Manga Corner: Ultraman Darkness Heels -Lili-

 An Ultraman team like no other, released as part of the DARKNESS HEELS project by Tsuburaya Productions. Join Ethan as they take a look at this manga! 

The Beginning

The people of Planet Hus have been divided into Upper and Lower classes but, with the advent of the weapons called Battlenizers, the conflict on this planet has only worsened. When an upper class girl named Lili confronts the lower class as a member of the Riot Control Unit, she hurries to rescue a young girl from a monster summoned from a Battlenizer. A mysterious man in black appears in front of her and the monster. After being released into her custody and returning to their city, a women arrives to collect the passed out mysterious man.

When the city is attacked by a kaiju that’s at full size, Lili transforms using her V-Race, a device that lets her change her size to battle but runs out of time on her own transformation. Witnessing this and being interested in the light they could see within Lili, the women who collected the man reveals her name is Camearra and reveals to Lili that the mystery man named Ultraman Belial. Both of them died but appear to have been revived on this planet weakened compared to there normal self and are only able to resume their original forms in particular situations, such as Belial only being able to return to his original form when his emotions run wild but only for three minutes. This is just enough time for him to kill the Kaiju before passing out.     

This is only a recap of chapter one and, while i’m about to talk spoilers in the upcoming sections, I recommend this and think more people should check it out so, on account of it being ten chapters long, I’m cutting the recap here. To find out more about why these dark Ultras were cloned/revived, what Lili’s deal is and more, you are going to need to look for this series yourself!

The Good

Everything? I really want to say everything. I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Lili, the main character, is fun and interesting, I also really enjoyed her dynamic with Camearra and Belial, which as it’s really the heart of the story is very important. The author and artist for the series Shiro Tsunashima (@k2batto on X) really likes Lili too, drawing art of her, posting pictures of her interacting with other Ultras and the such. Here’s a picture they drew of her from January:

Their art is great throughout. 

As I think more about this series and what, specifically, I enjoyed, I realise the biggest thing I like about this is the possibilities of where they could go from here. A few years later, we see Lili reunite with Belial. She reins in his worse impulses as they and the rest of the Darkness Heels protect some area of space overlooked by the Land of Light, like how Dr. Doom, while a dictator in most portrayals, does a lot of good for the people of Latveria. Between this and raising questions of what is light and dark and what even is evil in a franchise that’s normally very cut and dry with it,  there’s a lot more this series could do. 

The Bad

This leads me neatly to one of my bad points. They really do not seem interested in going anywhere near doing anything more with this series which is a shame. On a more serious note Juggler and Zagi really feel like they had a much more rushed entrance compared to everyone else, which leads to this more feeling like Lili, Camearra and Belial’s story with a “Evil Tiga, Juggler and Dark Zagi are here too” side characters deal, rather than it being a team up.  

Conclusion

Tsuburaya Productions, I know you’re reading this… please make this canon to the main continuity or continue this series. Time skip a few years, have Lili meet Belial again. Please. I need to see Geed meet Lili. Riku freaking out because his dad’s dating and Lili freaking out because she might become a stepmother (depending on how her relationship status with Belial has progressed from the kiss the series ends on) would be way too funny. I know you have timeline displaced Belial running around but have you considered you could have both early style still an antagonist and as I outline in the following tweet:

Both could run around at the same time, you have more then one version of Belial running around, its fine, the suits are very different. My DMs are always open to talk if you want more amazing ideas like this. 

My pitching aside, this was a fun series that, while relatively simple, was executed well. Really says a lot when my biggest complaint is this hasn’t a series that’s gotten an official translation yet and that it’s over. Still, I think the series succeeded in what It was trying to do and raised, at least in my mind, a lot of interesting questions. 

But what did you think? Did you enjoy this series? Did this also lead you to releasing the only two actually evil Ultras that have that title are Belial and Tregear? What’s your pitch for stories with this team of dark Ultras? As always, I’ve been Ethan: writer, reviewer and Ultra walking the line between light and dark for The Toku Source and I’ll see you next time!