Ultraman Geed Review

The next entry on the New Gen Ultra kick is Ultraman Geed. This was actually the very first New Gen Ultra I watched since it was streaming on Crunchyroll at the time. I was watching it weekly while it was airing at the time and then fell off of it to let the episodes pile up. Sadly I then forgot to go back to it until now. This time however, I got so in the groove that at one point, I ended up watching 11 episodes in one sitting and forgetting to eat during the binge. Without further adieu...Standing around doing nothing won't get us anywhere!

Premise: Riku Asakura was found on the steps of an observatory as a baby after a near universe destroying event that came to be known as the Crisis Impact. Strangely, the only thing the public seems to know about the Crisis Impact is that the visage of a horrible monster was spotted shortly before it happened. When a giant monster starts rampaging in his town, Riku and his alien friend Pega stumble on to a base beneath the observatory and there Riku is given the power to transform into Ultraman Geed. From there Riku protects his home town while dealing with the fact that Geed happens to look a lot like the creature that caused the impact.

Characters:

Riku is straight up just a wholesome character. He can be kinda naive and a bit dumb at times but the dude has a really good heart. When the giant monster first attacks the city, he jumps at the chance to stop it once he learns he has the power to do so. This is because well...what he wants more than anything in the world is to help people and make them smile. He came fast friends with an Alien Pegasa (Pega) in middle school after letting him stay in his shadow so both he and Pega would never feel lonely. I love his journey of dealing with Belial's legacy, having to find a way to defy his own fate, and becoming his own person while finding his own family. His parallel with Kei is fantastic and leads to some pretty awesome yet gut-wrenching moments.

Laiha Toba lost her family during a monster attack because the monster was after the little star inside of her. Due to this, she is out for revenge against the man who became the monster. She is so engrossed in her revenge that it takes not only a child begging Geed to stop her but a mysterious light and a voice coming from nowhere pleading with her to keep her from straight up killing someone. Her whole deal becomes about getting over the urge for revenge and her ground scale fights have the some of the best choreography in the show. Its a pretty good story since her goal changes to give the guy a send-off so he doesn't die alone once his world collapses. Its a rather kind take on a revenge story imo.

Leito is a timid office worker who becomes the host for Ultraman Zero in this show. Leito basically tried to save a kid from getting crushed by debris only to slip and get run over by a truck. The kid ended up being saved by the Little Star inside him but Leito's drive to help is why Zero chose him. He and Zero make one complete mentor figure and its really nice to see Zero kind of learn to chill out over the course of the show. I particularly like Leito's speech about how Riku has to find the things precious to him while is protecting the world. He is probably the best acted character in the show. His actor perfectly captures Leito's timid/goofy nature and wise fatherly side as well as Zero's over the top movements and energy. I love the little detail of him removing his glasses whenever Zero takes over.

The AIB (Alien Investigation Bureau) is basically the Men In Black without the neuralizers. They're an organization made up almost entirely of aliens and their job is basically keeping alien activity under wraps so as not to cause culture shock among the earthlings. Due to the nature of the show, we only really get to know Riku's childhood friend Moa and her partner Zena (an Alien Shadow). There is also a minor member, an Alien Pitt named Tri-Tip who shows up twice. The AIB has a pretty vast information network even though we don't get to see many of the members and they're pretty crucial to finding out what Belial is up to and coming up with the eventual plan to stop him.

Villain:

Fukuide Kei is a fantastic villain. The dude is utterly obsessed with Belial and gaining his favor. He sees Riku as inferior and sees himself as being the only one truly worthy of Belial's legacy. Its a rather sad thing because he outright said at one point that Belial gave him purpose even though Belial was very obviously just using him. His entire world crumbling around him made me sad because its a fundamentally broken person going mad and desperately clinging to what he felt was his purpose. His actor does an amazing job in the role and gives every single line some level of menace and gets the inherrent sadness near the end perfectly. The "act" with Leito on the lecture stage gave me chills because how well the two did it.

Action and Effects: As usual, both are top notch. The show makes great use of the Belial Fusion Monster's combined traits in a fight. The show manages to give every form its own distinct way of fighting and shows off the powers of the individual Ultras that make them up really well. My favorite form is probably Acro Smasher because of how slick and smooth the fights look or Royal Mega Master because of how elegantly it moves and fights. I also particularly love how the suit actor's mannerisms change when Riku swaps forms. The human scale action is pretty good too. The standouts in that regard are Laiha's sword skills and Leito when Zero takes over. Sakamoto's fingerprints are all over this show and it is fantastic.

Favorite Episodes: My favorite episodes are probably 14 (Shadows of Shadows) and 15 (Child of Battle). Its an amazing two parter for both Moa and Zena and it features some neat worldbuilding. I'm going to try to go into as little detail as possible because I'd rather the folks reading this watch the episodes themselves. Basically it opens with Zena supposedly working on another case and a new Alien Shadow (Kuruto) becoming Moa's new partner while he is busy. I love the idea behind how Alien Shadows operates. They're basically guerilla fighters who infiltrate other planets and taken them down from the inside in order to get what they need. Its a pretty tense and heartbreaking episode that gets to the heart of who Moa is and deals with Zena's lingering feelings and regrets about raising young soldiers to do nothing but die for the glory of their home-world.

Final Thoughts: This is the 7th Ultra show I've finished (I watched Z weekly) and I enjoyed Geed quite a bit. A small detail I like is how the henshin sequence for Royal Mega Master uses Ultraman King for the "I go!" part instead of Belial. In a sense, its King representing Riku in that form instead of his father. That one change says quite a lot imo. I like its theme of defying destiny and forging your own path. There is also this other theme about dealing with legacies that have been left to you and how the older generation affects the younger ones. That theme is something encapsulated by Leito's speech in episode 6 about how having a kid made him care more about protecting the planet. Kei and Leito were the best acted characters in the show even if Kei does get hammy here and there. I didn't cover Belial in the villains section because well...he is what you'd expect if you've seen Zero's movies and I felt like looking at the series itself in isolation. Overall I enjoyed the show and I'd put it just above Ultraman X. This marks the temporary end of my New Gen Ultra kick as I've got the urge to cover an older Ultra show. I highly recommend this, Orb, and R/B as an entry point for newcomers to the franchise. While Geed does basically mark the end of Belial and Zero's feud, its not something you really need to know a lot about as the show fills in the basics of the backstory as it goes along.