Ultraman: Rising

Ultraman: Rising
Official release poster
Japanese name
Kanji	ウルトラマン: ライジング
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Urutoraman: Raijingu
Directed by	Shannon Tindle
Written by	Shannon Tindle Marc Haimes
Based on	Ultraman by Tsuburaya Productions
Produced by	Tom Knott Lisa M. Poole
Starring	Christopher Sean Gedde Watanabe Tamlyn Tomita Keone Young Julia Harriman
Cinematography	John Bermudes
Edited by	Bret Marnell
Music by	Scot Stafford
Production companies	Netflix Animation Tsuburaya Productions Industrial Light & Magic
Distributed by	Netflix
Release dates	June 12, 2024 (2024-06-12) (Annecy Festival) June 14, 2024 (2024-06-14) (Worldwide)
Running time	117 minutes
Countries	United States Japan
Language	English

Ultraman: Rising (Japanese: ウルトラマン: ライジング, Hepburn: Urutoraman: Raijingu) is a 2024 animated superhero film based on Tsuburaya Productions' Ultraman franchise. A Japanese-American co-production between Netflix Animation and Tsuburaya Productions, with animation by Industrial Light & Magic, it is the 44th film in the franchise. Directed by Shannon Tindle (in his feature directorial debut), who co-wrote it with Marc Haimes, the film stars Christopher Sean as Ken Sato/Ultraman, alongside the voices of Gedde Watanabe, Tamlyn Tomita, Keone Young, and Julia Harriman.

Ultraman: Rising was released worldwide on Netflix on June 14, 2024. The film has received positive reviews from critics who praised the film's animation, writing, and voice performances (particularly Sean's).

Plot

Kenji "Ken" Sato, a professional but egotistical baseball player, returns to his native home in Japan, despite being on the verge of a championship win in America. Reporter Ami Wakita attributes his sudden departure to rumored unfinished family business. But secretly, Ken is returning to Japan to battle kaiju (giant monsters) as the giant superhero Ultraman, a mantle he reluctantly accepts from his father, Professor Sato. After a battle with the monster Neronga, Ken feels under appreciated after citizen complaints. Ken vents that he never wanted to become Ultraman and reminisces about his mother Emiko, who's gone missing recently.

Dr. Onda, Chief Officer of the Kaiju Defense Force (KDF) who harbors a grudge against Ultraman and kaiju, monitors a transport team delivering a secret package. However, they are pursued by the winged bird-like kaiju Gigantron. Ken is forced to abandon a game and battle the beast. Gigantron loses consciousness on top of the package, which is revealed to be an egg. An infant Gigantron soon hatches, forcing Ultraman to take her with him before the KDF kill her.

The baby imprints on him as her parent. With the help of his A.I. assistant Mina, Ken reluctantly raises the baby, named Emi after Ken's mother. Unwilling to accept his father's help due to their estranged relationship, Ken struggles with his career and parental duties. He reach out to Ami, a parent herself, and asks how she deals with parenthood. She acknowledges that it's not easy but can be rewarding and surprising. Over time, Ken grows emotionally attached to Emi and teaches her how to play baseball. One night, Ken drops out of an interview with Ami due to Emi escaping and running around Tokyo. Recognizing Emi as the missing asset, Onda demands Ultraman to hand her over. Ultraman refuses and accidentally injures Emi's shoulder while trying to save her. He takes Emi home and finally contacts his father for help. Sato succeeds in healing Emi and aides Ken in raising the baby.

Onda reveals to the KDF's Captain his plan to exploit Emi's echolocation to find the undiscovered kaiju island and destroy all monsters. Onda justifies this as a means to an end to protect humanity, after his family perished during a kaiju/Ultraman incident. At a family cabin, Ken and Sato reconcile their relationship, now that Ken understands the struggle of being both a parent and Ultraman. However, Emi enters a pupal stage as the KDF find and attack them, injuring Sato. Ken places his father in a healing tube back home and Emi hatches from her cocoon, now sporting wings. She hears the calls of her birth mother across Tokyo Bay and flies towards her.

