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By Joe Gibson
As you know, I have been
reviewing the episodes of Ultraman Omega (which, as you know, is about a red-faced
amnesiac Giant of Light battling monsters on Earth with the help of three
Meteokaiju). You can read those thoughts here:
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/08/some-truncated-thoughts-on-ultraman.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2026/01/more-mini-reviews-of-ultraman-omega.html
In due time, these three
articles will be condensed into a supercut video review, so stay tuned for
that.
Over the course of the
show, we have seen Kosei grow in maturity, Omega grow in ability and a research
team start to form consisting of our main characters. The show has consistently
been enjoyable and often really impressed me.
But now comes the day we
can truly weigh in on the important question surrounding this show: does this
show have Ultraman’s most fabulous labors or is this show a frustrating fall
from grace following the acclaim of the last two shows?
Episode 18, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
I was hesitant going into
this episode because Barossa, in the Ultraman discourse, is one of those
characters that has gained public ire from being overused, and, based on the
trailer, this had all the trappings of a filler episode making us wait even longer
to learn anything more about the mysteries. Still, this was actually a very fun
and interesting episode that does a lot to characterize the meteokaiju in their
miniature toy forms.
While episode 16 had much
in common with the formula of Scooby Doo, this episode seems to be drawing from
classic fairy tale scenarios. A traveling Barossa Seijin kidnaps the boys and
the meteokaiju, but a young girl aboard the ship called Gilda wants Kosei to be
her doll of an Earth prince. Ayumu gets involved trying to free Kosei, and the
imagery as I have already described it, just has a Grimm’s Fairy Tale feel to
it.
I will have more to say
about this episode in a later video, because it is also very interesting to
examine under a critical lens.
Episode 19, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
Episode 19 is a triumph,
demonstrating the growth and maturity these characters have attained over the
course of the show. Rather than regress Kosei to acting like a child (again),
this episode invents a new child, establishes a plot mechanism that makes
adults act more immature and still has a wistful Kosei reflecting on his past
to help that child learn the lesson of the story. At the same time, it also
functions as a sentimental reflection on the art of tokusatsu itself. The young
boy, Eiichi, finds his joy in creating dioramas of kaiju scenarios with his
friends. When he finds an emotional resonance crystal that summons the monster
Bagrigon (just go with it), he uses it as the centerpiece of his photography.
Though it amplifies either emotion, this episode shows it feeding on negative
emotions and, so, it alienates him from his friends. That is when Kosei and
Ayumu start to mentor him, and, by the end of the episode, Sorato and Kosei are
helping him set up his kaiju dioramas, and the crystal glows with their
positive emotions. This symbolizes how all generations can come together to
enjoy these Ultraman shows and Godzilla films. It is so inspiring that I am
going to ignore the fact that Tsuburaya Productions has begun to partner with
AI platforms until that becomes necessary for a critical analysis. Again, I
will have more to say on this episode in a later video that will partially
examine the state of suitmation and tokusatsu storytelling.
Episode 20, Fabulous or Frustrating?
Okay, this is the worst
episode so far of this batch, but it is not bad. Simply put, it is just uneven.
The opening suggests a conflict in the way that Sorato and Kosei deal with
pests; Kosei puts out a mousetrap while Sorato feels sympathy for mice that
fall victim to mousetraps. This tracks with the previous characterization, as
Sorato viewed even vicious monster Graim as part of a race in neutral enough
terms and only killed a Graim when he had to. The issue is that this does not
really connect to the Monster of The Week as well as they might have wanted it
to. A time traveling dinosaur called Chronoceros is the MOTW, and, this week,
they are trying to save it, not fight it. It appears very frightening at first,
even accidentally pulling Kosei through time with it, but the team pretty
quickly deduces that it is separated from its flock and so tries to help it.
This reads as preserving an endangered species more than it does having mercy
on a pest.
Aside from that, the
goofy comedic hijinks as they fail to get to it before it time-travels are well
done. However, right after that, it keels over and dies, and the show tries to
get serious as Ayumu tries in vain to resuscitate it (one of her best moments
in the show so far though), and then she gets Kosei and Sorato to help her.
