Oh, snap. The Ultraman Geed television series is about to get an infusion of awesome when it upgrades to movie form with a special guest star. The great wandering hero known as Kurenai Gai, Ultraman Orb himself is stopping by to lend his personal brand of badass to this cinematic kaiju-busting event. And he’s not the only one showing up to mix it up with the monsters of this particular Earth in the expanding Ultraman multiverse. A brief trailer for the new movie has dropped, and it offers a quick taste of what’s in store for fans of both series as Geed’s final television episodes approach.
Joining Hamada Tatsuomi as young lead Riku / Geed and Ozawa Yuta as salaryman-turned-superhero Leito / Zero, we have the previous year’s lead hero Ishiguro Hideo as charming alien warrior Gai as well as his menacing counterpart who swings violently between friend and foe, Aoyagi Takaya as the sword-wielding Juggler.
It had become something of a tradition for the heroes of the previous year in the Ultra franchise to make an appearance in the show that succeeds them. Sometimes, more than one Ultra from the past drops out of the sky (sometimes quite literally) and trades blows with the baddies of the resident savior’s home turf. This marks a slight change, in that the first time we see the returning character will be in the annual film story rather than a televised episode. That’s assuming we don’t have a surprise coming at us in Geed’s final weeks on the air, of course.
We can speculate that this was just a question of timing, with respect to scheduling actors whose plates may have been full with other things while the Geed series was filming (we covered Aoygai’s stint as a bonafide do-gooder in HE-LOW a few months back). Or that the show was more concerned with telling its own story with as much breathing room as 25 episodes would allow. But I’d prefer to think that this theatrical team-up is merely due to the strength of the Orb characters, the story of the two dueling allies locked in a seemingly eternal struggle, the fate of worlds caught in the destructive chasm between their enduring conflict, the follow-up to which simply demanded to be played out once more on the big screen, as no mere television screen could possibly hope to contain their brilliance. Can you tell I’m a fan?
There’s not a ton of new footage to be seen just yet, but the trailer does effectively show off the pleasing visual scope of the movie, set in and around Okinawa, where Geed faces a disguised alien haunting the island, whose antics may lead to the fated meeting between the two towering monster-fighters and the sidekick from kaiju hell.
Will Geed’s ally, Ultraman Zero have a thing or two to teach the devious Juggler about backing up your brother-in-arms in a time of crisis? We may have a few more months to find out.
Ultraman Geed: The Movie – Connect the Wishes hits Japanese theaters March 10, 2018.
You might also like:
ULTRAMAN Anime Teaser – The Classic Hero Reborn
Ultraman Geed & The Identity Crisis of Episodes 18 & 19
5 Things to Love About Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga
