In Netflix’s upcoming animated film Ultraman: Rising, Ken Sato (Christopher Sean) is a Japanese-born American baseball superstar who recently left his prestigious Los Angeles baseball team to return to Japan to play for their league. In reality, Ken returns to take the mantle of the superhero Ultraman, given to him by his estranged elderly father, who is forced to retire.
While Ken may have made several sacrifices to become the hero of Tokyo, he remains cocky and egotistical in his baseball abilities and attitude towards life, leaving him pretty lonely. It isn’t until he finds himself a pseudo-father figure to a baby kaiju that he saves while on a mission. At this moment, he learns the true meaning of sacrifice, parenthood, and being a hero.
It’s hard not to compare Ken with another major Japanese baseball superstar who is conquering the hearts of baseball fans in Los Angeles: Dodgers’ superstar Shohei Ohtani. For director/screenwriter Shannon Tindle, he says although he sees the comparisons, he wrote the film before Ohtani’s rise to fame.
“I wrote the film in 2001 when Ohtani was probably 8 [years old],” Tindle tells The Nerds of Color. “I wanted to have a character that was confident, had swagger, and was great at what he did. The actual inspiration for him is, who I think, is one of the most beautiful people that ever walked the earth – Toshiro Mifune.”
Tindle worked closely with Character Art Director Keiko Murayama to ensure Ken had Mifune’s signature coif and handsome essence from his earlier films, such as his 1947 film Snow Trail.
Though Mifune served as the physical inspiration for Ken, the director wanted the character to have more of an attitude and swagger that many Japanese players don’t exude (due to their humble nature). So, he wrote Ken to be Japanese American, giving the character a complex background of being an outsider in Japan.
“What if we leaned on the experience of being born in Japan and moved to the United States, which is [co-director] John Aoshima’s experience as well,” Tindle explains. “It really inspired a lot of what we did from there and it’s been really incredible to see the reaction of people to it.”
Although a fan of Ohtani, Sean, who voices the superhero/baseball prodigy, connects with the storyline of being of mixed Japanese and American descent. Though, he did find some inspiration from another Dodgers player, former baseball star Hideo Nomo.
“My mom was a huge fan of Hideo Nomo, who also played on the LA Dodgers,” says Sean. “So we went to go see him pitch. I was a huge fan of him. It did play a great inspiration, but the confidence I felt came from more of my life and trying to fit in. That’s where the confidence came from for me.”
While Ohtani had nothing to do with the film’s inspiration, Tamlyn Tomita, who plays both Ken’s mother and guide in the film, found it interesting that the film is being released around the same time as the newly painted mural of the baseball player in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles.
“That’s so interesting as Dodgers fans, it’s really serendipitous that Ultraman: Rising [is coming out] in conjunction with Robert Vargas’ Shohei Ohtani mural — and it’s called ‘LA Rising,'” she said. “That’s just a serendipitous thing.”
For more of our conversation, check it out below:
Ultraman: Rising releases worldwide on June 14 on Netflix.