“Ultraman Rising” is an often fun animated story involving a reluctant superhero who defends Japan from various kaiju. Well-drawn, the film slows down at times due to the hero’s personal and family problems. But the action sequences and the cuteness of a baby kaiju more than make up for the emotional lows.

The film has a prologue where a father, Professor Sato is enjoying playtime with his very young son Kenji and his wife Emiko. A floating drone AI named Mina also is present. An alarm goes off and the Professor transforms into Ultraman, who is a costumed giant. He is off to fight a kaiju. But part of the process which he conveys to his son is the need to find balance between humans and kaiju.

Flash forward twenty years and the boy is now going by Ken Sato. He is a star baseball player who has left the Dodgers to play for the Giants in Japan. Reporters grill Ken, who is an expert at evading direct questions, about why he left such a well-paying gig in the States.

The reality is that his estranged father now needs him to be Ultraman. We discover that Ken’s mother supported him throughout his youth baseball career. But she has left to go traveling to different locations and neither man knows where she is.

Ken is very egotistical. He did not win a championship with the Dodgers although he was a statistical leader in many categories. His Giants’ coach does not like him. When Ken plays on the field, he is not a team player.

At first things go well for him personally. But when he becomes Ultraman, the Japanese public can see that he does not have his heart in the battle against kaiju.

Complicating matters is the KDF, the Kaiju Defense Force, led by Dr. Onda. The KDF feel that they do not need Ultraman at all.

Onda lost his wife and daughter to a kaiju. His mission is to eradicate the creatures by any means necessary. His long-sought goal is to find Kaiju Island and destroy it.

One day a particular flying sea-serpent-like kaiju comes to town. It attacks the Tokyo Dome where a baseball game is playing. Sato becomes Ultraman and ends up fighting the KDF as much as the kaiju. When the kaiju and Ultraman take a tumble, an egg is present. When it hatches, a cute-looking baby kaiju appears. It looks very much like a be-finned Teletubby.

Ken takes it home. It turns out to be a handful like any human baby would be. Ken and Mina struggle to find ways to feed the infant, clean up its poop, and entertain it when it cries. The infant has imprinted on Ultraman as its mother and eventually also imprints on Ken when it realizes that Ken and Ultraman are the same.

Because Ken is not used to reaching out for help, everything in his life suffers from work-life imbalance. His baseball batting average tanks. He is chronically exhausted.

When his father tries to reach out to him, Ken resists him. He feels that his father’s decision to stay in Japan to be Ultraman and watch out for the kaiju was selfish and unloving.

Industrial Light and Magic are the animators. Their depictions of physical infrastructure are superb. I also liked their designs for the various kaiju. The baby kaiju is super cute but perhaps that reflects a cultural bias due to its resemblance to a Teletubby.

Ken’s physique is portrayed as being very angular. I assumed that this is supposed to make him appear ripped. But I felt that it made him look skeletal, which was distracting.

The use of the drone Mina was an inspired idea. She becomes a character in her own right. Her failure as a babysitter at one point is very amusing. There is one particularly poignant scene with her.

Ken’s personal and family problems are dealt with at too much length. The scenes with his father in particular drag. Likewise, Ken’s inability to cope because he does not want to ask for help is shown over and over. The fact that he is not a particularly likeable character only adds to the problem. When these scenes were showing, the children at my screening were clearly bored and began to chatter among themselves.

I did like the way that the film tried not to make Onda a complete villain. He has a reason for not liking the kaiju. He seems more misguided than evil. I also approved of the consistency of his character’s actions.

Another positive is the idea that it is necessary to find a balance between kaiju and humans. The traditional view in many films is that kaiju are destructive and harmful. So this picture’s take on this subject was like a breath of fresh air.

The inclusion of baseball is a nice touch. It does end up being more of a backdrop to raising the baby kaiju and protecting the other kaiju. But the connection between its popularity in both Japan and the States gives a common focal point for both nations’ audiences.

The final resolution is perfect. There is a mid-credits scene which didn’t make much sense to me.
I cannot recommend this movie for children under the age of 5 as it has too many digressions that are more appropriate for older views. I think that tweens and teens will enjoy it.

I saw the version with English-language voices. This is a movie with a good moral and entertaining action scenes.

Four out of five stars

With Tokyo under siege from rising monster attacks, baseball star Ken Sato reluctantly returns home to take on the mantle of Ultraman. But the titanic superhero meets his match when he is forced to adopt a 35-foot-tall, fire-breathing baby kaiju. Sato must rise above his ego to balance work and parenthood while protecting the baby from forces bent on exploiting her for their own dark plans

Voice Cast: Christpher Sean, Gedde Watanabe, Tamlyn Tomita, Keone young, Julia Harriman
Directors: Shannon Tindle, John Aoshima
Writer: Shannon Tindle