I’ve fallen behind a bit on my reviews of the Ultraman manga, from the last one I’ve reviewed. To a large part, that’s because I’ve hit a stretch of the manga that wasn’t covered in the anime, which feels kinda weird – considering how important this stretch is.

This section of the manga has some really big arcs – an alien attack on New York, along with the actual introduction of Ultraman Taro, along with a follow-up attack on Hong Kong and all the plot revalations that come with them. Now some of this – the introduction of Ultraman Ace – were adapted into the manga, but still, there’s some big stuff here. In particular, humanity’s cohabitation with aliens, is public, as is the fact that Rena may have some form of alien powers/superpowers, the Star Cluster Council is claiming that the universe is collapsing, and it’s all the fault of the people from the Land of Light – the ones responsible for creating the Ultramen (which comes across as doubly suspicious, considering that the most prominent member of the Star Cluster Council we’ve seen is Edo, and Yapool – who has made several suits of Ultra Armor, is scared as hell of him).

Consequently, this does lean into the Alien Nation aspect of the series more – while extraterrestrials are still not living openly alongside humans, this does slowly lead into more stories with the SSSP having to consider community policing rather than just cracking down on aliens who slip out into larger society, combined with more and more humans becoming more aware that there are extra-terrestrials on Earth, and the statement about the People of Light being responsible for this galactic catastrophe painting a darker light on the Star Cluster Council.

The art for the manga continues to look great, with the inclusion of each of several new Ultra Brothers looking distinct in their designs, both on their own and in any Ultra Armor they have. The fight scenes are also tremendously well done, and while there’s certainly property damage, it feels proportionate and appropriate with this being an Ultraman series.

My best guess for why this wasn’t adapted is that Sola Digital Arts wanted to move much further forward in the series – combined with potentially running into issues with the Hong Kong protests closing off certain markets if they’d proceeded with that arc. Honestly, I’d rather have gotten these stories told in animation properly. I am eventually going to watch Season 3, but for now, I’d like to get caught up with where the manga currently is in English at the moment.

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