Tsubaraya Productions’ upcoming film, Ultraman Uprising is airing on Netflix on July 14th during Father’s Day weekend. A young man named Ken Sato picks up the responsibility to become the next Ultraman. After rescuing a kaiju egg, he adopts the newborn to raise it as his own.
Director Shannon Tindle based this masked hero’s film on his own experience as a parent. However, the film’s development was not easily accepted as it took 17 years to find a studio that would bring his concept to life.
Shannon Tindle’s Ultraman
Shannon Tindle began his animation career as a character designer for Kids WB’s Static Shock in the year 2000. A year later, when he moved to Cartoon Network, he was developing a film idea called Made in Japan that was inspired by Ultraman combined with his parental experience. The story was about a superhero named Gamma Man raising a baby monster.
He pitched the idea to Cartoon Network but was quickly denied. Then in 2015, Shannon Tindle showed Sony Pictures Made In Japan’s concept. They loved the idea, putting the project into development then dropped it in 2018.
All hope was almost lost until Shannon Tindle made a final attempt with Netflix. After hearing the inspiration behind it, the producers suggested to use Ultraman. Encouraged, Tindle showed the idea to Ultraman’s studio, Tsubaraya Productions.
They happily allowed him to use the IP and supported the Made In Japan project into 2019. Soon, Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s John Aoshima was announced into joining Tindle during the Tsubaraya Convention 2021 Special Program when the film was under the name Netflix Ultraman. The film would not get the Rising name until 2023.
Ken Sato: Grow Up, Ultraman
Ultraman Rising has such a clever name thanks to the film’s concept of a hero raising a kaiju. The other reason for “Rising” is the film’s protagonist, Ken Sato. He is a famous baseball player who returns to Tokyo to take his father’s place in becoming the next Ultraman.
Compared to his father, Ken states in the Ultraman trailer, “I’m not great at fighting monsters.” ‘Til one evening, he attempts to protect the winged kaiju, Gigatron from the KDF (Kaiju Defense Force) who tried to fly away with an egg. Ken saves the egg from sinking into the ocean, hatching in his hands is an adorable sea bird kaiju he later named Emi.
Ken would later learn the hardships of becoming a single parent and the struggles to become a hero while raising a monster as his own. With the assistance of his father, Professor Sato, Ken develops how to balance his life with Emi. However, danger awaits this giant family.
Familiar Design in New Concept
When I first saw this trailer, I wondered why the human designs look familiar. It turns out Shannon Tindle is part of Laika’s animation department in character design for Kubo and The Two Strings. The film also shared a family aspect of Kubo traveling with Monkey and Beetle.
Shannon Tindle has always been heavily influenced by Japanese media which led him to design for Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack. The Japanese-inspired designs translate very well in the fluent stretchy 3D animation of Ultraman Rising. Combined with John Aoshima’s writing, Ultraman Rising shows so much promise for Western and Japanese sentai fans for an emotional journey.
I can’t wait to see the full film when Ultraman Rising releases this weekend. If you want to catch the famous sentai hero and his kaiju child, Ultraman Rising will be airing on July 14th exclusively on Netflix.
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