This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Engine Inspection presents Going Ultra. I'm wrapping up Ultraman Z. This is episode 24, the penultimate episode.
It was originally aired on December 12th, 2020. It's called The Game to Extinction.
The director is Kiyotaka Takuchi, and the writer is credited posthumously as Koto Fukihara.
And I like this episode a lot. We get some interesting revelations about what exactly is going on.
Celebro finally shows up, really speaks his mind, lets us know what he's doing, where he's going, what his plans are.
And basically his deal is that he goes from planet to planet like locusts, using up their resources.
Oh no no, sorry, wrong, wrong, wrong story.
He goes from planet to planet manipulating things and manipulating the sentients there so that they become so overwhelmed with fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of destruction, fear of monsters of unknown origin really.
That they will produce weapons that are too much for them to handle, that they lack the maturity to handle.
And then I guess at the end he uses that weapon, the weapon or weapon systems that they've created that are too much for them,
and he seizes them for himself and then destroys all life on that planet.
And yeah, he calls it the extinction game or something like that, which is pretty, pretty bad.
So that's kind of crazy. It all makes sense now what he's been doing and what's been going on.
And at the same time, it just makes it a little bit weirder.
And while I like the sentiment of it, I still have a little bit of an issue with what exactly that means.
And like the fact that there's this amazing monster form, Destrudos, who comes out of Ultroid Zero, I guess.
Or that Ultroid Zero transforms into after absorbing essence of a bunch of kaiju.
That's kind of weird to me. And then he does use the D4 Ray at the end through the thumbnail picture.
At the end he does fire off the D4 Ray and say something like,
oh now I'm going to use the weapon that you and your people made to destroy you.
So I guess that makes a lot of sense and I get that.
But it's just weird. To me it's a very out of left field type of thing.
I kind of like it better than world domination, this world destruction, and this serial thing.
Kind of like another bad guy from Comrade Build who I won't talk about.
But at the same time, I don't know. It kind of doesn't make sense.
He's a parasite basically, Celebro. And what do parasites do? They destroy their hosts.
So it's very much in keeping with the design of that kaiju and stuff.
But I don't know, it's interesting. I really like the actress who plays Yoko.
Her performances being unhinged here are fabulous.
The guy who plays, watch him up, he's a wizard.
The guy who plays the director here, Kirk Kiriyama I believe.
His performances are great. I love both of them hamming it up.
She seems like, he seems like a, I don't know, like a sick dude who's gross and enjoying being bad.
And she seems like an unhinged killer.
So it's like two different flavors of crazy.
And I appreciate that. And just both their performances were cool.
So that was neat. It was such a gut punch. Oops.
It was such a gut punch when Ultroid Zero started going after Red King.
And then tried to get Red King's egg.
And then Zet came in there and saved little baby Red King and stuff.
Yoko, or sorry, Yuka talking about how the planet is an organism.
And the Kaiju are like part of that organism, the super organism.
Okay, that's interesting. But this, that hadn't been shown throughout the show.
Showed? Showed. That hadn't been shown throughout the show.
So, I don't know, I kind of don't buy it. It kind of falls flat for me.
And like, Hedekura made like a, oh, is this because of global warming comment earlier?
And Yoko was like, no, it's not because of global warming.
And I don't know what that was about.
I think the planet can, well, anyway.
I think we're going to be okay.
Although I do want more people doing regenerative agriculture
and growing their own food in a smaller, more sustainable, decentralized way.
So, anyway, I don't know, that makes me crazy.
But yeah, I think there's definitely a better way we can do things.
And I'm all for stewardship of the Earth.
And anyway, but like, I don't know, like, so the show seemed to dismiss global warming
through the person of Yuka, who then is now saying, oh yeah, these kaiju are, you know,
intimately tied in with the ecosystem of the planet,
and they can't handle Ultroid Zero because of his power and the D4 ray and all that stuff.
And so, therefore, we need to take this thing offline because it's detrimental to the overall health of the planet.
So, I don't know, like, that's kind of a contradictory message.
Like, either don't mention climate change or global warming at all,
or that way you're not, like, muddling things when you come to this man-made, so to speak, weapon.
