Talk:Ultraman Orb (character)/@comment-104.187.206.146-20160822235457/@comment-24869166-20160824223506

Mebius was the last traditional Ultra Series before Tsuburaya was forced to adapt to the times and keep up with Toei, whose franchises' were steadily eclipsing Ultraman in popularity. The gap between Mebius and Ginga was basically Tsuburaya figuring out their next tactic while Zero and Retsuden kept fans happy, and eventually the Spark Dolls were created to compete with the merchandise-driven Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

Also, keep in mind that Ultraman's target demographic is still children, and that us adults are only the periphery demographic. Tsuburaya is actually being quite smart with Ginga-Orb, as they're short and simple enough to hook children while still containing all the old throwbacks that made Mebius beloved. The 20-episode format works wonders for Tsuburaya, because the series all start in the middle of summer vacation and end during the holidays, which is when people go crazy for movies. I went to a showing of the X movie and the theatre was packed, while the second Cosmos movie a decade ago had comparatively little people.

In short, Tsuburaya's going to be sticking to the 20-episode format for a while longer. A 39 episode series would be nice, but Tsuburaya would be waddling right into Kamen Rider territory again with that move. The gimmicks themselves like Spark Dolls and Ultraman Cards aren't going away anytime soon unless other tokusatsu franchises abandon them for something new.