Even though that scene was doing its best to convince us there was nothing they
could do, it suddenly works, and the tonal whiplash kicks into a triumphant
gear, and there's still more episode left. The ultimate lesson Kosei learns is
compromise; he puts red peppers out as a mouse deterrent instead of a violent
punitive measure, but the episode’s climax featured Kosei and Sorato traveling
to the future to revive the Chronoceros’ mother and then destroy the advanced
(possibly human) fleet trying to kill both Chronoceros, so the reasonable
payoff with mice would have been finding a lost mouse's mother, not teaching a
concept that has no relevance to the rest of the episode.
I can't even be mad
though, because, once it got to the future, this was genuinely great; Sorato
applied the CPR he learned from Ayumu, Rekiness got to protect the young
Chronoceros, and the cinematography of Omega slashing the UFOs and motherships
was very inventive. The last two episodes were great across the board; this one
just has higher highs and lower lows. The comments on the YouTube upload were
also predominantly positive.
Ultimately, the main
reason I am notating this as frustrating, though, is because, in order to
create the Chronoceros suit, Tsuburaya Productions modified the Doglf suit from
Ultraman Arc's movie, and now we'll probably never see Doglf again. That's what
frustrates me more than anything.
Episode 21, Fabulous or Frustrating?
This episode feels like
it was missing from the first half of the show, so my issues are less with the
events than their presence now.
It revolves around an
annoying side character making life difficult for our trio, and it gives Ayumu
another sorely needed episode in the limelight. At the same time, the gimmick
of Gabora this week makes him a sufficient counter to any of the Meteokaiju
Kosei has, and the motivation of Gabora seeking Kaen-102 remnants of a
meteorite would work better to foreshadow Bagrigon and his emotional resonance
crystal than following that up. I suspect Kaen-102 will be even more important
later on, and I am beginning to think that it is what powered that fleet in the
future. I suppose I should explain more before I get going.
Ayumu Ichido is a very
understated member of this team. She is very studious and very driven,
deferential to her other teammates in acknowledging what they bring while
trying to be the best she can to live up to them. She is very mature in her
outlook and offers advice and data analysis that saves the day. In the chain of
command, Uta names her temporary leader while she is gone, and Ayumu steps up.
When Makoto Raoniji prevents them from carrying out their duties, she takes
responsibility for their actions and his mistakes.
I have my suspicions
about what world figures Raoniji could be parodying but I like his character
anyway and think he would have been a very interesting main cast member.
Imagine if someone like that got his hands on one of the meteokaiju or, God
forbid, the power of Ultraman himself. If done right, that would make for an
all-time great arc of gaining maturity.
Gabora is a kaiju from
the original 1966 Ultraman show that is celebrating its 60th anniversary this
year. Gabora is one of the Baragon Brethren, that is to say, the exclusive list
of kaiju made from modifying a Baragon suit on loan from Toho: Pagos, Neronga,
Magular and Gabora. Pagos, Neronga and Gabora appeared in Shin Ultraman as both
a reference and cost cutting measure, but this is actually the true return of
Gabora to the Ultra series since the original Ultraman (he was in Ultraman
Powered, but that was basically a loose remake of the original show anyway). As
far as I can tell, this Gabora is modified from Neronga again, but I am unsure
if this is the same suit that portrayed Pagos a few episodes ago. That many
modifications in that short of a time frame would be standard fare for the
first Ultraman shows but seems very strange for something right now. Gabora’s
gimmick this go around is that his segmented frill can spin, allowing him to
fly faster than Omega can react. And yeah, that works to address the power
creep of a knowledgeable Omega and Kosei partnership; Gabora has a beefy enough
body to where he will be hard to move, his beam has increased in width, and he
can fly so powerfully and unexpectedly that Valgeness cannot down him with
telepathy.
