world. In fact, a similar message was played right before the Fathom screenings we both enjoyed so much last week.
SL
I always love hearing the thought process of directors, writers, artists, and other people involved with these movies, and hearing it from someone as well-versed and passionate as Higuchi was a really welcome bonus to the Fathom screening, and the live event!
After the interview for that screening, we got into the main event, the movie itself. I had the opportunity to see it with a pretty large group of friends and was also surprised to see a lot of other movie-goers who were completely new to the franchise. I wondered if they would enjoy the experience as well, but I think everyone there had a great time!
I think the creative vision from the movie’s director, Higuchi, and Hideki Anno’s script, both made that possible by laying out their passion for the original franchise in some creative ways. Would you agree?
EJ
I would! In fact, I was almost blinded by their vision, it was so clear. (A joke, but let’s get serious.) I’d like to start with, well, the first moments of the movie, the title sequence, because it ties into something I consider to be vital to the Ultraman series in general: that it is what comes next. Just as the original Ultraman bloomed out of the Ultra Q logo, Shin Ultraman erupts from the title of Shin Godzilla. Ultraman has always been a story of hope emerging from strangeness, and that’s true from moment one.
SL
It’s also a pretty funny sight gag, it got a good chuckle out of the audience at the theater.
The first few minutes of the movie pick right up from there, straight into a montage that lifts entire episodes of Ultra Q and recaps them with quick headlines — and a soundtrack also ripped directly from the show itself. It was a really fun way of establishing the universe that this movie exists in, and sets up the expectations of the audience, and the SSSP team itself. It provides just enough insight into their operations and main mission that we’re right there with them when they get dropped into the latest challenge, against a Kaiju named “Neronga”.
EJ
Why Neronga? Well, because the minister of the Disaster Prevention Agency thought of the name, and that’s just a perk of the job. It’s become a perk of the job, this many Kaiju in, considering these buggers only attack Japan. From the emergence of Gomess (made from the Shin Godzilla model in one of my favorite references in the movie) up to now, these walking disasters have made a mess of Japan, and, as you’d expect, this is an early signifier of one of the creative team’s favorite themes — Japan’s political bureaucracy.
SL
I found it interesting, but very appropriate, that the satirical skewering of the failures of bureaucracy that limit the government’s response to these disasters was carried over from Shin Godzilla. Here, like many other aspects of the movie in relation to its predecessor, it’s played more for laughs, but it does provide an uneasy tension which only intensifies as the threats against Japan, or against humanity as a whole, also intensify throughout the movie.
I think that is also deliberately tempered with the focus on the SSSP team itself, which is a much smaller group of specialists with (slightly) more autonomy to take care of things and address quickly developing threats — like a giant electricity-eating kaiju stomping around a populated town center. It almost seems like the existence of the SSSP is a response to the disasters shown in Shin Godzilla, and again that’s also something that I think connects to the original series.
The original main characters in Ultra Q were just a group of curious civilians who stumbled into events far outside of their control. The SSSP may have come off as a team of eccentrics at times (and the modern version of the SSSP in Shin Ultraman does as well!) but they were professionals and specialized in dealing with these occurrences.
EJ
Right. Kaminaga, our counterpart to good ol’ Shin Hayata, is so taciturn as to practically be a ghost. Taki, the closest one to Ide among the team, is less of a goofball and more of a slightly pessimistic geek. He’s incredibly talented — likely one of the finest minds on Earth, and we see that later — but overwhelmed by the sheer strangeness of Kaiju and what to do about them.
Yumi, who… honestly, I’d compare the most to Arashi from the old team, is an utter hoot. There are lots of ways to describe her, but I almost want to use the term… spunky? Do you think that’s right, Sarah? She’s incredibly competent, but she’s such a mood-maker and has such a fun temper, I don’t really know the right word to use.
SL
It’s funny that she ends up being the emotional anchor for the team, along with their unflappable leader, Tamura, especially when things seem especially dire in the last act of the movie. But her outbursts of frustration and funny aside jokes also sit with a real clear-eyed and focused understanding of their role, and a determination to see her job through.
I think those aspects are more complimentary than contradictory, since she wants to do the best job possible, understands the importance of that job to protect lives against unknown and bizarre threats, and throws out hilarious clap-backs when that job gets interrupted.
The SSSP team members all play similar roles to many of the original 1966 members, but their characterizations are wildly different in other ways, like their fields of specialization. You mentioned that Taki is a clear analogue to Ide, and I agree. I also think Yumi’s role on the team better parallels Fuji, but you know who I think is the best analogue for Arashi? The sort of brash, headstrong, and independent confidence that accidentally lands the team into trouble?
It’s the newest member of the team, Asami!
EJ
Oh, Asami… Yeah. Yeah, I see it. She’s a great heroine — one of my favorites in recent memory, even, but… That poor girl keeps stepping on alien rakes, doesn’t she?
SL
In multiple senses of the word.
EJ
Then again, so does Kaminaga once his little alien merger is complete. The two really do make a complementary pair, and I believe that she has a huge part in why Kaminaga, or rather, Ultraman, comes to care so much about humanity. She has little quirks and tics that make her come across as a much more fleshed-out character than we get to see in the two-hour runtime, while also being the designated Butt of the Joke (literally, considering her hype-up move is to smack herself in the rear).
SL
Like you said, it makes sense that she winds up at the center of these strange events alongside Kaminaga, since she’s his buddy, after all! I do wish that the movie’s humor didn’t rely on so many punchlines that put her in, er, compromising positions, though.
Speaking of which, can we talk some more about how Shin Ultraman deals with Kaminaga’s character — and Ultraman, by extension — here? His dynamic with Asami is fascinating, but his position on the team, and the hints we get at Kaminaga’s own character and specialized backstory, is really the most dramatic departure from the original series in my opinion.
EJ
Absolutely. Ultraman in classic media was always presented as, well… the man protecting us. There is an alienness to Ultraman — to Lipiah — that is integral to his characterization here, and one of my favorite parts of the movie. He is a creature who does not understand us, save for one thing: he knows that the things that matter to us, matter to us. And he respects that. He doesn’t know humanity and relate to them in the same way as his classic counterpart does, but that is replaced with a deep fascination.
At the same time, Kaminaga is probably… not the best choice for host if that’s what he’s like? The man is an enigma; frankly, he reads as more mysterious as a human than his giant alter-ego does! We know so little about him, but that doesn’t mean the elements aren’t there; we just aren’t given the information, because nobody in-universe knows much of anything about him.
SL
I find it hilarious that nobody questions Kaminaga’s weird behavior after becoming Ultraman, because apparently, he’s always just been a weird guy who asks weird questions!
The reason why Ultraman — Lipiah — picks him as a host is pretty clear at least, and is something very consistent with almost every other installment of the Ultraman franchise. At the beginning of the movie, he runs out to try and save a child caught in the fallout of Neronga’s attack, even at the cost of his own life. This sort of courageous, selfless, and more than just a little foolhardy heroism immediately intrigues Ultraman, enough to investigate humanity on a much more up-close and personal level.
The idea of both Ultraman himself and Kaminaga being more like secretive government spooks is a BIG difference from the original series though. Hayata in the 1966 series was an astronaut and pilot, someone who was trained to go out into the universe, further than where humanity had gone before, and discover what was hidden there. Ultraman also comes off as an individual with a similar responsibility. From the first episode, arriving on Earth in pursuit of Bemular, where the monstrous space criminal crashed into a lake, he protected the Earth and humanity from individual threats that it came across.
In this movie, both Kaminaga and Lipiah are investigators, but with different goals. It’s more like they’re investigating with the intention of judgment, to put pieces together, to discover threats — and then carry out the authority to neutralize them. The difference in mission fits with the more paranoid, military-focused setting of the movie though.
EJ
At the same time, both are decisive in doing the right thing. Something that I really appreciate is that neither side of the symbiosis ever really… debates what they’re doing. Kaminaga, even before merging with Lipiah, sees a kid lost in the evacuation zone and just immediately runs out to get him. He doesn’t delegate, he doesn’t weigh the options — a kid is trouble and it’s his job to save him.
There’s a certainty to his actions that I think adds a lot to their shared character, especially after we see something similar happen during the fight with Gabora. The second he finds out that using his beam on the Kaiju could cause a radioactive disaster, it’s off the table for the fight. The second he sees the SSSP in a potential blast zone for radioactivity, he takes the brunt of it, ignoring the drain on his energy it causes. They’re both decisive by nature; something that exists in contrast to the earlier theme of indecisive bureaucracy as well.
SL
I love how that decisiveness plays out in new, original ways as the movie continues, too! Shin Ultraman stylistically is a very talkative movie. So much of the plot, and the events which drive it forward, are explained by the experts of the SSSP, or other government agencies, or the aliens themselves who threaten the Earth. It’s a style that echoes a lot of the classic Ultraman series, which had to move things along in a 30-minute time frame!
But at the same time, the real core of the movie is how it develops the characters at the center of those events, and how their relationships change by enduring those threats together. And that development is, by contrast, very understated and quiet.
Kaminaga’s character is demonstrated by how characters react to him and his influence, even Ultraman. And Ultraman’s character is demonstrated by how he himself is changed by that influence through the movie. For my experience, at least, watching that plot unfold was the most gripping and heartfelt part of the movie.
EJ
I agree with that and considering the denouement of the movie is a nearly-stationary conversation, I was not expecting to be in tears for it. And after that, it just… stops. It doesn’t end because life goes on, but it stops, and that’s such a strong choice. “M87” by Kenshi Yonezu just busts in, practically before the last word is spoken, because we’re just done, and that always hits me exceptionally hard.
SL
I had a lot of questions after that final “Welcome home!” moment, and so did many other viewers I talked to. But that ambiguity was deliberate on the part of the direction and script for the movie. I also think seeing how so many of us were excited for what would happen next, as these characters leapt into the future of this new alternate universe, and all its incredible possibilities and opportunities, I understood better the reason why it was left ambiguous! Regardless of the details, we see those events through fresh eyes, looking into the future, exactly where the original 1966 series left off.
The fact that Shin Ultraman was able to take such shockingly divergent routes through familiar territory, and still end up exactly where the original show ended, is the biggest compliment I can give the movie. Sitting in my theater recliner in that final moment as the lights came back on was electrifying.
EJ
I think we could talk for another hundred pages about this movie, but this needs to be reader-length, so let’s stop here for now. We can talk more about the movie when it gets released on home media later this year!
Until then, please, stick around Ultraman Connection!