Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Ultraman Nexus and Ultraman the Movie

Here's the scoop on the new Ultraman tv series and upcoming movie:

Ultraman Nexus premiered on October 2 in Japan. Set in the near future, a high-tech security force called TLT (pronounced "tilt") protects the Earth from an invasion of "Space Beasts."

The show will feature the now traditional multi-form Ultraman: the silver version is called "Anphans" (or "enfance" meaning "childhood" in French) and the red version called "Junis" (or "jeunesse" meaning "youth" in French.) Anphans will battle monsters in our universe, while transforming into Junis to do battle in the "Meta Field" dimension. That's not all. There's also a third version of this Ultraman that has yet to be revealed.

Another new concept being used for the series is that multiple people will take on the power of Ultraman. The first host for Ultraman will be actor Yusuke Kirishima, playing a young man surrounded in mystery. Other cast members include Takuji Kawakubo, Tamotsu Ishibashi, and Yasue Sato.

As for the upcoming Ultraman movie, it seems to have been simply titled "Ultraman" and may be released as soon as January 2005. The script was written Keiichi Hasegawa, whose credits include the Ultraman Tiga tv series and the Ultraman Gaia movie. Since these are two of my favorite Ultraman shows, I can't wait to see this movie.

The Ultraman featured in this movie will be different than the Ultraman Nexus one, though it's likely it too will have a transformation ability. The Movie Ultraman looks like a cross between Ultraman Noah and Guyver I. The nerd translation: simply AWESOME.

The only real problem being that I have no idea if any of this will be released here in the U.S. FUNimation, who's released Ultraman Tiga on DVD, should try and get at least Dyna and Gaia released too, but they really only care about selling their Dragonball Z stuff.

1 comment:

prowl72 said...

After seeing Tiga vol. 4 on DVD, I'm not sure that I want FUNimation to release Dyna or Gaia. The Guys Who Own Ultraman should pick a different company to distribute some of the other series, maybe even just some of the movies, and choose a more fitting channel to air it on.

Maybe then I wouldn't have to watch Ultraman on TV with all that "Fox Box" crap. I've heard that Ultraman Nexus has a more dark, adult tone to it, perfect for marketing on the SciFi Channel, perhaps?

You could also write to Image Entertainment which released a Tiga/Dyna movie and a Gaia/Tiga/Dyna movie on DVD. I'd be happy if they released more Ultraman DVDs.