S_Craig_Zahler

The first dozen episodes of Ultraman Leo are quite special.

These have great Showa era kitchen sink monster designs with tons of textures and spew real fire or vapor or soap. The fights end with lots of violent dismemberments---Leo often rips out fangs and fins and then stabs his enemies with these weaponized bits. Also, the drama portions of these shows are largely brutal martial arts training sequences akin to those found in Lau Kar Leung's Enter the 36th Chamber and 8 Diagram Pole Fighter.

BUT the show then progresses to more toddler-centric story lines with shrill kids shrieking and overacting and making almost all of the non-fight stuff a bit of a chore to sit through. The monsters remain cool, especially the UFO/flying saucer designs, but the battles are toned down/less violent by the last third as well.

The original Ultraman series and Ultraman X are better uses of your Ultratime.

Ultraman X is perhaps the most consistently enjoyable tokusatsu show of the 30+ I've watched in their entirety, though it lacks the engrossing larger narrative and emotional crescendos of shows like Gaim, Go-Busters, and Shinkenger and even the dramatic highs of less solid shows like Jetman, W, Kuuga, and Fourze.

The protagonist/Ultra-partner Daichi looks and acts a bit too slack-jawed and clueless throughout the show, but the rest of the cast is earnest and likable, especially the two commanding officers.

The original monster designs, classic creature reinventions (esp. Red King, Mecha Gamora, and Cyber Gamora), ultra-armor, occasional forays into slice of life drama, and 24-episode length make this show a pleasure to watch from the very first episode. The sense of scale is quite good, and the miniatures constructed for the city buildings and cars are especially good---though I wish the Xio Team vehicles were all practical objects as well (they resorted to CG for these).

Ultraman X is lots of fun, and a good entry point for anybody who wants to see what tokusatsu shows are about.