Japanese pop culture resonates everywhere, and never has that been truer than in 2024. Anime is thriving at the box office and on streaming, Godzilla has won an Oscar and video games seem poised to take the place of Marvel as the dominant driver of the next decade of media.
And yet oddly enough, Ultraman, one of the country’s most enduringly popular creations has, until now, only resonated domestically.
The character, a superhero who battles giant Godzilla-like monsters called kaiju, created back in 1966, is akin to Superman in Japan. Abroad, he’s a curiosity at best.
Perhaps that’s why it took Shannon Tindle, the director of Netflix’s new animated film Ultraman: Rising, more than 20 years to get his idea off the ground.
Tindle tells The National: “I had this idea back in 2001. I’ve been carrying it around for so long. I’ve taken it to every studio, and got a ‘no’ from so many folk.”
It’s hard to criticise Tindle, who co-wrote the Academy Award-nominated 2016 film Kubo and the Two Strings, for hanging on to this idea for so long.
Rather than following the standard superhero origin story formula one might expect, the story instead finds Ultraman well into his monster-fighting career. When one battle goes wrong, Ultraman finds himself in possession of a giant kaiju egg. The monster then hatches, thinking Ultraman is its parent, turning him into the adopted father of a giant monster of his own.
For Tindle, sitting on the story for decades ended up having its advantages.
“When I came up with it originally, it was very much from the perspective of a son,” he says. “I have a good relationship with my dad, but there are times when we had our struggles. But then when I had my daughter in 2011, the parenting perspective took over.”
“And at first, I was lost. I was like, ‘what do I do? ‘ I made the choice to have a kid, but I have no idea what to do with her. It took me a long time to overcome my pride and call my parents and tell them that. And they just said, ‘yeah, that’s kind of what the job is. But we’re going to help you – we’re going to be here.’”
That dynamic ended up becoming the heart of Ultraman Rising’s approach. In it, Ultraman is an arrogant playboy who no longer speaks to his father. But as he grapples with parenthood and reconciles with his estranged parent, he becomes a better person.
“That was one of the biggest arguments I had on this film, because I wanted this film to be more mature,” Tindle continues. “I hate that in family films, a lot of times, the main character is very generic. I wanted to have a guy that very clearly has problems and learns to overcome them. Those are the types of people that are interesting to me.”
But Ultraman: Rising is more than just a reflection of Tindle’s own growth as a person – it’s a love letter to Japanese culture overall. And for its Japanese-American cast, it was a chance to connect with their heritage like they never have before.
Gedde Watanabe, who plays Ultraman’s father, says: “I grew up in Utah, without any real Asian role models. At home, though we ate Japanese food, the culture wasn’t discussed that much. And as I get older, the need to connect with that is expanding, which is what made this film so exciting for me. With this movie I feel like an ambassador of that culture, too.”
Christopher Sean, who plays Ultraman, tapped into his experience in the diaspora to understand the plight of the character.
“I’ve always felt alienated being half-Japanese,” says Sean. “My mum is a Japanese immigrant. It made me feel like I can’t quite fit in. And Ultraman feels alienated in both cultures as well.”
“I’m learning to be a father too, having become the stepfather to three amazing kids. There was a lot of responsibility resting on my shoulders here, but there was so much from my life I was able to draw from.”
But while the film’s Japanese aspects were lovingly rendered, the film’s core concept is a universal one, explains Tamlyn Tanaka, who plays Ultraman’s mother.
“It’s classically Japanese, told with an American perspective, but it’s universally felt,” says Tanaka. “It’s about a man’s duty to his family. It’s a personal story – and the more personal, the more universal.”
Ultimately, as helpful as the film’s cultural consultants and diverse cast and crew were to make the film authentic, the most important aspect of all for Tindle, and the reason the film took decades to get right, was he had to come to terms with the truth of his own experience in life, and realise how many have gone through it with him.
“I grew up when men of a certain generation won’t say ‘I love you’. Instead, they do things for you so that you know they love you,” he says. “The same thing happens in Japanese culture, Chinese culture, Latin culture. People want to focus on the differences, but we tried to find commonalities.”
Perhaps it's that universality that will finally make Ultraman resonate beyond the borders of his home country.
Ultraman: Rising is now streaming on Netflix globally
