Ultraman Neos
Finally knuckled down and watched the series on Sat. From things I'd read online, I didn't have high hopes for this particular series. It wasn't so much just outright hated, but I really never heard anything good about it, never saw either of the main Ultras show up anywhere else (except for the brief cameos in the last two Ultra movies). A few reviews here and there were pretty mediocre.
I have to say that if all you watched were the first two episodes, then yeah, it was a pretty bad experience. They spent a lot of money on the special effects for the show, but they didn't go out of their way to get really good actors. They pretty much all fit right into the niche, and that made for a bad viewing.
One thing I did notice, and still not sure if I liked it or not, was that they tried to pick certain elements from different other Ultra shows and fit them in. Whether it was the fighting styles of the different previous Ultras, or just other team and story elements. Granted, after doing a show like that for so long, you are bound to repeat yourself eventually.
There were a couple of the shows that were aimed directly at the kids, the episodes that have the big fluffy monster with big cute eyes and everyone walks around smiling and acting silly because of it. Another had Neos doing some really stupid things while fighting the monster, and the kids coming up with some plans to keep a rollercoaster park alive. I'm assuming that when they made the series, they knew it was only 12 episodes, so the fact that they gave 2 of those to kid-centric stories says a lot.
The more grown up episodes were pretty good. Like most shows on tv, they tried to pack the hotties in there. Even some of the male guest stars were really handsome. And if you keep your eyes open, you'll see that there were some guest stars from other Toku movies and shows. Nothing major, but some fun guest spots.
And now the Ultras... Neos was not what I thought he was going to be. I was actually thinking he was going to be more like Mebius; young and inexperienced and learning it all as he went, but turned out that he was a fairly skilled fighter from the get go. They didn't go overboard with a wide plethora of his powers, although there were a couple of the non-standards. One thing that I did like, Neos did a lot of jumping attacks, which reminded me of what little I know of Leo.
Ultraseven 21 (two one). He wasn't a major player in every episode, but he definitely had more screen time than Zoffy. This Ultraseven is extremely similar to the original Ultraseven, with just a few slight variations in his suit. Most of the powers, from what I saw, are about the same. Never used the pocket monsters though. Was a couple of times that would have helped him out a lot. They explained the name addition in one episode, he is called Two One because he represents the fighting spirit of the 21st century.
And bringing up an old discussion
the timer. Neos didn't seem to have a 3 minute go time, he fought a few times for more than 3 minutes. Even took a few hits in one instance and he kept on going as if at full strength. But in another fight, he took one massive hit, took a lot of damage, and he was down and out with the timer blinking almost immediately. Maybe the timers are different for each Ultra? Some are timers, other are power gauges, and others it is a mix of each?
All in all, I enjoyed watching the series. Was it my favorite? No, but it had some great elements to it, especially the self contained story line. Was it the worst one? No (and I'm not going to mention which one is). I think they could have done better, but I also would like to see Neos have a bigger role later on, maybe a one shot movie for an anniversary special or something.
Just my two cents.
Shteve