Ultraman: Rising marks a new era for the franchise that\u2019s over 20 years in the making NetflixUltraman: Rising is the eponymous hero\u2019s biggest release outside Japan in his almost 60 years of existence, and almost a third of that was spent developing the movie. Indeed, the anime movie on Netflix represents decades of development in more ways than one, as co-directors Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima revealed to us in an interview. For them, Ultraman: Rising is a project that required a lot of dedication and luck to come to fruition, with Tindle having the original brainwave in the early 2000s. Taking the opportunity to jump into directing after years spent in multiple other disciplines within animation, their Ultraman is colorful, vibrant, and confident, making him the perfect starting point for any viewers who\u2019ve never gone Ultra before. Going ultra! In the new movie, our Ultraman, known regularly as Ken Sato, becomes an adopted parent to an adorable baby kaiju. The relationship teaches him some hard lessons, and it turns out the child was fundamental to the superhero anime film\u2019s growth, too. \u201cIt was always a part of the story, this guy who doesn\u2019t want to be a father being forced to be a father, this guy who doesn\u2019t want to be a character like Ultraman, being Ultraman,\u201d Tindle tells Dexerto. \u201cAnd the sketches that I did back in 2001 are \u2014 I remember Craig McCracken had seen the idea back then, I think I was at Cartoon Network at the time, and the first time he saw the trailer, he\u2019s like, \u2018Oh my God. Like, it\u2019s it. She looks the same as she did back then\u2019.\u201d Going back to those early days of ideation, Rising wasn\u2019t an Ultraman film to start with. A long-established franchise, making something within that property would\u2019ve been a longer shot than making a movie that paid homage to the character. Starting from there allowed strong thematic roots to take hold. \u201cWhat I wanted to tell was a compelling story that I think everybody could relate to,\u201d Tindle explains. \u201cSomebody who once loved their dad, but they didn\u2019t understand why their dad was always away. That grows into animosity, then they\u2019re separated, then they start to blame their parents. And then as they get older, they start to understand them, and then when they become a parent themselves, they understand them more and better understand the sacrifices that parents need to make.\u201d When it started to look like Rising could be an Ultraman action movie, after all, these ideas fit right in. \u201cIt\u2019s about Ken, who has to step up to that occasion, to be that hero, a reluctant father who knows what\u2019s right and makes that effort, and I think that helps him grow into understanding the stakes and the challenges of the world,\u201d Aoshima adds. \u201cThat theology is right aligned with the whole Ultraman lore.\u201d Evolving Ultraman One thing that did change through different versions was Ken\u2019s background. In Ultraman: Rising, he\u2019s Japanese-American, growing up in Tokyo before moving to LA for his sports career, coming back at the start of the film to join the Tokyo Giants. The superhero movie\u2019s first script took place in Tokyo, but then when production moved to a different studio, that was changed to Los Angeles, and it was decided that Ken would have a background from both countries. Once Netflix became involved, this concept solidified as another representation of Ken\u2019s duality. \u201cIt helped align the ideology or idea of what Ultraman is, with this symbiotic character,\u201d Aoshima says. \u201cLeaning into the two cultural differences and what Ken has to find within himself, his own identity, within what it means to be an Ultraman, helped with the character.\u201d There was some fine-tuning in that respect because before he settles into being Ultraman, Ken\u2019s a hot-shot baseball player with charisma to spare. Originally, he was like Michael Jordan, pure confidence, but as Tindle learned, that\u2019s not how Japanese baseball players handle themselves, leading to a compromise that elevated the narrative. \u201cMakiko Wakata, who\u2019s on our production team, said, \u2018Japanese baseball players don\u2019t really walk with that same kind of swagger; that\u2019s more of an American thing\u2019,\u201d Tindle recalls. \u201cShe had been born in Japan and moved to the United States, as had John. And they both were like, \u2018Would you consider making him bicultural? He grew up in Japan. He had that culture\u2019. To me, we could bring even more nuance to a character in ways that are atypical, especially in an animated or a family film.\u201d Familiar faces Utilized through all of this were lessons gleaned from collaborating with multiple huge names in TV and filmmaking, from the aforementioned Craig McCracken to Alex Hirsch, Travis Knight, and many more. Aoshima directed multiple episodes of Gravity Falls, and he remembers how that show\u2019s pipeline prepared him for getting a movie over the line. \u201cDirecting on Gravity Falls. I watched Alex Hirsch and Mike Rianda continue to improve the episode scripts all through production,\u201d he says. \u201cEven though there is a set TV production timeline, it didn\u2019t matter to them. They wanted to make sure the story\u2019s right, and the amount of iteration that they would do in order to make the best story and best episode possible was a lot more like how features work.\u201d Tindle has similar memories from working on the likes of Static Shock, The Fairly OddParents, and Foster\u2019s Home for Imaginary Children. Being on the production line for those series allowed him to appreciate the added time on films, but made sure he knew when to be decisive. \u201cYou have to be decisive. What I say a lot to folks is, \u2018I reserve the right to change my mind\u2019. So if something works now, or if you want to try something now, let\u2019s try as quickly as we can so we see whether it works or not, and if it doesn\u2019t work, we just do it again,\u201d he states. \u201cHaving to think on a condensed timeline like that in different TV productions served me well when I transitioned into features, just because I can iterate more, I can think more about it, and I have to make a decision.\u201d Ultraman: Rising forms part of a resurgence of the hero. In 2022, Hideaki Anno directed Shin Ultraman, a spiritual successor to his Shin Godzilla that soft-rebooted the character. Rising and Shin Ultraman form two halves of a huge gateway for fans of all ages to get into the franchise, offering live-action and animation, as well as stories with contrasting cultural backdrops. \u201cThey\u2019re different things, but there are common elements,\u201d Tindle states. \u201cThe ideas of family, the ideas of comedy and fun, the interaction between kaiju being pretty serious to the people in Japan. I think in all those ways, Ultraman: Rising and Shin Ultraman carry on that tradition.\u201d Aoshima adds: \u201cIt\u2019s a new hero, new character, new message. That\u2019s what the whole Ultraman franchise is about.\u201d Without giving too much away, Ultraman: Rising leaves a pretty strong hint toward a sequel. Should this one do good enough numbers, a trilogy could be on the cards. \u201cI have ideas for two more films, where we\u2019re going to lean a little bit more into some of the traditional Ultraman lore, but in our way, and maybe even do some things that they\u2019ve never done in the series that, as a fan, I\u2019d want to see,\u201d Aoshima teases. Ultraman: Rising is on Netflix Friday, June 14, 2024. Check out our Ultraman: Rising review here and our list of all the upcoming anime for more supreme releases heading your way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ultraman: Rising marks a new era for the franchise that\u2019s over 20 years in the making NetflixUltraman: Rising is the eponymous hero\u2019s biggest release outside Japan in his almost 60 years of existence, and almost a third of that was spent developing the movie. Indeed, the anime movie on Netflix represents decades of development in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}