Ultraman Nexus

''The Light is a bond. It will shine again.'' DramaticHalfHour ActionSeries

Ultraman Nexus the 20th entry in Tsuburaya Productions' Ultra Franchise and aired from October 2, 2004 to June 25, 2005 with a total of 37 screen episodes. An extra unscreened episode was included in the DVD compilation.

Set in 2009, Ultraman Nexus is set in an Earth not unlike our own. While Humanity blissfully goes about it's daily life, a secret war is being fought in the shadows between the Terrestrial Liberation Trust and monstrous invaders, dubbed Space Beasts. The main branches of T.L.T. are Night Raiders, military response teams who are tasked with eliminating Space Beasts, Memory Police, who mindwipes witnesses and survivors using devices called Memory Erasers as part of coverup efforts and White Sweepers, an armed hazmat team tasked with the destruction of evidence and recovery of research subjects.

The series focuses on the life of Kazuki Komon, a recent inductee into one of T.L.T.'s elite Night Raider combat squads and his struggle to cope with his new life. Faced with a world where nothing is truly what it seems, he becomes embroiled within a shadowy conspiracy involving a mysterious silver giant, giant monsters manipulated by an unknown hand, Dark Ultramen and the hidden agendas within T.L.T. itself. As the series focuses primarily on the lives of one of T.L.T.'s Night Raider combat teams, Ultraman Nexus abandons the Monster of the Week concept and focuses on longer character driven arcs. Relatively unique in it's concept of the passing of the ability to transform into Ultraman between Dunamists (Humans who can become Ultraman) as well as the use of a Meta Field to draw monsters into pocket dimenstions to prevent further destruction.

It is considered a much Darker and Edgier series than its predecessors.

These shows provide examples of:

