Netflix’s Ultraman: Rising triumphantly reinvents a tokusatsu legend for newbies

polygon.com:

At its pulsing circular core, Ultraman is a generational story. Conceived by Eiji Tsuburaya, one of Godzilla’s co-creators and the founder of Tsuburaya Productions, the franchise centers on a gigantic, red-and-silver superhero from another planet who travels to Earth to defend it from hostile extraterrestrial forces. Once he arrives on our planet, he binds himself to a human host, allowing them to wield his awesome power.

Over the course of the franchise’s nearly 60-year existence, dozens of heroes have assumed the mantle of Ultraman, each with their own unique legacy and challenges. In Netflix Animation’s new movie Ultraman: Rising, the otherworldly defender of justice and balance is faced with what might be his greatest challenge to date: parenthood.

Directed by Shannon Tindle (Lost Ollie) and John Aoshima (2017’s DuckTales), and co-written by Tindle and Marc Haimes (Kubo and the Two Strings), Ultraman: Rising centers on Kenji “Ken” Sato, a brash, self-centered baseball player living in America. When his ailing, estranged father is injured, presumably while fighting as Ultraman, Ken returns to Tokyo to assume the hero’s mantle.

Grieving the disappearance of his mother, Emiko, and resentful about his father’s absence during his childhood, Ken doesn’t take either his professional obligations as a baseball player or his role as Ultraman very seriously. He treats the latter more or less as a side gig, instead focusing on preening for the press and showboating on the field, alienating himself from his new teammates and infuriating his coach. That all changes when Ken rescues the baby of a felled kaiju, which imprints itself onto him, believing Ultraman is its mother. With little other recourse, Ken must figure out how to raise the infant kaiju while balancing his responsibilities to his team and his duties as Tokyo’s protector.

Ultraman: Rising doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on the decades-spanning mythos and world-building around the character. Instead, Tindle and