Episode 22, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
This episode ushers in
the last leg of the story, answering many of the questions we have about Omega,
his backstory and what he represents in the story. One criticism I should also
levy against the last four episodes is that they did very little to address
this mystery. The introduction of another Sorato talking to himself seemed to
mean answers would be immediate, but even as of this episode, that other Sorato
is still slightly anomalous. Here is your last chance to share your predictions
in the comments. In any case, Omega is a Space Gazer, non-interventionist
beings of light that exist to document the happenings of each planet,
especially in their Time of Awakening where monsters arise every few thousand
years to terrorize the humans. Geness is the name of a planet and formerly
humanoid people who created Zovaras and other such technologies in order to
fight off their own monsters, inadvertently destroying their planet. They tried
to invade Earth, but Omega stopped them. In the battle against their controlled
Vagsects and subsequently against Zovaras, Omega lost his memory and startled
the surviving Geness when he started to actively fight for humanity on Earth.
The non-interventionist policy is presumably why no other Space Gazer tried to
get Omega to stop until episode 17, if that other Sorato even is another Gazer
and not just Sorato’s missing memories like what I speculated that child from
the Mons-Ahgar episode was.
You might be thinking
this is a lot to tell us in an episode where I have not even described a MOTW
yet. That is because this episode takes the form of a prolonged exposition dump
where Kosei and Sorato follow clues left behind by a mysterious figure telling
them all of this: a kind old man who rescued Omega immediately after he fell to
Earth. As this episode reveals, that old man is a Geness Seijin called Ahdel.
Even though he is a token good teammate that opposed his compatriot’s Earth
invasion plan, Ahdel is a far more complicated character. Though he, himself,
was dying, he rescued Omega, and, once he saw Omega start saving humanity, he
actually grew very bitter and died while preparing this path to return Omega’s
Space Gazer memories to try to dissuade him from helping Earth.
Despite being a larger
scope villain in this episode, Ahdel poses an interesting question. Why did
Omega break code to help humanity and not the Geness Seijin? Sorato has an
answer, even though this all shakes him: the people of Geness destroyed their
own planet trying to defeat the kaiju and then ended up trying to colonize
Earth, while humanity just innocently could not defend itself from Geness’ army
or Earth’s own kaiju. The Geness Seijin are humanoid but converted their bodies
into energy and invented other means to control kaiju so my working theory is
that either the Vagsects were being controlled the same way Zovaras was or the
little ball of energy Geness guys were literally inside of the Vagsects during
that big fight scene. And this should strike a chord because the future
scenario from a few episodes ago could be Genessian invasion…or it is the
consequence of Earthlings doing the same thing. That is the tension that would
likely exist on a temporal scale for Omega: did he really do the right thing or
did he essentially empower Geness even sooner? This episode starts with a new
international squad forming to deal with the kaiju. I, for one, trust them less
than I do the KSCT.
I would be remiss not to
at least mention the MOTW, since there actually was one. I did not catch his
name during the actual upload, but it is the Ultraman Blazar monster Taganular,
who seems to be a new regular since he was also in Ultraman Arc. Apparently one
of Zahgon’s trophies from episode 18 included some Taganular claws. That could
have been a hasty modification to put those back on here, or they just had
multiple suits and props as there seem to be multiple Taganular individuals in
his other canonical appearances.
Episode 23, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
Episode 23 picks up right
where the previous one left off in Sorato’s anguish and drops the additional
nugget that the other Sorato that he has been seeing for the last 5 or so
episodes claims to be the real Omega trying to get Sorato to remember. Now, this
would be a good time to decide to differentiate these characters going forward
by calling the one who has been in 23 episodes Sorato and the one who has been
in 6 Omega, but, for reasons we will get to at the end of this episode, that
will also be very difficult. Otherwise, I would throw a picture on screen to
show which one I am talking about, but they’re identical. Let’s get back into
the plot recap.
Sorato, in this episode,
really struggles between his old and new self with a lot of inventive
psychological drama for the Ultra series. The show thus far has given its share
of foreshadowing, but it is still abrupt given the nature of the previous few episodes,
so the specific scenes of Sorato’s fatigue and when he loses awareness
conversing with his other self help to ground this plotline effectively.
