Rating: PG | Runtime: 117 minutes
Release Date: June 14th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Netflix Animation / Netflix
Director(s): Shannon Tindle / John Aoshima (co-director)
Writer(s): Shannon Tindle & Marc Haimes

It takes more than attitude to become a Giant.

Mom (Tamlyn Tomita’s Emiko) was a scientist and die-hard baseball fan—even if she rooted for the “wrong” team. Dad (Gedde Watanabe’s Professor Sato) was a scientist and … Ultraman—Japan’s famed hero against a continuous onslaught of destructive kaiju. To therefore ask young Kenji (Hiro Nakamura) which he’d prefer growing into isn’t a fair question since it inherently creates a rift in the family regardless of whether the choice proves a rejection of the other or merely a decision in spite of it. All he wants is to be seen and loved by his parents. Baseball. Ultraman. None of it mattered as long as Mom and Dad tucked him in at night.

Well, as Shannon Tindle’s (co-written with Marc Haimes and co-directed with John Aoshima) fresh adaptation of Eiji Tsuburaya’s character Ultraman: Rising shows after fast-forwarding a few decades, that didn’t end up the case. Because in order to protect his family, Sato sent them to America while he stayed behind to fight without needing to also worry about their well-being. While obviously a difficult decision and one that Ken (Christopher Sean) would grow to resent as he ultimately chose baseball, his parents never regretted it since it allowed him to grow up safe and become a superstar. The problem was that splitting up their team meant he felt alone enough to spurn all future teams.

So, his return to Japan (requested by his mother upon learning his father could no longer physically serve as Ultraman) is dripping in ego and hubris. Ken agrees to take up the Ultraman mantle, but not at the expense of his career—leaving the Dodgers in Los Angeles to join the Giants in Yomiuri. The Americanized confidence and individualism he’s cultivated says he can do it all sans help. Win a championship regardless of his teammates and coach. Save the day without asking his father for advice (or speaking to him at all). This is the “lesson” he took from his youth. A fend for yourself attitude because those you love always leave rather than the selfless reality of having to leave so nobody dies.

Well, it goes as one would expect: poorly. On both ends. More than an action-adventure between hero and monster, Ultraman: Rising becomes just what the title describes. It’s about Ken’s evolution as a man first, athlete and super-powered star second. It’s about learning what it means to take responsibility for another living soul beyond oneself—a lesson taught through the unplanned adoption of an infant kaiju he cannot bring himself to abandon. Because Ken’s father never killed these mammoth beasts. He merely drove them away. It’s only when Dr. Onda’s (Keone Young) Kaiju Defense Force is created that murder is sanctioned above suppression. Leave this helpless creature to them and its dire fate is all but decided.

The result has many similarities to How to Train Your Dragon as far as rewiring one’s brain to the truth that things aren’t so black and white. Just because something scary seems to be attacking doesn’t mean it’s not simply defending itself from your attack and vice versa. While it’s one thing to try and defuse a kaiju’s attack before Onda satisfies his bloodlust (a mindset one can empathize with while still refusing to condone), however, it’s another to raise one. With help from Emiko’s AI (Mina, also voiced by Tomita), he does his best at the detriment of his performance on the diamond. Only when he mends the fractures in his existing family can he hope to fully embrace the new one he’s building.

There are other mysteries teased at the end and during a mid-credits sequence to be fodder for potential sequels (the whereabouts of Ken’s mother and the so-called “Kaiju Island”). There are hints at a possible romance with sports reporter Ami Wakita (Julia Harriman) that are currently steeped in friendship and support. And a lot of anime-infused battles between humans and kaiju as well as humans and humans depending on who we currently understand the “monster” to be. It’s a fun journey with important themes that never talks down to its audience and an emotionally mature look at familial structures and the danger of letting one’s pain dictate their actions. Add the cutest little fish-bird-dragon amalgam at the center and it’s hard not to buckle in and enjoy the ride.

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With Tokyo under siege from rising monster attacks, baseball star Ken Sato reluctantly returns home to take on the mantle of Ultraman. But the titanic superhero meets his match when he reluctantly adopts a 35-foot-tall, fire-breathing baby kaiju. Sato must rise above his ego to balance work and parenthood while protecting the baby from forces bent on exploiting her for their own dark plans. In partnership with Netflix, Tsuburaya Productions, and Industrial Light & Magic, Ultraman: Rising is written by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, directed by Shannon Tindle, and co-directed by John Aoshima. Cr: Netflix © 2024