Premiering on the Tsuburaya Ultraman channel some weeks ago, Decker is the 32nd entry in the long running series. Acting as a sequel to Ultraman Trigger, and in commemoration with the 25th anniversary of Ultraman Dyna, I’m happy to say that this show is much better than its predecessor. The storyline isn’t an aimless mess, the characters are all likable and better written, and the writers are taking their time unveiling everything, giving things room to breathe.
Taking place several years after Trigger, monster attacks on Earth have died down, and things are peaceful. We’re introduced to our hero Kanata Asumi, who’s living on Earth and working at a shop that makes rice cakes. His parents are on vacation on Mars, which has now been colonized. Earth gets a distress signal from the red planet that they’re under attack, and soon enough, an alien spacecraft appears on Earth and sends out these green spheres that begin to attack everyone and cause destruction, and release a monster (Spheresaurus). Kanata risks his life to protect others and gets engulfed by the light, transforming into Ultraman Decker. Decker defeats the monster, but is knocked out when trying to defeat the spheres in space. They create a barrier around both the Earth and Mars, trapping everyone on both planets and preventing them from communicating with each other. Kanata is then asked to join the newly formed GUTS-Select, who are tasked with fighting monsters that start to emerge and protecting the citizens.
The GUTS-Select team consists of leaders Taiji Murahoshi and Sawa Kaizaki, Ichika Kirino, Soma Ryumon, Yuichiro Asakage, HANE-2 (a cute little AI robot) and Kanata, the human host of Ultraman Decker. While I found Kanata a bit naive and over enthusiastic, he was nowhere nearly as annoying Kengo from Trigger. Member Soma is initially hostile towards Kanata but that eventually wanes, and while this plot device is cliched and tired by now, it came off as less annoying this time around. The 2nd episode jumps to 1 year later, where the Earth is still enveloped by the Sphere’s barrier. The members of GUTS-Select are training, and I like that it showed that they were still learning, instead of having everyone act like they’ve been doing this for years, such as what we saw in Ultraman Mebius (a popular series that I honestly never cared for). All the main players are likable, with no childish mugging like we got from some of the members of Trigger. The writing seems to be doing a better job at fleshing out characters and storylines, as well as the world-building that it’s setting up.
It’s only been 5 episodes in (with the first of the special recap episodes as the latest), and thus far, things have been enjoyable. The first episode had some bad CGI with some of those sphere attacks, but thankfully, the special effects have been top notch for the others. The kaiju attacks are also well done, with good camera angles to show scale, and well choreographed fights. Decker thus far has 3 forms, his original Flash Type, which is blue, red and silver, with a diamond shaped crystal on his head, and his color timer to the left of his chest instead of the middle. His signature attack is his Selgend Beam, which is a mix of purples, pinks and blues. His other forms are Strong Type, which is mostly red and silver, and gives him increased physical strength, and his blue Miracle Type, which is best suited for using psychokinetic attacks, such as splitting into 3 separate clones and teleportation. This form debuted in episode 5, and I like that they were slowly rolled out over the course of a few episodes. The only thing that I find really cheesy is the voice over that announces in English his forms and every time he transforms. It’s even more cringey than the one in Trigger. Thankfully, that’s my only complaint.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes, and what’s in store for these characters. While I still think Z has been the best of these recent shows, Decker has been enjoyable, more streamlined than the inconsistent mess that Trigger was. If things keep going at this rate, Decker will be a fine entry in the Ultraman series.
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