The KDF soon attack Ken's home, destroying Mina and his father's tube disappearing into the sea. Ultraman tracks Emi to the middle of the Bay where they both encounter a mechanized Gigantron. Ultraman attacks it but stops when he notices flesh beneath the metal; realizing it's not a machine but the original, still alive, with armor plating. However, Ultraman exceeds his energy and reverts to Ken but is saved by his father in Ultra form, Ultradad. Emi manages to break the KDF's control over Gigantron. Onda transforms a KDF craft into a giant mecha and battles the two Ultras and kaiju, blaming Ultradad for the death of his family. Onda is defeated but triggers a self destruct sequence. Ultraman forms a barrier encircling him and the mecha; Onda watches videos of his family one last time before the detonation.

Later, Ami finally interviews Ken, having survived and now sporting an injured shoulder. Ami notes that Ken has matured recently and Ken attributes it to his family. He shares a voicemail from his mother that expresses her hopes of Ken reconciling with his father and that their decisions as parents came from a place of love to prepare him for life. Ken and Sato succeed in finding kaiju island, with the help of Emi and Gigantron.

In a mid-credits scene, Emiko contacts Ken for help, revealing that she is stuck on Ultraman's home planet Nebula M78.

Voice cast

Characters	English	Japanese
Kenji "Ken" Sato / Ultraman	Christopher Sean	Yuki Yamada
Professor Sato / Ultradad	Gedde Watanabe	Fumiyo Kohinata
Mina / Emiko Sato	Tamlyn Tomita	Ayumi Tsunematsu
Dr. Onda	Keone Young	Fumihiko Tachiki
Ami Wakita	Julia Harriman	Akari Hayami
Ami's Mother	Karen Muruyama	Hiroko Sakurai
Captain Aoshima	Lee Shorten	Takaya Aoyagi
Coach Shimura	Artt Butler	Nan Dadian
Ito	Francois Chau
Kubo	Robert Yasumura
Chiho	Mila O'Malley
Mrs. Onda	Brittany Ishibashi
Akiko	Veronica Lapke
Bunny (Ollie)	Jonathan Groff

Frank Buckley, Artt Butler, Vic Chao, Francois Chau, Brittany Ishibashi, Paul Nakauchi, Bret Marnell, and Jon Ohye provide additional voices.

Production

The film, inspired by the character of the same name, originally began as an original idea developed by director Shannon Tindle. He conceived it while working as a character designer on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends in the mid-to-late 2000s. Tindle further developed the film, writing a script and creating art at Sony Pictures Animation from 2016 to 2018; at the time, the plot would have followed "a billionaire forced to grow up when he takes on the orphaned children of his former foe." After leaving Sony, Tindle moved to Netflix Animation to produce the live-action/animation hybrid series Lost Ollie with fellow Sony Animation director Peter Ramsey, where he had the opportunity to repurpose the plot for his film to fit with the Ultraman IP.

The project was announced as a Netflix exclusive in May 2021, with Tindle to direct and co-write the film with Marc Haimes (Tindle and Haimes previously co-wrote Kubo and the Two Strings), Tom Knott to produce, Lisa Poole to co-produce, John Aoshima to co-direct, and Industrial Light & Magic to animate the film. In July 2022, Netflix released an image teasing the film's animation style and Ultraman design.

Release

In October 2023, Tindle shared via Twitter a first-look image of Ultraman and the film's official title, Ultraman: Rising, teasing an announcement for Geeked Week 2023. In November 2023, the film's voice cast and first trailer were unveiled during Geeked Week 2023, targeting a 2024 release on Netflix. Ultraman: Rising premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 12, 2024. It was followed by its worldwide release on Netflix on June 14, 2024.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of 46 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The website's consensus reads: "Ultraman: Rising adds an interesting wrinkle of childrearing to the franchise's high-octane formula, making for a colorful romp fit for the whole family." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

External links

• Ultraman: Rising on Netflix
• Ultraman: Rising at IMDb