Ultraman is a series rich in history with all kinds of shows and movies over the years and the latest entry just recently released on Netflix. Now Ultraman is a series I’m not the most familiar with but where I saw news on my socials so many times about this I decided to take a moment and give this one a try. Ultraman Rising stars Ken Saito son of Professor Saito also known as Ultraman a being he becomes to have the power to fight the Kaiju, beings who are not evil but present a threat when near people so as Ultraman he seeks to bring balance and save people and Kaiju alike. Fast forward 20 years and Ken is the new Ultraman, but a lot has happened in that time and Ken has to balance not only the world but his damaged relationship with his father, his roles as Ultraman and a professional baseball player and eventually a baby kaiju and a Kaiju Defense Force that seeks to use lethal force.

For the story, family is very clearly at the forefront as all of the major characters are motivated by family in one form or another. Some are motivated to repair familial relationships, some don’t know what they want to do with the family they have and others are trying to struggle with their loss. It’s an incredibly deep story where the bonds all of these characters share and are motivated by are on clear display and shown in a way that really connects on an emotional level. One of the things I like is how despite the fact that the motivations can all fit under the umbrella of being motivated by family they are all entirely different and we really get to see how these differences shaped each character to be unique.

Ken’s struggle in particular is the driving force behind this movie as he has a number of things he has to do in order to create balance but also find it within himself. He’s clearly weighed down by the emotional toll the events of the 20 year time skip had on him as we find out his mother is missing and we’re left to steadily find out what happened throughout the course of the movie. If that wasn’t enough trying to balance being a professional baseball player, Ultraman and an adoptive father to a baby kaiju he ends up finding on accident is a huge part of the movie both as a struggle Ken has to deal with but also as a means of establishing character development. Ken starts off rather immature and feeling like a one man show but when this struggle proves to be too much for him he starts to embrace his feelings of self doubt and slowly begins to learn to rely on others and matures in the process.

The characters are all amazing, even the kaiju are incredibly entertaining and are fleshed out really well. Their interactions with each other are incredibly entertaining. You have these serious moments between Ken and Dr. Saito that really hit in the feels when they address and alleviate the tension between them and then you have moments such as the ones with Ken and the baby Kaiju where his struggles as an adoptive parent bring a lot of humor to the story as he deals with a lot of the typical stuff parents deal with kids but on a great scale since the child is about 20 feet tall and shoots lasers when it has acid reflux.

All of these elements of balance and family really come together in the end when you have this incredible battle between the Saitos, Kaiju and the Kaiju Defense Force. It’s an emotional but also visually impressive sequence that ends in a way that left me with literally chills once it was done.

Ultraman Rising is a story with incredible emotional depth and spins a series of tales about family and balance. It packs a ton of heart into its characters and to the relationships between them to create moment after moment throughout the entire movie that just resonates with you. It’s a standalone tale so even if you’re not familiar with Ultraman at all you can still watch this and follow the story from start to finish and honestly as great as this is I think I’m going to take a deeper dive into the lore of Ultraman and see more of what I’ve been missing all this time.