It's, you know, stolen the Opul technology instead, but regardless.
You're, like, kind of running up against the same concept that, like,
something about the progression of humanity's technology is causing deleterious effects that cannot be,
well, that can only be counteracted by abstinence or cessation of certain practices versus, like,
creating new, better technology or systems that will help make that work.
Like, if the D4 ray were the engine, if the D4 thing, like,
like, I know this Ultroid Zero doesn't seem to have any battery packs or whatever.
Is that because the D4 ray? I don't know. They don't explain that.
And I believe, yeah, they never show it, as far as I know, having any sort of cabling on it.
And that's interesting because they don't talk about the S2 engine or anything like that in it.
That's a big deal in the conference.
So I don't know what's going on. It does get the belly-oil and trowel-shoes metal thrown into it,
and that seems to maybe be the thing that powers it when the director takes it,
but I'm not 100% sure about that. So that's kind of odd.
Like, it's funny. Like, I really liked it. It was a lot of fun. It was very exciting.
I love, like, the revelation of Hebecura being, you know, a jugglerless juggler,
and how he apparently cut down a gigantic tree to stop a war.
What the...what the Ultra is that about? I don't know.
But it makes me compelled to, like, see this guy show, and this is going to be a weird comment,
but that man looks fabulous in his juggler suit with the helmet off.
Like, I don't know if they did his hair differently, or, like, if his skin was looking extra good that day, or what,
but he looked so fabulous in that, and I thought, like, man, this guy's awesome! This guy's so cool!
I want to be just like him when I grow up. Oh, never mind. I already did that.
But, like, I don't know. Like, I want to hang out with that guy.
Hebecura sometimes he looks funny or like a goofy guy, but, like, there he looked super cool.
So I don't know if it was just because he was being bad, or, like, he shifted out of his Hebecura persona
into his juggler persona, or what, but I was like, I want to be on that guy's team.
I want to be on that guy's side. I like him. Oh, wait, he's a complicated possible villain.
So he's a possible villain. You know, Hebecura apparently, or juggler, has been working towards this whole time
finding out what's going on and taking the opportunity where he can.
It wasn't that he planned on stealing an ultimate weapon from humans on Earth, and that's why he joins.
Well, maybe that was why he joins, George. Hey, humans are making these great weapons.
If I can get my hands on one of these, then I can prove to whoever he's talking about from a previous show
that, you know, we, whoever we are, what kind of class of people we are, we can do this.
I have no idea what he's talking about, but I find it very compelling.
And now that I'm thinking about it again, it does make sense that when he was trying to do the whole time,
work with storage so he can steal an ultimate weapon or a super powerful weapon for, you know, his own ends.
And when, like now, it makes sense that he had Ultraman hit the King Joe or whatever that was previously
with the Zestium Beam so that the data could be collected so that Ultroid Zero could be completed
and the D4 weapon system could be used successfully and safely by Ultroid Zero so it could be powered
so that it would become the ultimate weapon so that he could then take it, which is super interesting.
Again, super complicated, very fun. Another couple random fun things.
I love Ultroid Zero crawling up out of the fourth gate, like up the fourth gate shaft and bursting out of there.
That was super cool. And then the fact that he's rampaging all over the world to take stuff is pretty fabulous.
So I really liked that. Yeah, I got really strong Evangelion vibes. Like that was one of them.
And I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say.
This episode was, again, a lot of fun. I love the peak drama. I love the fact that Yoko is trapped in there,
that Haruki is like desperate to rescue her, but he can't. And all the drama that that's creating.
I've already mentioned G Gundam once. I'll mention it again.
I get a little bit of a G Gundam vibe too with the girl being trapped inside of this great monster.
Now our hero's got to defeat in order to save her, which I know is basically the princess in the castle
held by the dragon or the Black Knight or whatever. But it also happens in an interesting way.
And it feels slightly like that here as well, which I think is good and fun because I like G Gundam a lot.
And I like everything that's going on here. So I'm sure I missed some big points.
Why don't you tell me what I missed and things I should have talked about that I didn't in the comments.
And yeah, until next time, folks, take care. This is MJ signing out.
Thanks for watching.