Almost two years ago, Ultraman Connection published a special editorial piece on a very special figure in the history of the Ultraman Series — the Alternate Dimension Man, Yapool. It’s a personal favorite work of ours, and all this time later, it still feels resonant with the character. After all, this coming week on Ultraman New Generation Stars, Yapool is being featured again, as the longest running recurring threat in the series. It’s been 52 years since the otherdimensional horror first appeared, and still, as we said in the last article — The War Never Ends.
In the New Generation Series, Yapool feels in many ways at home — it is an era where villains recur, and stories are more serialized. Threats like Ultraman Belial, Ultraman Tregear, and the Absolutians continue to return and advance their plans… and yet, is that really true? Belial has been slain by Ultraman Geed, and Tregear by Ultraman Taiga, and though their “parallel isotope” alternate versions are running around, they are still very different in conduct and power. Meanwhile, the Absolutians have had their Kingdom damaged by a coalition of Ultras, and have seemingly retreated into the shadows for the moment.
And that means, despite being defeated multiple times in the last several years, Yapool is the one that remains.
What does that say about Yapool? What is it about him that lets him persist when ostensibly greater threats like Belial and the Absolutians, when even Alien Empera, the dark Emperor who Yapool himself served at one point and the other oldest known threat in the Ultraman Series, has passed?
It’s simple, frankly. These other threats are people, with understandable, if monstrous goals.
Yapool is the Devil.
Yapool is ontologically evil — in all cases, regardless of the furtherance of whatever goals in the moment he has, Yapool will always choose the action that causes the most harm to the most people. Even in situations where one party could benefit from Yapool’s hellish behavior, Yapool will find a way to ruin them as well. There is no true loyalty, no ethics, nothing that makes Yapool understandable in his aims — just the desire to cause more and more suffering.
It’s notable that his most recent major appearance — in Ultraman Decker, where he appeared in several episodes as an antagonist — Decker wasn’t actually related to any of the many, many heroes who Yapool had a vendetta against. There had been nothing Kanata Asumi, or even his predecessor Kengo Manaka, AKA Ultraman Trigger, had done with the Land of Light beyond a single meeting with a universe-wandering Ultraman Ribut.
Yapool simply noted that Agams, the alien who had orchestrated much of the suffering caused in Decker, also was lost in his hatred, and decided to sink him further into his own personal darkness by enabling his worst impulses. Granting him a Terrible-Monster, Aribunta, and trying to personally end Kanata’s life on the Moon, the only thing Yapool could have ever gained from all this was his own sick pleasures. And yet, that was more than enough.
Yapool met his end — of a sort — there on the Moon, when the Sphere drained his memories and left him an empty husk unable to even identify himself before Ultraman Decker and Trigger destroyed him. And yet, Yapool will certainly return before too long. You could strip away everything from Yapool — his endless legions of unfeeling Terrible-Monsters, his gestalt nature, the alternate dimension that seems to be an extension of his hellish nature — none of it would matter. Yapool would still appear, still make the world a worse place, and still hate endlessly.
You’ll get to take a peek at some of Yapool’s latest monstrous acts this Friday, when Ultraman New Generation Stars Episode 11, “Challenge from the Extradimensional Being” airs on the Ultraman Official YouTube Channel. Until then, stay close to Ultraman Connection!
