"There is so much writing in English on Japanese cinema that can't be accepted at face value — not because the writers are careless, but because the differences in culture and language are just too intricate. When I see August Ragone's name on a piece of writing, it gives me permission to place my faith in it completely. Among Japanese fantasy film historians, he's the best working in English." —Tim Lucas, Video Watchdog

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

"ULTRAMAN NEXUS" DEBUTS 'ROUND THE GLOBE
Crunchyroll Streams a Different Ultraman Show

今『ウルトラマンネクサス』は世界中のストリーミング!


Prepare for a completely different kind of Ultraman series!

Back in December, the anime streaming service, Crunchyroll, stated that their simulcast of Tsuburaya Productions' ULTRAMAN X (2015) was so successful, that they would be adding the 2004 series, ULTRAMAN NEXUS to their on-going Ultra Series line-up (Ultraman Leo, Ultraman 80, Ultraman Max, and Ultraman Mebius) — all licensed directly from Tsuburaya and available worldwide, excluding Asia. These are all presented in the original Japanese with Subtitles available in several languages, including English.

Debuting over the Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting network on October 2, 2004, ULTRAMAN NEXUS was conceived and produced as a darker, adult-oriented science fiction drama, opposed to previous entires, which were more positive or child-oriented. Unfortunately, NEXUS was placed in an early morning timeslot, instead of prime time, and on account of poor ratings, was cut to 37 episodes from the original plan of 50. Home Video releases boasted an all-new "Episode EX" as well as an Director's Cut of Episode 29, each running 45 minutes.

From Crunchyroll's press release: Kazuki Komon, a failed Rescue Squad member, gets recruited by the Terrestrial Liberation Trust (TLT) to join the Night Raiders, a top classified special task force assembled by the TLT to protect Earth from space monsters. After undergoing stringent training, Kazuki gets paired with the cool Night Raider sub-captain Nagi Saijo for active duty — just in time for an insidious invasion of Earth, and the appearance of a "giant of light", whose mission is to protect humanity.

So, if you're looking for something truly different in the Ultra Series, or just like sci-fi series such as Dark Matter, you just might dig the story-and-character-arc-driven plot of ULTRAMAN NEXUS. And let's hope that Crunchyroll continues to bring us more Ultraman goodness in the near future, because there's still some really great stuff to be shared with the world, such as ULTRAMAN GAIA!

All 37 episodes of ULTRAMAN NEXUS launches via Crunchyroll on February 10, 2016 at 5:00 pm (Pacific Standard Time)!

1 comment:

Battra said...

And they just put up Gaia.