Let me just first clarify that I am not the biggest Ultraman follower out there. The more background I have with the series is the Heisei era (Tiga, Dyna, Nexus, Cosmos, etc.) and not so much about the Showa era, which is where this anime adapation (and the manga) works as a remake and sequel to the original Ultraman from the 1960's. With this in mind, I actually enjoyed a lot of the first season of ULTRAMAN from 2019. As much as people criticise the use of 3D animation in anime, this is a rare example of 3D anime done right! Especially during the fight scenes, which featured some of the most eye-pleasing 3D actions scenes I have ever seen in anime. The story from the first season was not bad, but was not that great either. It wasn't meant to achieve awards or anything storywise. But one thing it was for sure: enjoyable and entertaining.
Does the second season favour in these aspects? No, not really. Story is a mess, character development focuses on just one particular character, and the overall enjoyment felt lacklustre compared, at least, with the first season. Let me explain why theme by theme:
Story: 5/10
This is where the second season of ULTRAMAN falls flat. The story takes place after the events of the first season: Shinjiro is trying to conjugate his personal life with his heroic life, Dan Moroboshi is still the stoic and no-bullsh** man working in the SSSP, and Hokuto is nowhere to be found except on the last 3 episodes - which is the second half of the anime based on how small it is. Then out of the sudden, a massive disappearance of people in Tokyo and in other parts of the world is happening and no one knows what, where and why this was happening. It is up to the Ultramen to solve this mystery.
At first glace you think "ah, it's another alien enemy who is kidnapping all life on Earth just to pursue his own goals of conquer". If that's what you thought right from the first episode, then my friend you just won the million dolar prize. The main villain, named Pedant, is basically the Thanos of this story. And when I say Thanos I mean literally: wipes out half the people of the Earth so that he can be its true ruler; and if no one agrees with him and/or confronts him, he'll just wipe out all life on the planet.
An important aspect of this story is the introduction of another alien race called the "Wadoran", led by their princess Maya. From what we know, Maya's race feeds upon the lifeforce of planetery beings for survival, and, of course, that includes humans. But Maya is forced into doing Pedant's bidding as he threatens the extermination of her kind by...killing her? So if she dies, her kind dies with her? What about the lifeforce they feed upon other planets? Would Pedant kill every single life-being and the Wadoran would die? It is never fully explored and explained, very broad. I wish we could learn more about the story of the Wadoran and why Maya was forced to join forces with Pedant in the first place.
Then the end of the story is underwhealming. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but you can probably tell that there's going to be a final fight between the Ultramen and Pedant. And the final fight is a joke, the build up to this alien guy as a strong, fearsome and undefeatable fighter is not compensated at the end in my opinion. So overall, the story is basic, clichéd (not that is necessaringly a bad thing) but with some details all over the place - especially with the Wadoran race they introduced here. With six episodes you could so much, but even so I felt a lot of void in these episodes in terms of exposure and execution.
Art: 8/10
Many will disagree with me on this one, but I really dig the CGI of this anime. Sure it's not perfect, but when it comes to 3D anime, the company did a good job on making the special effects on both seasons. Just like in the past season, the fight scenes animation is fantastic and fluid, unlike most CGI anime out there.
Sound: 8/10
It makes me wonder: did the first season ever had an intro music? If it did, I forgot about it because I never recall having one in the first place. But here in the second season, the opening song NOILION is pretty catchy and the more you hear it the more you fall in love with. The rest of the soundtrack has a mix of electronic and rock music which does fit the mood on each scene.
Character: 6/10
Another low point of this anime: the character development. As you might've seen in the trailers, we have two new full Ultramen members joining the team: Jack and Taro. Jack already made an appearance on the first season as an informant of the SSSP, but here he acquires a suit which turns him into Ultraman Jack. However, we know little of his character motivations and background, as it is never explored in this season. On the other hand, Taro receives the biggest screentime of the entire show - almost to a point I might even call this the Taro show. He is the only one given proper character introduction and development, though the explanation of how he acquired his flame powers is barely explained. It is also hinted that his girlfriend, Izumi, had a similar kind of power, as well as able to speak telepathically to Taro. But, just like many aspects of the show, it is never further explored.
What about the other Ultramen? Shinjiro (Ultraman), who supposedly is the main protagonist, is pushed back as a background character and has only his heroic moment in the final episode. Moroboshi (Ultraseven) is the same as ever - the calm, stoic and badass swordsman that strikes fear in the hearts of aliens - and has more heroic moments here than Shinjiro. Seiji Hokuto (Ultraman Ace) only appears after episode 3 and is still the happy-go-lucky "senpai notice me" boy that looks up to Shinjiro and he has only one cool scene fighting an alien monster inside Pedant's ship. And Shin Hayata, Shinjiro's father and the original Ultraman, has a suit upgrade and he's more cooler than ever, especially when fighting alongside the Ultramen. So I guess Taro and Shin are the only exceptions on the underwhelming character development of this show.
Also, remember Bemular from the first season? The mysterious and polarising God-like figure to the Ultramen that we barely knew anything about him? Well, don't except much of him in this season. He only appears twice, the first time only for a a few seconds alongside Hokuto, and the second time in the final episode where he, at the most desperate time, decides to show up and help Shinjiro and his father fight the main bad guy. Also, apparently he can ressurrect Ultramen from Ultra-limbo or something.
Enjoyment: 6/10
I would be lying if I said I didn't like this season at all, because, still, I did find some enjoyment as much as it lacked compared to the first season. I wasn't exactly sitting at the edge of my seat thinking about what would happen next in a very exciting way. From from what it is, it is average and fair. The one thing that kept me going was knowing more about Taro and the action scenes. Everything else was just a big "MEH".
Overall: 6/10
If you ask me, I would recommend this anime only to those who enjoyed the first season of ULTRAMAN and to Ultraman fans in general - especially fans of the Showa era. They did justice to the remade version of Taro and fans of the original 60'/70's shows will definately enjoy his moments. But to everyone else, I do not recommend it. There are better action-packed animes out there that deserve more attention than this second season of ULTRAMAN. To those people, I recommend watching the first season, you may enjoy it. Then you can give this one a chance if you want, but trust me you won't miss much if you don't. Overall, 6 out 10 is a fair score by me.
