Ultraman has always been an important brand to me. Although it may not be as important to me as Kamen Rider in the tokusatsu space, or Evangelion in the movies space, Ultraman had and still has a massive influence on my outlook on life. The constant hopefulness of the series gives me the motivation to wake up and work for a better tomorrow. This is not to say that I wake up everyday purely due to Ultraman. I have other sources of motivation and hope, and as a brand, Ultraman has many flaws and dark spots such as Ginga. However, for reasons I cannot explain, a soft spot exists in my heart for the brand.
I originally intended to write a single page that talks about both Shin Ultraman and the Netflix movie Ultraman Rising. The intention was to discuss the similarities and differences of the movies, landing on how differently both movies tackle Ultraman as a character. Where Shin takes a closer look at Ultraman/Lipiah, Rising almost erases the character of Ultraman to further inspect Kenji's relationships with others and how he handles stress. This plan fell through as for no real justifiable reason, I felt like I wanted to write about them separately.
Shin Ultraman is very beautifully shot. It is clear that many of the people who worked on the Shin Evangelion movies were brought on to work on this movie.
Various members of the crew who worked on the original Ultraman(1966) were brought back to do the same tasks they did back then. Most notably, Furuya reprised his role as the suit actor for Ultraman for some of the scenes, and Iizuka hand drew the spacium beam effect. This shows clear appreciation towards the original material as Ultraman are very important to both Anno and Higuchi. Western shows today reboot movies and shows without much care. Western reboots consist of movies where the crew had never watched the original material or do not respect it because it was a product of its time. Anno's Shin reboots have shown the true power and meaning of reboots and how they should be treated. Not as a cheap way to make a product for modern audiences, but instead as a way to respect, appreciate, and pay homage to the originals.