Hikaru Raidou returns after years of staying overseas in his hometown only to discover that the old Ginga Shrine was destroyed before he arrives. What's interesting is that he returned because he feels like he needs to return. Is his arrival in his old town fate or goes something deeper than that?
The first few minutes of the episode gave us a proper introduction to Hikaru and his friends. All I can say is that the acting of the kids feels a bit stiff, especially with Hikaru's case in some scenes. As for the characters themselves, Hikaru is your average Joe who will help if people need his help. What I like about him in his first appearance is that he doesn't know why he decided to return but it feels like he must return. This led us to scene wherein he becomes curious on what's inside the case where his grandfather placed the shrine idol.
His curiosity to the idol and why it feels like he must get it something that I didn't expect to see in an Ultraman series. For most of the time, it's an Ultraman having a human host or them disguising as humans and that's about it. But in this case, it feels like this scene came straight out of
Kamen Rider Kuuga wherein Yusuke feels that he should wear the Arcle like he is destined to wear it. When Hikaru finally had a chance to grab a hold onto the idol, we learned a couple of things on what happened prior to the start of the series.
There is a war between the Ultramen and the monsters that they once defeated. Compared to
Kamen Rider Decade's Rider War and
Gokaiger's Legend War, this Ultraman vs. Monsters battle scene is a bit brief and the reasons why it was brought up is for a later explanation, Hikaru's first meeting with Ultraman Taro and lastly, our look on the bad guys. But first, let's talk about Hikaru's first meeting with Taro, it was absolute hilarious. I just love the fact that Hikaru is looking for any speakers just in case it is someone who is pulling some practical joke with a doll.
Next is with the bad guys, the establishing shot in the war scene and the hand that we saw in the evil lair add up to the mystery of the identity of this shrouded figure. Because he is currently hidden in secrecy, the one who is doing most of the dirty work is a jester-like character whose job is too look for humans with evil hearts so that they can restore their own set of Monster Spark Dolls. Speaking of Spark Dolls, I just love that Hikaru continues to wonder how the heck Taro can talk while inside his doll form. Heck, he even tried looking around the Taro doll just to make sure that Taro is not hiding anything for him to talk. Considering his moves, I guess he used telepathy to communicate with Hikaru.
Thanks to Taro, we learn a bit of backstory about the war. What's interesting about the war is that it featured Ultramen who are in the Heisei Era aka the era that the producers of the franchise confirmed that most of it take place on an alternate universe. Another thing that interests me is that Taro said that the war happened over a million years ago. If this war happened million years ago, then I can safe to assume that this show takes place in an alternate universe after all Ultraman shows are over and that they landed in a planet with no prior history when it comes to Ultraman sightings.
This is when we learned that Hikaru's love interest, Misuzu knows Taro's existence and is the first one who tried enlarging Taro thanks to the Ginga Spark. This is yet another part of the show that interests me. It's interesting because having secret keepers in the Ultraman franchise is kinda rare but to have the love interest as the secret keeper can create a lot of interesting scenarios in the future. Another thing that interests me aside from that angle is that the Ginga Spark can detect other Spark Dolls and that Hikaru can use the Ginga Spark to transform into past Ultraman monsters! In this episode, he transformed into Black King.
The transformation sequence into Black King felt like it came straight from your traditional Ultraman transformation sequence. Also, I just love that Hikaru is enjoying every second he is as a monster before he starts fighting the MOTW, Thunder Darambia. The fight between Black King and Thunder Darambia is amazing and I am smiling like a little kid just watching this fight. This is something I love to see, a fight between monsters! What made it more interesting is how it materialized. Like I said, it is all thanks to the dark energy provided by evil humans but what surprised me is that they are the ones controlling the MOTW!
Because they are the criminals we saw earlier, I was expecting that Hikaru as Black King can easily handle it but nope, he is beaten badly by these two. In his weakened state, a mysterious Spark Doll appeared in Hikaru. This Spark Doll is the Ultraman Ginga Spark Doll and touching it revealed how the war ended. The original Ginga ended the war as he faced the man with the mysterious Dark Spark. With the Ultraman Ginga Spark Doll, Hikaru transforms into the said hero. The transformation sequence looks great but his entrance, man it is simply amazing.
Ginga's fight with Thunder Darambia is simply fantastic. It's quick and your standard Ultraman fight as we see two giants duke it out in the battlefield. Finally, Ginga's finisher is something that I didn't expect from an Ultraman, but considering that it is not the iconic beam blast, then I guess he might have multiple finishers. Unlike the previous Ultramen exits, Ginga just reverts back to Hikaru without doing the trademark flying away. This scene made me realize one thing; Ginga will not be your average Ultraman series.
