This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work
at MJMunoz.com. This is Going Ultra and I am talking about Ultraman Blazar, episode 1. Originally
aired July 8, 2023, directed by Kiyotaka Takuchi of Ultraman Z and other things, and written
by Keigo Koyanaki. I will come back to them at the end of the episode because I want to
discuss them a little bit at the end of the episode. This first episode is titled First
Wave and it features the first transformation or first appearance of Ultraman Blazar in
this world as far as I'm concerned. As many of the Ultra series are, this appears to be
totally unconnected to any Ultraman series, although it has, you know, it exists vaguely
in a world of Ultraman 1966, let's say, where Ultraman had appeared at one point. However,
the mention of a previous Ultraman does not talk about him being on Earth, it speaks of
him rather being in space and that astronauts have seen this giant that they've codenamed
Ultraman over the years and it's just kind of a rumor thing. Kind of like the idea of
astronauts today in the United States talking about how, oh yeah, we've seen aliens or UFOs
before and, you know, just vague little tidbits of information. I think some people have more
profound or more curious things to say about UFOs, but I don't really follow that because
that's not my jam. So I'm going to talk about this episode of Ultraman instead of UFOs,
right? Anyway, so I'm going to be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. I love Ultraman
Z. I had understood, I think incorrectly, that Ultraman, well, maybe half correctly,
that Ultraman Z was Taguchi's baby, but really Koto Higihara who died before the series tragically
at 37 years of age, before Ultraman Z could be finished, but yet he had written the first
few episodes, the last couple episodes, and I think one or two in the middle. His, he
kind of set the vision and I think Taguchi and the others all made it happen on Ultraman
Z. So I was expecting, so I was coming from the wrong frame of mind because I didn't understand
that. So now I don't know what to expect from Blazar except for like kind of cool visuals
and maybe a cool style or approach to it still from Taguchi. However, we may not get that
or I may not like that because I feel like we're getting a little bit more of a hard
science fiction edge to this entry of Ultraman and it was weird to not have the, to not have
things spelled out. It was weird to not have things be blanketed. It was weird to have
there be so much darkness. There was plenty of light shots, but there were a lot of shots
in the dark and the fight wasn't quite as dynamic or acrobatic or exciting or energetic
as I thought it would be. And I'm somebody who has bemoaned the use of forms in Ultraman
because they don't really make sense to me. And I thought, you know, we should really
have an Ultraman who just has, you know, a single weapon that they use in different ways
and that'll be really interesting and exciting and, you know, more realistic. And you know
what? It'll be versatile and it'll sell toys too because you just have the one weapon transform
and turn into all these different things. But I got to say, it was a little, I don't
know, a little sedate, I would say. It was a very sedate opening to an Ultraman show.
As far as we know, Hiruma, you know, Genta Hiruma did not die. He was not spoken to by
an Ultraman. He was sort of forcibly changed into Ultraman until, I'll make jokes about
later in shorts or something. So, you know, that was kind of weird and I was surprised
by that. And we had no interaction of him and the Ultra at all. Interesting, it appeared
in learning about writing and trying to become a novelist, I guess you could say, a, you
know, pulp Toku novelist, mostly, and superheroes. Anyway, generic superheroes and then, you
know, Toku heroes. Anyway, I have heard the advice of you want to write, you don't want
to say what people are thinking and I guess that would mean no internal monologue or yeah,
no internal monologues. And you also just want to describe things as if you were, you
want to write as if you were a camera recording people doing things. So what they say, what
they do, the actions they take, the way things physically actually appear to the eye, you
say those things or you write down those things. You do not write down internal thoughts or
feelings or say somebody feels this way. So, and also in, if you look at early, if you
look at early footage behind the scenes stuff of like George Lucas when he was working on
the original Star Wars, he wanted it to feel like a documentary. He wanted to drop you
in a world. He wanted to not explain things and he wanted to let the scenes play out and
kind of let the camera tell the story and almost have the camera feel a little voyeuristic
where it's sitting there in this world and these things are happening. And maybe that's
why there's no real like crazy shots. It's just kind of more simple, basic sedate level
stuff. And I kind of felt the same way with this. We got a lot of shots from the ground
while Blazar and Buzang were fighting and there was like a bridge in the way of the
fight scene and there was kind of an, it was kind of awkward, but it was kind of cool,
but it was memorable or remarkable for what it does is when Aruma first transforms into
Blazar, he doesn't get the classic Ultraman tension or transformation scene where his
fist goes up in the air and you see the Ultra growing towards the screen with a, you know,
sort of a flashy background and there's the Beta, there's not the Beta capsule, there's
the Blazar brace and the Blazar stone and he activates those against his will. They
just appear, it just appears on his wrist and his hand and then they're forced to be
put together by the red lightning of Blazar. And then he doesn't get the standard transformation.
He's gigantic and it's kind of, it's again, an odd angle. You just see his hands reach
up and grab his building, this ring pushover and he pushes them back in place. And then
he kind of, he looks at his hands at one point and kind of looks back and forth. So you can
tell there's something going on with this giant, something unexpected. And maybe that
is the representation of the merger of the Ultra and the man. And then, uh, yeah, it's,
I don't know. It's interesting. It's, it's kind of a sedate fight. It gets exciting towards
the end. Like the last, well, once that color timer hits red or starts flashing red, then
the fight gets really, you know, more energetic. He's desperate. And I don't know if that's
because he's, you know, her rumor is being told that things are more desperate and he
needs to be more careful or finish this fight quickly by the Ultra or if it's like an instinctual
thing or what. Um, but yeah, I just don't know. Uh, he, he gets, uh, I gave this episode
subtitle and it's on the thumbnail, uh, space Savage, uh, because this guy feels like a
feral animal a little bit. He feels like a space Savage. He's got all these weird grunts
that they're not even, they're not like the classic Ultraman grunts, which I think sound
bizarre as somebody who's not like a long time Ultraman fan. I just think they sound
really weird and I kind of don't like them. If I'm telling the absolute truth. I never
mentioned that during a Z, but it's true. I've made my, my confession here. And, uh,
I mean, it does go to making them sound more alien and it is a interesting distinctive thing,
but I just, I don't like it personally. It's just, it doesn't, uh, it does not suit me.
So anyway, that's, that's interesting that he has that, uh, that reaction. And I guess
let me double down and get to the focus on the savagery. He does this weird thing where
he's hit like right before he rips off of his arms, he jumps like three or four times
in the air. Uh, almost like, like a, I don't know, like a real weird nervous, excited energy.
Um, I don't know, like I wrestled in high school and you just like, I don't know, I
would get this feeling of like anxiety or something and just like, I wanted to run or
not run away, but just like, I wanted to like move my body. Like there was something inside
of me that just wanted to move and do something. And I would pace, I would, uh, you know, do
the Shinji, you know, clench your hand thing. Um, Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, of course.
Come on. What is Shinji, what I want to be like in high school. Anyway, so he did that
and then he rips off of his arms and then, uh, like that's kind of where things get really
exciting. And like, he even, he does this weird, like, uh, I don't know if you'd call
it like an ax kick with his heel, where he like almost flips over and like comes down
with his heel on Buzanga and he doesn't actually, I don't think he actually knocks it. He might
knock him down. I'm not sure, but anyway, then he wraps up the fight, getting things
real exciting. He calls a black hole forth from the palm of his right hand, you know,
kind of a real cool pose. And that's where the spiral, the official dub version of it
to spiral braid comes from. And he uses that to, I don't think he shoots. He does the thing
where he's like shooting energy at a Buzanga before then, but then, which looks really
cool. I love the effect of it. It's super neat. Um, to reference Evangelion again, cause
apparently I'm just going to keep doing that. Uh, when I talk about Ultraman, it almost
looks like he's like thrusting his hand at the AT field and it's reacting by like shooting
out this, you know, distortion of energy at his foe. Um, anyway, but yeah, the spiral
braid coming out of his hand with that black or from that black hole thing is pretty cool.
Uh, and I like the effect of it. Um, it was a little weird. The shot, he was like super
far from Buzanga whereas for, were, as I thought he had been a lot closer to him before then,
it acted more like a, a ranged weapon than a melee weapon, which is what I was expecting.
So that's a little weird. Um, but yeah. And then, uh, yeah, I mean, that's kind of it.
Um, that's the most remarkable stuff. I guess too, we had the instance where the, that woman
in the white hood with the shorts for some reason at night, uh, was, uh, she hit it with
a, she had Buzanga with a bazooka, like a special, I think she's going to be a scarred
member. Um, and I think she's there. Oh, anyway, she's one of the scarred members. Um, I think
she's like the spy infiltrator one who's going to like work with people, I guess on the ground
and gather intel. I think that's her deal. Um, anyway, it's weird that, well, I'll talk
about scarred in the next episode. I don't want to talk about that right now. Um, so
yeah, I mean, I was a little underwhelmed, uh, but the thing that impressed me most is
like, this doesn't feel like Ultraman Z. It doesn't feel like, uh, it feels less like
the original Ultraman even, uh, which I think is interesting. It has more of this hard science
fiction edge, which is fine. And I think I like it, but I just, I know I, I feel like
I'm reacting in a weird way to it. Um, you know, I overall did enjoy the fight. Uh, it
was a very, it was very human focused and I know I almost, I hope that the tone kind
of stays the same. And I'm not saying I want it to be dark and serious, but we're like,
blazar is treated as this alien thing. The transformation of him or her Huma in, so I'm
reading Kenshin right now of her room into blazar is this alien thing. We don't know
why he was chosen. We don't know how he was chosen, uh, by blazar. I'm assuming he was
chosen by blazar. It doesn't seem like we've got the traditional setup. I don't even know
if we're going to get the, uh, you know, any indication that this is the original setup
of an ultra pairing with a human because they're both in desperate need of somehow, uh, they,
they must pair with each other or else they will die or whatever, um, in order to save
the world. It almost seems like it's, it's optional, but it also seems like it's not
optional for her room to transform based on how he was forced to transform this episode.
So, uh, yeah, space Savage. I mean that, that Ultraman blazar, he feels like some sort of,
like not vicious creature, but like this, I don't know, like this unhinged Savage kind
of guy. And I thought that was interesting. And like the way it was done, it's very like,
like things are very unpolished. Uh, I'm not saying the show isn't slick, but I'm just
saying like the presentation of the Ultraman stuff, it doesn't have, uh, the Polish and
the shine and the, Hey, let's, you know, chat my name. Ultraman Z. It's like, it doesn't
have that pop and that, uh, like, you know, bubbly friendly edge to it. It's there's the
brace. There's the stone sticks in there. Transform, you know, no, it's a non, um, there's
no magic. There's no wonder. There's no, like, uh, there's no catchiness to the transformation.
It's just a, you know, big, ugly, silent, dumb translate, uh, you know, um, transformation.
And then it turns into, you know, fighting. And I know it's just, it's weird how alien
it feels. And I think that's odd. I think it's odd. I think it's an interesting choice.
I like, you know, it's bold to bold choice for sure. Um, we'll see. I'm curious to see
what other people's reactions are to this as well. And, uh, I think that's it. I'm going
to run through. Uh, I grabbed a bunch of images, uh, from this. Oh, I was also going to talk
about these guys. Okay. So this is going to, this is going to be an extra special episode
of blazar. My blazar coverage where it's going to run extra long. I'm going to look at to
Gucci's, um, information real quick. So, okay. It says he's known as the main director of
Ultraman X, Ultraman Orb and Ultraman Z. I believe, well, I believe juggler comes from
one of those two shows X or orb. I think it's orb. I don't know for sure. So that's kind
of fun that he did that with this character. Um, and let me see Ultraman series direct.
Okay. So he's got, he worked on as well. Ginga. I'm just going to name off a bunch. Um, jeed,
red and blue or R and B, taiga. Uh, let's see trigger. Huh. Ultraman, a new power of
Singapore. I don't know if that is decker and now blazar. Uh, worked on music videos
apparently before. Uh, let's see others. He's worked on Hibiki, Kabuto, Denon as a visual
effects artist. Oh, that's cool. Kiva, um, long haired mince monster Guevara. I don't
know what that is. Uh, the next generation Pat Labore. I'm assuming that the live action
Pat Labore movie, love and peace from 2015 female weapon, seven Oh one machine sent I
care a major from 2019, man. That's crazy. And then, uh, Denon's and on he did the monster
design. I did not know that it's cool. And he's a special effects director on common
writer, black sun, which I still have yet to finish. So super interesting, super interesting.
All right. So that's enough about our main director for the show. Uh, and our writer
of this episode, Kago Koyanagi. Let's see what has this gentleman worked on before.
He has age 39. I still have time to become a successful director. It's been an active
writer since 2006, which is cool. Uh, let's see, let's see. It says he's Japanese screen
writers, participated in the screenwriting of the Ultraman series generically in 2006.
Koyanagi joined an animation production company and worked on production management and setting
creation and setting creation. In 2011, he left the company and became a freelance screenwriter.
Since then he has worked on the scripts for many animation works in 2016. Koyanagi took
on the first story composition and script for an original robot anime that was broadcasted.
After that, what was it? Tell me after that, he served as the story composer along as the
script writer for popular anime works with themes such as vampire legends, werewolf legends
and heroes and fantasy worlds. In recent years, he has been in charge of military research
in various works, contributing to enhancing the entertainment value of works through military
depictions. Boy, howdy did this Ultraman blazar have heavy military stuff in it. Koyanagi
participated in the Ultraman series for the first time as a military advisor in Ultraman
Z. I remember this now and worked as a script writer for Ultraman Trigger new generation
Taiga. And in 2023, Koyanagi serves as series composition for Ultraman blazar. Let's see
Ultraman series, Kotofukuha wrote the following episodes of the following series. I don't
know why that says that here. Somebody must have messed up on the wiki. Hmm. Anyway, yeah,
so I don't know why this is not citing the animation that this guy's worked on unless
it was like highly inappropriate. But I'm not gonna skew into that at the moment. So yeah,
this guy definitely makes sense as a military advisor. I don't remember seeing Koyanagi
as a writer credit on Ultraman Z. But this last time I watched it, I didn't really pay
that close attention. But yeah, I can see I mean, this was a very, like I said, it was
very human focused. It was very focused on the military. I guess I should speak to the
character of Genta Haruma. It's interesting that he like he's got the quirk with the meditation.
I kind of didn't like that he was like seeing visions in his meditation. It felt a little
bit like Combinator Drive and like where everything else is so hard science fiction here to have
that aspect of it. I know it was kind of weird for me. Although I guess it's kind of like
the um, what is it the black speech, the black thought, whatever, full metal panic, they've
got like, black alchemies, or whatever they called it. Anyway, they've got this weird
thing where this girl from this, it's I guess it's a light novel series turned into an anime
full metal panic. This girl has the ability to like, do weird stuff with technology. And
there are other rare people like her. And there's people in fighting robots, who are
paramilitary and terrorists and things like that, who deal with all that stuff. Interesting
show. Well, little fanservice for my taste, but interesting show nonetheless. Light novels
probably better anyway. So like, it's weird that you've got this real science fiction
world. And then you've got and I don't think Ultraman blazar being in the show like ruins
the science fiction aspect of it. I think it's just another part of it's another dimension.
It's an unexplored or on unexplored or on it's just kind of an unexpected thing for
there to be. But why couldn't there be these aliens who can merge with humans through some
means, technological, or because they're just that's the way their species works. Why can't
there be that in a science fiction story? That doesn't make sense to me. What then doesn't
or that that makes sense to me that that could work well then doesn't make sense to me is
that, you know, people would have these weird visions or whatever. So like the idea of meditating
is cool. And then I guess they kind of broke what I said earlier about the show was more
showing things in like this documentary like style, because we do get into her room his
head I guess, to see the vision of what he's going to do. And I guess that's interesting.
I do like though, that he wants every he wants to make sure everybody comes home, you know,
being this captain or this leader of this division squadron, whatever, like he wants
to make sure he takes care of all his men, and that he will bring them home, like I said,
and I like to when he's rescuing that guy, right before he, right before he gets transformed
into blazar, that he's tells the guy something like, I told you everybody goes home, the
guy said, Yeah, I know you would have told me to leave you here, though. And he kind
of laughs and it's like, No, I wouldn't have, you know, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And that
was kind of cool. So I like the character of the guy. We didn't get to see much of it
because it was just very much him in a stressful situation where he's commanding and such.
So I don't feel like we got too much of an insight into his character. But we did get
I did like and appreciate it. So that's good. I think I'm gonna like this guy for the series
and little flashes we've seen of him and other things in other preview materials I have liked.
So that's that's good for me. And let me see, is there anything else I wanted to talk about
specifically before I close out the episode? I do not think so. Yes, so I am going to go
ahead and close out the episode. Overall, I don't know, I'd give it like a seven, six
point five, seven out of 10. I think it was entertaining. I liked it. But it just it felt
so weird and so alien and so foreign. Despite the fact that I was listening to it in English.
It's the dub. It was weird. I like I like hearing Johnny and wash. This voice that he's
doing is interesting, though. It doesn't it doesn't feel like Narukami, which is what
I was expecting. For some reason, I don't quite know why. And it's like harder than
Vash to stampede. And yeah, I don't got any I don't know anything else. I like the fact
that they're bringing back that the title card. I wonder if it's always going to be
at the end of the episode. I'd be OK with that. That's all right with me. Because if
like for the immersion, they're keeping things more, I don't know, sedate and pushing stuff
off like that till the end. Maybe that's what they're going to do. Maybe not. I don't know.
But yeah, overall, I did like it. I'm interested to see what's next. And this didn't start
the way I expected it to. And that's OK. Sometimes our expectations can be defied. And it's a
good thing. So I guess we'll stick with it and see. I'd like to know what you thought
about this premiere, this debut of Ultraman Blazar and just what you feel about the show
so far. We're feeling with the cast and anyway, just all your thoughts in general. Let me
know what occurred to you, what objections you had or what you loved, because I think
I shared a decent amount of stuff that was negative as well as positive. So if you've
got well, you know, you got anything to say, say it and we'll talk about it. It's fine.
All right. With that, I hope that you're well. This is MJ signing out.
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