For the other main plot
of the episode, the Time of Awakening is here upon us or has recently
accelerated toward its peak with monsters popping up all over at unforeseen
rates. The MOTW this time is Gairyuga, a Spinosaurus whose body converts Kaen
102 into a devastating beam so powerful it can destroy a mountain with one
blast. The last few episodes in this batch have had threats that were not
necessarily stronger than those faced earlier, just weirder ones, but Gairyuga
is doubtless the strongest one in a while and at least top 3 of the show so far
in general. At the same time, and your mileage may vary on how contrived this
is, another Pegunos has popped up to make life more difficult for the KSCT
during their attack on Gairyuga. To really show off how much stronger Gairyuga
is than the other monsters, he gets to fight Trigaron, Rekiness, Pegunos and
Omega with Valgeness armor all in one episode.
The KSCT together with
Mr. Taira have developed a weapon that converts Kaen 102 into an energy beam
the same as Gairyuga, something that should concern us based on the trajectory
of the Geness Seijin from before. When it fails, Kosei does the coolest thing
imaginable through Rekiness, redirecting the missed beam back at Gairyuga, but
this new Pegunos finally gets his revenge for what happened to the previous
one, oneshotting Rekiness. While Pegunos celebrates, Gairyuga gets back up, and
if you are as attached to Pegunos as I am, you will not want to see what
happens to him.
Sorato can finally muster
enough willpower to stand up and fight, but, midway through, his personality
snaps back into being a Space Gazer, so he gives up the fight and goes to
witness the arrival of a new potentially world ending monster far away, Zomera,
who will be the main villain of these last two remaining numbered episodes.
Omega also took the meteokaiju with him, so humanity has to depend on the often
ill-advised technology of the NDF.
This is a very impressive
episode that I cannot do justice just describing. It really proves my point
about the maturity of this half of the show, especially compared to something
like Ultraman Orb that still felt somewhat juvenile throughout even while dealing
with depression, terrorism and self destructive rage. Notably, the end of the
YouTube upload usually features a picture of Ultraman Omega with cards for what
videos and playlists are relevant, but, once he leaves, Omega leaves the end of
the video too.
Episode 23.5, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
This episode, while
having the sloppiest use of recap stock footage, is actually probably Nariaki’s
best so far, because it slots nicely into the arc of the show’s storytelling in
a way I will struggle to explain for the next section. If you will recall, the
directly previous episode featured a MOTW but the focus was on Sorato’s
slipping mental state as visions of his true self keep happening around the
depressed Ultra hero. It was an innovative form for the episode’s storytelling
to take. In this episode, Nariaki Akaji is depressed about how the kaiju are
costing him business, sitting at his desk listening to the radio for comfort
while stock footage events happen around him and take over the screen, even
clips he would have no way of knowing about (the fight scene in the future).
This proves less effort to tie Nariaki into the narrative, but it matches what
Sorato was going through last episode perfectly. You may accuse me of the
intentional fallacy, and you may be right, but I think it is pretty clear that
the intent is to juxtapose Sorato and Nariaki.
Okay, to what end though?
The episode is called The Hope of Nariaki Akaji, and usually just thinking of
Sorato and Ayumu is enough to get a depressed Nariaki playful again. That is
where another thing clicked into place for me. This is the Recap episode. The
only reasons to watch this are if you made it this far in the show and want
more or if you watch the show but got confused about the airing schedule and
misclicked. Anyone watching this episode already knows that Omega reawakens and
leaves the fight against Gairyuga, but the news anchors and Nariaki do not. The
dramatic irony is palpable as the secondary trio reflect on Omega’s adventures
out of order and without the context of the being’s sanity slippage to regain
hope that Omega will defeat Gairyuga. (This episode is set in the middle of
episode 23.)
When Nariaki finds his
hope and writes a message into the radio show trying to inspire the common
people, it twists the knife a little more because we know that Omega is going
to leave no matter what epiphanies Nariaki has. Furthermore, it now reframes the
hope and trust the public has built in Omega painstakingly over this half of
the show into a vain pursuit because he will leave. That was the point of this
arc. It was not that we were going to have an episode where Omega or the NDF
turn against each other for a neatly resolved episodic conflict, but that Omega
won everyone over…only to leave when they need him the most, when the two most
powerful kaiju in the entire show awaken back to back. Make fun of me all you
want for only realizing where they were going with this in the dumbed down
recap episode, but this has the potential to be even better than a single
episode of an Imitation Omega style scenario would have been.
