YMMV / Ultraman Decker

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Decker's transformation device is called... the Ultra D Flasher.
  • An example from the related merchandise, the vinyl dolls of the Sphere Soldiers are released with two per set. However, with the two Sphere Soldiers hanging off a single tag coupled with their shape, some collectors have noticed their unfortunate resemblance to a part of the male anatomy, as lampshaded by this toy reviewer.
• Awesome Art: In Episode 21, while GUTS-Select is discussing an attack plan to kill both Sphere-Geomos and Spheresaurus in one go, the two Sphere kaiju and the Nursedessei's Battle Mode are represented by origami figurines with an impressive level of resemblance to the actual thing.
• Awesome Music: "Wake Up Decker!", the incredibly optimistic and energetic opening theme, hypes the viewer up for every episode. The aerobics exercise routine in the official music video is just the icing on the cake.
• Bizarro Episode: "Lord Ragon" is a rather weird episode in the series due to its Out-of-Genre Experience of being more similar to a mystery show and more surrealistic feel in the style of Ultra Q. Also not helping the matter is that neither the Spheres nor Agams appear thus making the episode feel more like filler.
• Complete Monster: Mother Sphere is the head of the Spheres and the true main antagonist of the series. Desiring to assimilate all life in the multiverse, Mother Sphere sends her Sphere forces across various worlds to absorb them into her collective, destroying any who resist with impunity. Assaulting Planet Bazdo when it aids Earth, Mother Sphere has several inhabitants killed, including Laelia, the wife of Agams, a brilliant scientist who, driven by grief over his loss, aids the Spheres in conquering modern-day Earth while undercover as a human scientist. In the present, Mother Sphere's forces assimilate kaiju against their will and painfully mutate them into Sphere Synthetic Beasts. In the final arc, Mother Sphere descends to devour the Eternity Core and become a goddess as well as to finally absorb Earth, taking the form of Mother Spheresaurus ("Strongest Sphere Monster"), killing Agams after he redeemed himself and destroying the power of Decker; during the final battle, when nearly overwhelmed, Mother Sphere attempts to personally assimilate all of the GUTS-Select members, claiming she will end all suffering via her assimilation while reiterating her selfish desire to become the Ultimate Lifeform.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Spheresaurus has already become rather popular for its intimidating Non-Standard Character Design with its massive forelimbs, which many fans felt made him look like a Final Boss kaiju despite being the Starter Villain. Fans are clamoring for it to make another appearance in the series and they got their wish in episode 14 to the delight of many.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Given how less messy a cameo appearance by Takeshi Tsuruno (who portrayed Ultraman Dyna) is compared to Hiroshi Nagano (who portrayed Daigo Madoka/Ultraman Tiga but couldn't appear in Trigger due to strict agency issues) many fans believe Dyna will appear in the series with his host proper onscreen at some point.
  • As Sawa Kaizaki shares her first name and actress with a member of Team U from Ultraman Saga, fans are speculating that much like Captain Hebikura, the casting is not You Look Familiar, but rather a case of Role Reprise. Helps that the previous series also had a character originating from another universe.
  • Yapool was assimilated by the Spheres in Episode 19 and lost his memories before dying to Trigger and Decker. As his Resurrective Immortality is fueled by his hatred for the Ultras, some fans have half-jokingly speculated that Yapool might be gone for good this time, since he'd have forgotten his hatred when the Spheres caused his Loss of Identity.
• Evil Is Cool: Neomegas is a fierce and deadly kaiju that homages the similarly violent Neosaurus and is beloved for it, in addition to being a visually interesting monster from a well-received episode. It gets even cooler when it returns as Sphere-Neomegas, with the Spheres giving it a potent Healing Factor and the ability to morph its hands into Spheresaurus' gigantic forelimbs or scythes, and even manages to be the first kaiju since the Sphere invasion to defeat Decker.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Decker Alpha" for future Decker. Being portrayed by Masashi Taniguchi, who portrays Jin Takayama. It also helps that when transformed into Decker, has Character Tics similar to Jin.
  • Decker Dynamic Type is nicknamed either "Ultraman Agito" and to a lesser extend "Ultraman Kuuga" due to having similar horns like the Kamen Riders. Not to mention Decker's Shield Caliber being similar to Agito's Shining Calibur and Kuuga signature pose being giving a thumbs-up just like Decker's inspiration Dyna.
• Fridge Brilliance: Gregorl-Man Grace doesn't take the form of an imitation Ultraman unlike his predecessor. However, his actions throughout Episode 9 show him as a heroic figure who grows giant to protect people from rampaging monsters, and even has a rise scene not unlike one an Ultraman might have. Essentially, he's still an imitation Ultraman, in the sense that he's imitating the Ultras' heroism rather than imitating their appearance.
• Friendly Fandoms: The premise of Decker seems to be inspired from Chousei Kantai Sazer X. Both series involves an alien invasion on a spacetime scale— the Spheres from a distant future end up invading Earth at the start of the series while the Neo Descal have succeeded conquering the universe in the year 2500, prompting the heroes to travel to 2005 to avert the Bad Future and recruit Takuto as Lio-Sazer.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • While it doesn't affect the overall fan reception much, the reuse again of Red King, Gomora and Pagos after the three kaiju had been repeatedly appearing in New Generation Series have caused some fans to grow weary of their repeated returns, even when the former two had been given Sphere forms to at least branch them out a bit from past reappearances.
  • Terraphaser was well-received upon its debut for being an Expy of King Joe STORAGE Custom, but the fact that it's fought nearly every episode after Agams performed a Villain Override on it has led some fans to get sick of seeing it, especially since it doesn't use any new gimmicks or attacks outside of its own arsenal despite the Phase Riser allowing it to copy other monsters' skills using Mons Dimension Cards.
