...of Monsters and Metaphors.

Ultraman is one of those series that define my childhood, how many hours have been wasted just playing as Ultraman and mimicking his transformation moves, final attack and fighting moves. Really, it is one of those series that every children will remember fondly when they've grown up.

But this post is not about the nostalgia or the memories of growing up with ultraman.

But rather, what do you see when you watch the series?

Have any of you watch and episode of Ultraman (any version) and thought to yourself, hmm, this series seems like a metaphors for human and it short time here on earth? No? Okay, maybe just me. Let me try to explain.

'Try' is the keyword here, ok? :)



See, Ultraman is us. He is us before and after transformation . His 3 minutes limit on earth is of course is a reference to us, Humans, and our short life span on earth before we die and gone to the afterlife.

Those Monsters that he fight? That is our own monsters or rather, our problems and challenges that we have to face daily. Our aspirations that we can't seem to grab, our wish and wants that just not ours to get. Those are the monsters.

Meanwhile Tokyo (or whatever city that is he fight at) represent our daily lifelihood. Our life here on earth, where we communicate with other humans and places.

See, when he fight those monster is he really fighting them for himself or rather for the little humans? And what happens to the city during those fights?

The city crumbles.

It crumbles like cookies and biscuits in the hands of children. Just like our lives if we spent so many time just fighting and dwelling with our inadequacies rather than accept our inability and thriving to surpassed our limit. Some human have proven this, have you ever see a paralympic athlete that have lost both their legs but still manage to conquer the track, or a blind man who manage to be more efficient in the dark?

Ultraman rarely communicates with the humans. Sometimes, he manage to kills off those monsters without any support from those humans, sometimes he gets help from them whether he asked for it or not and then only he manage to get rid of the monsters. On rare occasion he needs help from his fellow Ultras from high up in the sky when the going really gets tough.

This is just metaphors for the needs of communication in our daily lives. Someday we can just keeps to ourselves without other people's interruption, and someday we can't, and someday, sometimes, when we really feeling down and nothing seems to be right, we asked for help from a higher place (God).

See where i'm going here? Those creator of the Ultraman series maybe on to something here.

Or not, and maybe I just read to much into it.