And again, this proves my
point about the maturity of the show. Nariaki is a manchild, but the show uses
him to shift its tone darker and restate the increasing stakes through showing
another side of the world. All that said, there are some issues: the clips
themselves are a bit superfluous, the episode kind of has a false ending by
including a song that summarizes Sorato’s arc and possibly hints at its
resolution, and it is most evident here that this episode was just the camera
crew and one guy in maybe two shoots instead of another chapter of this story
(Nariaki is usually dynamic enough for this one-man show to work, and sometimes
they have other characters call into the radio in these episodes). Also, the
episode placement is intentionally frustrating because as the audience, we want
to know if Omega will come back, and instead, the schedule had this episode the
week after episode 23 and then a brief hiatus. That is why I have both
Frustrating and Fabulous selected; it was not a mistake.
Episode 24, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
Episode 24 begins the
last two parter of Ultraman Omega with the highest stakes in the show so far.
Zomera is a potentially world-ending villain created through mankind’s hubris
in trying to study and harvest the cells of Eldeghimera and Zovaras for their
own use. This directly ties back into the mistake Geness made. Sorato, now
fully Omega once more, watches the rampage within interest and even Henshins to
full size and pulls out his slugger (in other words an Ultraman’s detachable
mohawk dagger). However, as it turns out, this is merely part of his
observation and cataloguing process; as Zomera is a new kaiju, Omega needs to
see Zomera’s abilities in action. If you will recall, every fight has begun
with Omega looking at the kaiju through the gap between his finger and his
thumb, and this is because his true purpose has been to examine them.
Now is probably a good
time to explain Zomera’s abilities. As Eldeghimera’s cells are dominant in this
fusion, it can absorb other kaiju to gain their powers (so arguably this is
less Zomera than it is Eldeghimera post snacking on Zovaras), and the main ability
it inherited from Zovaras was the control of other kaiju. Rather than build an
army to take on the world however, Zomera wants to consume all of the monsters,
drawing out a new Demaaga, from which it gains the fire projectiles, and a new
Gomora, from which it earns the special energy power that specimen had. As the
KSCT and NDF find out when they use the Kaen-102 beam on it, Zomera also found
and assimilated Gairyuga and its beam offscreen. That is a little bit
frustrating to resolve the Gairyuga situation offscreen, but it helps elevate
the drama with an “Oh Crap” moment because evidently Zomera is so strong that a
fight against Gairyuga was of such little consequence we do not get to see it.
In its place, Gomora puts up a better fight, and I am happy Gomora got more to
do this season than just his episode. We never see Zomera control Gomora; it
just eats him when it gets him off balance, so I am going to assume that
Gomora’s will was simply too strong for that.
At one point Kosei
reaches out to Omega, trying to get him to fight for them one last time. This
does not work, but Kosei’s invitation to remember their time together gets
Omega thinking. This scene leverages their connection across the entire show so
well and, in retrospect, makes even the filler episodes feel important. Omega
also witnesses the little girl they saved in episode one and has a flashback.
You could view this as a contrivance or consider that Sorato, somewhere deep
down in Omega, made sure he gazed at those people. While this happens, several
disembodied voices including the radio hosts bemoan Omega’s betrayal of
humanity.
Some aspects of this
episode seem evocative of Shin Godzilla. The KSCT and NDF, mostly shown through
our main group of oddballs, meet in a nondescript building to discuss the slow
approach of Zomera, a monster who constantly mutates to overcome its weaknesses.
That said, it is different enough to where it is either coincidental or just a
reference. This episode is not satirizing anything, just earnestly playing into
the drama of what happens when an Ultraman stops protecting humanity, and it is
far more action oriented than Shin Godzilla. The episode ends with both the
promise of a chemical solution to Zomera from Ayumu (which is similar to Shin
Godzilla) and a roused Omega/Sorato possibly preparing himself to fight Zomera,
so we will see what happens in the last episode of Ultraman Omega.
Episode 25, Fabulous
or Frustrating?
Cutting right to the
chase, the episode opens with Ayumu’s idea about defeating Zomera. If they aim
their Kaen-102 laser at the Kaen-102 conversion organ that Zomera gained from
Gairyuga, that should weaken Zomera, at least removing that power and hopefully
killing it. This does not work as planned; based on the changing color of the
beam, it seems it merely taught Zomera to convert Kaen-102 into energy more
efficiently. That said, it still felt the need to sabotage the attack by
boosting its brainwaves to agitate humanity and cut off the wireless
connection, so maybe this was about to work.
