When trying to save a young boy during a Kaiju attack, Shinji Kaminaga is fused with Ultraman and is granted the power of the Beta Capsule allowing him to grow to a giant size, and battle these creatures as Ultraman.

They do so while also navigating the bureaucratic nightmare these attacks cause on a world stage. Like Shin Godzilla, the film is a very human story focusing on the Species Suppression Protocol or SSP, a government organization who specializes on taking out the Kaiju or “S-Class Species” threats who are suddenly plaguing Japan. This film itself is a self contained origin story of this new spin on the character, which is surprisingly faithful to the original series. Shin Ultraman is the 37th film in the franchise and the second reboot of the Tokusatsu (live-action) TV series which hails from 1966 and no doubt sparked Anno’s love for giant battling monsters. It was hopeless and unforgiving and was clearly a call back to how that original film which was about a giant monster terrorizing Tokyo and also a statement on Hiroshima.

Shin Godzilla for example was the 31st Godzilla film and easily one of the best in the canon that used Japan’s reaction to the Kaiju’s destruction as a bleak metaphor for how their bureaucracy had the government failing their population in their response to the 2011 Tōhoku Tsunami. “Shin”, which in Japanese means “new”, has the pair reinventing Japanese icons, putting a fresh spin on them. Anno was busy finishing up the almost decade in gestation Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time and relinquished direction duties while still playing a prominent creative role in planning the film. Since then the film not only has been designated as part of Hideaki Anno’s a shared universe of Shin efforts - Shin Evangelion, Shin Godzilla and now Shin Ultraman, with Shin Kamen Rider on the horizon, but Anno who was originally set to direct had to relinquish duties to fellow Gianax alum and co-director of Shin Godzilla Shinji Higuchi. After a year of delays thanks to COVID, Shin Ultraman has finally made its North American Premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival mere months after opening in Japanese theaters May.

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