Ultraman: The Ultra Academy Beware The Baleful Baltan! Book 1 Review

Front Cover For Beware The Baleful Baltan

The Ultra Academy books are a new line of books meant to target young readers. It follows the adventures of the first class of the SSSP’s new Ultra Academy located in America. They are a group of six extremely gifted young minds around the age of 12 that have become experts in the field of research, which can span from robotics, volcanics, botany and more. From the promotional materials it appears that this is planned to be a six book series. Plus they have “interviews” with Baltan, Mummy Man, Dada, and Red King so I'm assuming that those can be potential book villains. 

Rebecca K. Reynolds is the author of this first book and I hope they keep her as the writer for the remainder of the series. She has a firm grasp on the characters in this world and does a fantastic job at explaining this strange Ultra universe to people that might be new to the series while also respecting returning fans time by not going too far into detail on certain aspects of the lore. That is why I think it is wonderful, not for reinventing it for a new generation, but for perfectly introducing it to a new generation. 

As the reader we follow Jack, a twelve year old volcanologist who is rapidly excelling in this area of science. He was accepted in the Ultra academy program and will now be able to have the resources of the SSSP to continue his research and eventually grow into a scientist at the forefront of this area. Plus with a name like Jack could we potentially see a new Ultra by the end of the series?

We also get to see a little of each of the other recruits Aurora, A.I., Jane, Willa, and Eno. While we get more development of some characters then others in the group, I expect as the crew go on more adventures we will explore all of these characters' stories in detail.

Back Cover Showing The Character Designs

All of you classic SSSP members are also here including Shin Hayata himself. It really is impressive how well the classic members mix with this new crew and none of these interactions feel forced as they are now in the mentor role. 

As I am reviewing this story it is hard to tell where to critique it and where it should get a pass because it is meant to appeal to young readers and draw in new fans. Too often in this modern era older fans try to claim every aspect of the fandom and immediately disavow anything they deem unworthy. While I think this is a fantastic starting point for any new fan, especially one that is an avid reader I will offer two criticisms. 

Both come from the Baltans themselves, they are first introduced to us in a debriefing that the senior SSSP members are giving to the Ultra Academy Class before having them start their group research. In this debriefing they explain the Baltan’s ability to manipulate human emotions and that not all Baltan’s are bad, it's mostly extremists that are pulling off these dastardly plans against humanity. Well this is followed by chapter after chapter of the entire SSSP, not just the students, being manipulated by the Baltan causing infighting and sometimes violence towards each other. Our protagonist eventually catches on to what is going on but it is after they should have. As for Baltan extremists causing the majority of the issues, this topic is almost never mentioned again. Baltans are treated unilaterally the same and are even told to segregate from humanity. It is in keeping with Ultraman lore that the Baltans are an evil alien race, but then why introduce a pathway to a diplomatic solution if it is never going to seriously come into play.  This is also a very nuanced problem for a young readers series to address and honestly with current world events would need to be handled with the utmost care. It honestly was a small story beat that only added an inconsistency to the story. 

One of the main purposes of forming the Ultra Academy was to utilize the Medici Effect. The Medici Effect is when you have experts in different fields working together to solve a common problem they often come up with more innovative solutions than if they were to work separately. That is why the SSSP assembled this young class of scientists. Each of them is given a laboratory that can attach to another team member's lab so that they can work together. Then in a few days they present what they have learned and get paired off with another partner to start the process all over again. It really is a smart mechanic to tell a story and it really all comes together in the end when everyone works as a real cohesive team to defeat the Baltan. 

When it comes down to it though, this is still a great first entry into this new series and I cannot wait to read the follow up to this. In typical Ultraman fashion, he takes down the baddies while the SSSP mounts a more global solution to the main issue without coming too far into spoiler territory. It was great to see cast new and old interact and my hope for future entries is that we see this team evolve into being able to handle smaller problems without the giant of light, similar to Ultra Q.

3.5/5 is the score I give this book. It is a solid foundation to a series that has plenty of room to grow. Which is appropriate because as a series targeting young readers it can grow with its readers.