Kosei, seeing this has
failed, runs off to the downed VTOL with a power source to aim the Kaen-102
cannon at Zomera manually. All this time, Omega has been pretty much stuck
where we last saw him, watching the proceedings but with turmoil in his
expression. Despite the captions saying Kaen-102 as I have been typing it, the
apparatus labels it as Ka-N102.
Kosei calls out to
Sorato, telling him that Sorato helped him find his purpose, and this rouses
Sorato from within Omega, who argues with himself again. Omega argues that the
way for cosmic stability is strict observation until a solution presents itself,
but Sorato points out that they never found an answer that way. Based on how
humanity accepted him even knowing he was an alien, Sorato speculates that the
answer to lasting peace might be found in harmony with humanity. Let us think
about that for a moment. Yes, humanity is responsible for Zomera, but the
original sin of Geness with Zovaras still remains within that abomination.
Humanity was less developed when the Time of Awakening began, as Sorato points
out to Omega. This incredibly confused being that contains both the
personalities I am designating Sorato and Omega finally drags himself over to
Kosei to finish this monologue/dialogue, saying that they must join with all
life hand in hand to figure out the answer.
Omega embraces his
identities of Sorato Okida and Ultraman and rises once more to fight Zomera.
Kosei declares he is fighting with Ultraman and advises Sorato to get rid of
Zomera’s chest armor so that Kosei can land a Kaen-102 strike on the beast.
Zomera returns fire, and Omega flies into the beam in an effort to save Kosei.
Instead, they both die. Bear with me here. If you are consuming this review,
you likely have already watched the show in full. If not, what are you doing
here? You can binge it on YouTube or Prime.
As Kosei and Sorato walk
through their shared memories, the pair talk about what their partnership has
meant to each other. Kosei declares that it cannot end like this, and Sorato
agrees, so Omega proposes an option that should be very familiar to fans of the
Ultra series…though it usually does not happen this late in a show. You see, in
the original Ultraman show, Ultraman inadvertently killed agent Shin Hayata and
so tied himself to Hayata in order to save the man’s life. That was the
beginning of that show, but here, it pays off the arcs these two men have had
about saving humanity.
This new Ultraman Omega
fights with newfound fervor and strength, ducking and blocking Zomera’s
strikes. Their brotherly bond gives this Ultra further strength to pierce
Zomera’s forcefield and summon all three meteokaiju at once, which also allows
Omega to switch between the associated armors. As the crowning jewel of this
innovative spin of the classic Ultra hero merging, this fight takes three
minutes, the original limit for how long Hayata could be Ultraman in one
sitting.
The radio hosts conclude
with some exposition about the (immediate) future of this world. With more
funding, the actual international kaiju response organization that springs out
from the KSCT tries to focus on coexistence with the kaiju and even possibly
communicating with the Space Gazers. Sayuki Uta, who I have not mentioned that
much for brevity’s sake was against the Zomera project in the first place,
drained by the meetings with her more militaristic compatriots and initially
drawn to Ayumu for her curiosity and tenacity, naturally has a high up status
in this new organization. She has been a very strong mentor character in this
show, but these are mini reviews. Anyway, the new organization is called KSSIT,
short for Kaiju Special Investigation Team, and Ayumu and Kosei work for the
Tokyo Branch. This feels like the beginning of a classic Ultraman show, but, as
Sorato tells Kosei, it is more than that. It is Earthlings, aliens and kaiju
all working together to make a new Earth.
Verdict
All in all, this
show blew me away and is going down in my book as an all time great season of
tokusatsu. That may be a little bit dramatic on my part as I have not seen
nearly enough tokusatsu shows yet, but you can see for yourself the
fabulosities outweigh the frustrations.
You can expect further
coverage of this show from me; I still need to rank the show’s monsters in
full, and I will adapt these episode reviews to our YouTube page, so stay tuned
for those.
Here are some more
screengrabs I found entertaining:
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