#oh and I love that the ULTRAMAN song has a lot of refs to baseball play and martial arts combining the two things core to ken!

[wordswhisperinthedark]

Ultraman: Rising Mild Spoilers

Something I also really liked was the baseball aspect of the movie. Like it was so fun to see it interspersed with all the kaiju chaos! Plus, it was a really cool way to show that Ken is so out of his element in Japan now, considering baseball is extremely popular in the US & Japan, but is influenced by their respective cultures. It's a bridge connecting separate times in his life that also glaringly divides the two.

Oh also love that he's neither a pitcher (which cocky characters often are) nor a catcher, but actually a fielder?? I assume he's part of the cleanup crew but it's cool to see a fielder having that much popularity. And he's a switch hitter?! Or at least can bat both sides? (I was like: ey~~ Mochi you're here!)

(oh! And the fact that baseball is what connects his family together and a big reason he pursued a career in it at all was to get his father to notice and smile with pride at him the way he did when they watched Matsui play?? Like. ༼ಢ_ಢ༽! And maybe there was already internal struggles entering his play, maybe he was starting to lose the feeling of 'fun' baseball should have, focused only on winning just to seek his father's acknowledgement, but then he teaches Emi, and the fun comes back as it connects him with his daughter?? (ಥ﹏ಥ))