Ultraman: Rising is a movie about Ken Sato, his adopted Kaiju daughter Emi, and the mighty Gigantron, Queen of the Monsters! The dynamic between Ultraman and these Kaiju is the crux of the entire film!
But, uh… Have you noticed that Neronga actually shows up in the movie, like… a lot?
In fact, between the wonderful prologue and the battle in Akihabara, Neronga actually shows up almost as much as Gigantron, across multiple decades!
So… Why did it show up so much? What was it doing? Let’s take a few guesses and explore its actual actions to help figure that out!
Before anything else, let’s acknowledge that, well, Neronga has been causing problems for decades. Since the era of Hayao Sato as Ultraman, Neronga has menaced the giant of light and the humans he protects with its electrical powers and massive, bulky body. And of course, each time Hayao forces him back into the sea, until he returns again.
That brings us to the current era, where Neronga has made it into Akihabara — Assuredly because with Ken taking over the mantle of Ultraman, he wasn’t able to keep the Kaiju out of a population center. From there, Ken’s Ultraman loses the fight, and, unprepared for the responsibilities of the job, he… well, he leaves.
This is the worst case scenario for Ken, but also for Neronga — because the KDF comes moments later, and kills Neronga after binding it with wave after wave of fighters, dragging its lifeless body out of the city. And so, the story of our particularly chonky Kaiju comes to a sad end.
Luckily, this isn’t the final end of Neronga — in an AMA by Director and Writer Shannon Tindle, it was confirmed that Neronga is a species, and the one that Hayao fought is not the same as the one that perished in Akihabara.
The question remains, however — What brought Neronga to such a densely populated area to begin with? For the answer to that, let’s actually go to the original Ultraman from 1966 to take a look at where Neronga’s story began.
In Ultraman Episode 3, “Science Patrol, Move Out”, we were first introduced to Neronga as it attempted to find its food source — that is, electricity. Though this Neronga had the ability to turn invisible that its counterpart in Rising lacks, their shared electrical powers lend credence to the idea that the more modern Neronga is also an electrovore. (That means it eats electricity!)
Akihabara is a lot of things — a place to buy nerdy goods, a world-famous landmark — but it’s also extremely bright, with literal thousands of signs, billboards, and spotlights shining 24 hours a day. It stands to reason that a massive amount of power is expended there. For something like Neronga, it would have to be a buffet!
Of course, this is merely a theory, but it makes sense — Outside of the occasional lightning bolt, Neronga would have to travel to population centers to find its preferred diet, making clashes with the humans already using that electricity inevitable. It’s the role of Ultraman to find balance between the monsters’ needs and the humans’ safety — and it’s still a roll Ken Sato’s Ultraman is struggling to learn at the start of Rising. Want to see how he does in the end? Check out Ultraman: Rising yourself on Netflix to find out!