  • One complaint lobbied against Agams (besides him being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad, or being Unintentionally Unsympathetic) is that his character is a carbon copy of the divisive Saki Mitsurugi from the writer and directors' previous series, Ultraman R/B.
• Memetic Mutation: See the franchise page.
• Mis-blamed: Masayoshi Takesue is the subject of one due to Agams' character being poorly written in the show and noted to resemble Saki Mitsurugi in Ultraman R/B, whom fans agree as a case of Replacement Scrappy. However, as detailed in the magazine Figure-Oh 300, it was Bandai who pushed the idea of Agams as the second-half antagonist to push the development of new toys, namely the Phase Riser, whereas the production team was initially intending to have Terraphaser being an AI-piloted mecha. The fact that this development came around before the recording of the first episode means Takesue and Nemoto had little time to fully integrate Agams into the show as a proper antaonist. Not helping matters is that the idea of turning Asakage into Agams was intended by Takesue to avoid the mistakes in writing Makoto Aizen and Saki's characters in R/B as half-developed characters, only to re-loop into that again.
• Nausea Fuel: While the Spheres have been possessing monsters and objects ever since the days of Dyna, in this series they are also shown assimilating humans, as shown with Agams, a Human Alien, and Kanata in the finale, letting the viewers have a good look at the Spheres' trypophobia-inducing body tissue bursting out of human skin.
• Salvaged Story:
  • Kengo's catchphrase ("Smile, Smile") was deemed as annoying and corny, the closest thing Kanata has to a catchphrase is used all of twice across seven episodes.
  • After the use of unmanned drones for the GUTS-Select arsenal was criticized for being seen as a lesser replacement to human pilots in attack vehicles like past series, the first episode has the heroes forced to do away with this tactic as Spheresaurus employs an EMP to disable electronics, rendering the Nursedessei and GUTS Falcon inert.
  • R'lyeh's lack of plot relevance in Trigger was also criticized as the potential for it being a send-up of Gijera was never explored in the series nor the effect of Kengo realizing his beloved plant could be used as a tool of evil is explored. Episode 8 runs with that plot and has it as one of the major threats.
  • Carmeara's redemption in episode 8 and working alongside Trigger and Decker to destroy Sphere Megalothor, and then bringing up Darrgon's and Hudram's spirits in hopes of resurrecting them all eased fans' opinions on her status as someone who'd come as Unintentionally Unsympathetic in Trigger due to the gravity of her cruelest actions making her hard to truly feel bad for during her demise and last-minute epiphany.
  • Another complaint about Ultraman Trigger was the lack of returning monsters from Ultraman Tiga (the only two monsters to outright return were Gazort and Kyrieloid) with the majority of the monsters being either Palette Swaps regarded as lazy or Showa Kaiju, despite being advertised as a tribute to that series. The use of the Sphere, however, ensures that even the monsters that don't originate from Ultraman Dyna still connect to it. And later episodes have added more variety (including send-offs of Gijera and Neosaurus) to the relief and positive reception of fans.
  • Glitter Trigger Eternity suffered from Badass Decay, going from crushing the Giants of Darkness and Trigger Dark with a few blasts while barely being able to control his power to struggling against the Giants of Darkness and various monsters of the week. Decker Dynamic Type avoids this, kicking ass whenever it's used and only struggling against truly powerful opponents or when under a handicap, like the injury Kanata sustained when trying to catch Spinnie. In addition, Decker is fully capable of holding his own in his other forms and doesn't even use Dynamic in some episodes, further preserving Dynamic's reputation as a powerful Super Mode by only breaking it out for finishing the job or against major opponents.
• Signature Scene: Decker carrying Sawa Kaizaki when rising as Neomegas carries Maki Shigenaga when awaking. With both groups staring at each other before the battle begins.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Episode 18 ended with Yapool teleporting Kanata into space, allowing Agams to rampage on Earth without Kanata to oppose him. However, the next episode completely negates the Cliffhanger the previous episode ended on; Agams didn't appear at all during Kanata's absence, and the GUTS-Select members spend the episode questioning Hanejiro on where Kanata is.
  • The series establishes a few key elements about Decker's power coming from his human namesake, with the Dimension Cards being technologies from the future. However, the movie contradicts a lot of elements from the series such as Dinas being Decker's pre-evolved form, the Dimension Cards can be naturally created by the Lavians without proper explanation and the fact that Decker being resurrected from Kanata, despite the real Decker is his descendant's own set of powers, which implied to return to its owner at the final episode. Certain fans even believed that if the movie were to persist with Dinas being instrumental to bring Decker back, then it should have been in Dynamic Type, since said form is original to Kanata and not his descendant.
• Unexpected Character:
  • While Yapool's return isn't that surprising, him returning in the original "Yapool man" form unused since Ultraman Ace's first half (50 years ago) is.
  • Of all the kaiju to bring back, few expected Chandlar to make a reappearance using its original design from 56 years ago, considering how its role was solely to be Red King's punching bag in both its debut and in Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While the series clearly didn't intend viewers to agree with Agams' actions, a lot of people felt that the narrative didn't do enough to push back against his motivations of blaming humanity for Bazdo's destruction, rather than the Spheres who actually did the destroying. It doesn't help that to accomplish his goals, he allies himself with the Spheres and even uses Spheres to power Terraphaser, making him a massive Hypocrite, and despite the characters repeatedly pointing out his plan wouldn't bring the Planet Bazdo of his timeline back, he refuses to listen to reason and continues his pointless revenge.