 * Alien Invasion
 * Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever
 * Arch Nemesis: The Dark Ultramen -.
 * Artificial Human: Yu Kirasawa, The Illustrator,.
 * Backstory: Ultraman: The Next
 * Badass Crew: Night Raider is presented as a team of highly trained and very competent monster eliminators. As the show progresses however, they begin to lose some steam and their equipment begins to appear ineffective, increasingly having to be bailed out by Ultraman.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: Hurting his girlfriend Nonomiya Mizuo sends the normally happy-go-lucky Ren Senjyu into Unstoppable Rage.
 * Big Bad: The Unknown Hand,
 * Big Badass Wolf: Galberos. Sortof. He has three heads and is from space.
 * Big Creepy Crawlies: Bugbuzun, Bugbuzun Golar, Banpira, and Grantella.
 * Blessed With Suck: Dunamist Jun Himeya considers his role as Ultraman to be this.
 * Being Good Sucks: You perpetually risk your life, get pounded by monsters, hunted as an experimental subject and are generally subject of apathy to most of the world. Yeah - Being Ultraman is AWESOME.
 * Blob Monster: Pedoleon
 * Blood Knight: Deputy Commander Nagi Saijyo considers it her personal mission in life to kill all beasts.
 * Body Horror: Nosferu has a tendency to turn victims into rat-like spawn.
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Busmans Holiday: Any time a team member takes time off to visit a friend or loved on, it doesn't end well.
 * Cast From Hit Points:
 * Combat Tentacles
 * Cool Gun: The Divait Launcher, Night Raider standard heavy weapon and the Blast Shot, a gun possessed by Dunamists.
 * Cool Starship: "Set Into Strike Chester!"
 * Crapsack World: Your happy existence may be rudely interrupted at anytime by Kaiju knocking over your house and eating you. If you are aware of this fact, you are either mindwiped or inducted into the combat unit which goes toe to toe with them.
 * Critical Annoyance: The Color Timer, a standard series trope.
 * Darker and Edgier: A lot compared to other Ultra Series.
 * Dead All Along:
 * Death Seeker:
 * Deconstruction: Of many Ultraman tropes. This series try to be realistic in it's portrayal of Ultraman and Space Beast appearing in the world. Such as:
 * The Ultraman are not fully trusted by humans and the human host of the Ultraman are not exactly stable human being. Himeya is a photographer who felt guilty because he couldn't protect a kid he cared about and try to redeem himself by becoming Ultraman. Ren is a death seeker who wants to go out meaningfully because he only has a short life. Nagi is powered by her desire to avenge her parents' death. Being an Ultraman also caused physical issue for them as it is very tiring and unlike previous series, the wound they received in battle does not heal easily and can cause problem in their next battle.
 * Unlike the previous series, the monsters are actually genuine threat not only because they cause destruction but also the psychological effect they cause to those who saw them. The destruction caused by the monster is treated as a real issue which is why Ultraman Nexus bring them to meta field to avoid destroying places and injuring citizens. Their existence are also kept secret as to not cause mass panic, which is why the Memory Police is created to erase the memory of ordinary citizen who saw the Space Beast, as it is shown that many citizen cannot handle seeing the monsters and cause psychological breakdown for them.
 * Demonic Possession: With villain names like, fairly obvious.
 * Determinator: Most Dunamists tend towards some form of this.
 * Deuteragonist: The Dunamists is the most important character after Komon.
 * Devil in Disguise: Dark Zagi disguises himself as one of the human characters until his body is fully restored in the last episode.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Kutuura, lord of the Land of Death. Or something.
 * Energy Weapon: Most of the Night Raider aircraft use beam weapons extensively.
 * Evil Counterpart: The Dark Ultramen.
 * Evolutionary Levels: Nexus evolves with each new host, gaining a new form. Actually, he was originally Ultraman The Next from the movie of the same name before evolving into Nexus.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Night Raiders' job is to destroy monsters before the public become aware of them. The BFG on the Strike Chester combat aircraft used to atomize monsters is called the 'Vanisher'.
 * Five Man Band - The Night Raiders
 * The Hero - Kazuki Komon
 * The Lancer - Deputy Commander Nagi Saijyo
 * The Smart Guy - Analyzer Tactician Mitsuhiko Ishibori
 * The Chick - Shiori Hiraki
 * Big Brother Mentor - Commander Eisuke Wakura
 * Sixth Ranger - Dunamist Jun Himeya
 * For Science: T.L.T.'s justification for experimenting on any Dunamist they capture.
 * Frickin Laser Beams
 * Gambit Pileup: As an organization, T.L.T. appears to have wheels within wheels within wheels.
 * Game Breaking Injury: Many times Ultraman jumps into the fray plagued by lingering injuries from previous fights. These battles rarely end well.
 * Genki Girl: Night Raider crew member Shiori Hiraki.
 * Henshin Hero: Partially subverted in that the Dunamists have no special powers in Human form but have access to a cool energy pistol.
 * Hour of Power: A series hallmark. Subverted in that the Human body was never designed for the level of abuse dished out during fights and the animating Dunamist often collapses long before Ultraman's timer starts blinking.
 * Invisibility Cloak: The Night Raider vehicles are all fitted with this to keep the Muggles from becoming aware of the secret war.
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
 * Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: T.L.T.'s willingness to happily experiment on any Dunamist they can get their hands on seems to be shades of this.
 * Kaiju
 * Kaiju Defense Force
 * Killed Off for Real:
 * Kill It With Fire: When confronted with the difficulty of hitting Space Beast Bugbuzun's fast moving tentacles, Nagi Saijyo decides that napalm shots are her best option.
 * Laser Guided Amnesia: T.L.T.'s Memory Police unit systematically hunts down anyone exposed to alien exposure and mindwipes them.
 * Macross Missile Massacre: If an Energy Weapon doesn't do the job, Night Raider will usually resort to this.
 * Master of Delusion: Subverted. Before too long, most of the Night Raiders become aware of Ultraman's identity.
 * Megaton Punch:
 * Military Mashup Machine: The rather outlandish looking Alpha, Beta and Gamma Chester combat machines are designed to merge into a single heavily armed combat gunship or a ground based assault vehicle.
 * Mix and Match Critter: The final Space Beast, Ezmael, is a fusion of most of the previous ones.
 * Mole in Charge:
 * Monster of the Week: Subverted. Ultraman often is forced to deal with entire infestations of similar monsters over entire plot arcs.
 * More Teeth Than the Osmond Family: Goregolem has FAR more teeth than even a carnivore should have.
 * Muggles: Most of the world is this, with a tendency to become Victim of the Week, thanks to the effort of the Memory Police.
 * Nice Guy: Ren Senjyu appears to be a truly nice person.
 * Oh Crap: Despite having only one set expression, the Ultras in this series are quite good at pulling this off.
 * Opposites Attract: Ren Senjyu and Nonomiya Mizuo.
 * People Puppets:
 * Phantom Zone: Ultraman uses his Meta Field to contain monsters whenever possible, preventing them from endangering civilians.
 * Also, Goregolem can walk through one of these, allowing him to cross distances unmolested.
 * Redemption Equals Death:
 * Refuge in Audacity: T.L.T.'s solution to media reports on strange sighting is to flood the channels with similar over the top reports.
 * Screwed By the Network: They broadcast this as Saturday morning kids television. I wonder how many children were horribly scarred by this.
 * Supporting Protagonist: The series focuses on the life of Komon, despite the fact that he does not transform into the eponymous hero, making him this trope.
 * Tank Goodness: "Set Into Cannon Chester!"
 * The Chessmaster:
 * To Serve Man: Almost ALL of the space beasts think humans are delicious.
 * Transformation Is a Free Action: Painfully subverted in that the dangerously Genre Savvy monsters will often take pot shots at the Chester combat vehicles as they adopt close formation during their merger sequence.
 * Transformation Trinket: The Dunamists' Evoltruster, and Dark Mephisto's Dark Evolver.
 * Undercover As Lovers: Nonomiya Mizuo of the Memory Police is ordered to do this to keep tabs on Ren Senjyu. She ends up actually falling for him.
 * Unfriendly Fire: Nagi Saijyo resorts to this during her first encounter with Ultraman.
 * War Is Hell: As a photographer, Jun Himeya goes to see the war zone for himself. He returns a self-loathing wreck.
 * We Are As Mayflies:
 * We Have Forgotten the Phlebotinum:
 * Well Intentioned Extremist:
 * What Could Have Been: Before being Screwed By the Network, the producers had actually planned another 12 episodes centered on Nagi Saijyo. Artbooks also reveal the designs for Dark Lucifer, yet another Dark Ultraman who would serve as the agent of Unknown Hand during this period.
 * Xanatos Roulette:
 * Xanatos Roulette: