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This is for Ultraman Blazar Episode 4. I'm pretty sure I say 3 coming up, but I meant to say 4.

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Episode 4 of Ultraman Blazar.

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Henshin Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ Muñoz, author, artist, analyzer.

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Coming at you with another Blazar review. This is Episode 4. I don't remember the name of the title, but it doesn't matter because we're doing this.

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So anyway, so Blazar Episode 4 features the sea angel Kaiju that is being manipulated, being operated as a way for Mr. Sonozaki, who runs this big chemical company,

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for a way for him to not get money, which I thought was what it was originally.

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Henry thought as well as she was doing her corporate espionage on behalf of Skard. But it turns out that he wants to be the world's greatest hero or something like that.

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And he worked for the GGF, which I don't remember, Global Something Force. Anyway, so he worked for them about, well I don't know when he quit,

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but about 20 years ago apparently this is the plot, or this is how it happened, they digitized the records, so they threw out a bunch of their paper records,

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and in so doing they, he ended up getting his hands on some and he found out about this Kaiju?

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He found out about something that allowed him to use the technology that he has at his disposal to manipulate and create a Kaiju,

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create a synthetic life form that could also be scaled up from a tiny little sea angel, I think is what it is, to a large creature, a Kaiju,

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and it can be used to terrorize the city, and then his product is the only thing that's able to stop it.

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He also staged for it to be found that the creature accidentally attacked one of his shipping containers,

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which just so happened to hold the very thing that was the key to its destruction, but he knew this whole time that it would turn into,

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that it would, I don't know that he's genetically manipulating it or that it's just adapting.

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This single unit of it, a single entity is adapting every time it's attacked by this, it's building up resistance, and eventually,

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I guess he would leave Japan and ruin and then unleash these things throughout the world and he would go everywhere and use this chemical to go ahead and kill the thing.

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I don't think he quite thought through that plan, and maybe it was just a pretty sophisticated plan that I'm just not thinking through all the way,

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because it seems like there's a big hole in his plan where eventually those Kaiju will be all over the world and they won't be able to be killed

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because they'll have built up a resistance to this thing, and if nothing else and no one else can destroy it, then how does that work?

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I think there's a hole in his plan, but he's probably a little crazy because he has this ambition to be this world-renowned hero who has all this glory.

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I don't really know what's being said here, because when it was about the money, that was simple and I could wrap my head around that.

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Now that it's about this hunt for glory and this hunt for this position and this being elevated on a pedestal for people to worship him,

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not as a god, but as a hero and a savior, I don't quite know what to say to that and I don't quite know how to react to that,

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and I don't know what's the thematic thing going on here, what's the story element here, and what is there to be gained?

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He stated what he wants to be gained from doing this thing, but I don't know. I don't know what else.

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The subplot with Henri was interesting. I like that it turns out that Henri came up with this plan to stage this fight between her and Gento

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so that it could be clearly revealed to Sonozaki and the people working for him that this is corporate espionage.

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She is, well, not corporate espionage, it's like corporate espionage, but she's actually working for the GGF.

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Anyway, that would lead him to make a confession and if they recorded that confession,

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then they were going to use it against him to hold him legally responsible for all the stuff that he's done, which is fantastic.

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I really like that. I like the sting operation thing that they're doing.

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Oh, another thing. I've already talked about the story stuff. Let me get back to it.

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Let me finish with Henri and then I'll talk about the other things that I really liked.

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It is interesting to me that you have the story of Henri being the cynic and she's like...

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I don't know, it's just interesting that she's the cynic because she seems young, but apparently she's been around,

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and I don't know how old she is, and I'm in my mid-30s, so everybody seems younger than me now.

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So anyway, she could be 34, 35 and just have this world-weary attitude.

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That's very possible and that works, but it's interesting the turnaround that happens because Gento goes against her plan

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and it shocks her and surprises her, but she rolls with it and in the end she's grateful.

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She expresses gratitude to him and she gives him these flowers.

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This is a flower and he's supposed to give it to his family.

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That's nice that it clues us into the fact that he has a family.

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In the last episode we saw him putting on a ring at the end of the episode, so that also clued this in.

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But it's nice that we're getting that gradually built up. It's not just like in your face,

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oh, this guy's an Ultraman with a family! So I like how they're doing that. That's pretty neat.

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Next I want to talk about the fighting in this episode, because the fighting was fantastic.

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The Blazar fight I honestly didn't get to see as well as I wanted to, and that might be a weird statement.

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Then why am I recording this and why am I talking about it?

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Well, I'm not going to explain, but I will explain that the person-on-person fighting was amazing,

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and I really liked it, and I'll talk about that more in a minute.

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Given that I've never actually watched a John Wick movie, I feel a little silly saying this,

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but I feel like the...

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Gento and Henri fighting scene against this guy, Sonozaki's goons, was basically like John Wick in a kids show,

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and it was amazing. The martial arts on display was pretty awesome.

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The only thing I didn't like was that Henri dropped the clip, or she dropped the magazine,

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she locked it...

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What did... How do you say that again?

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She locked back the barrel, whatever, to eject the last bullet from the thing, from the gun,

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so that it couldn't be fired at her. But later on when she kicked... I guess because she kicked it...

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Later on, there was another guy with a gun, she kicked the gun out of his hand, and she didn't secure it,

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and sure enough, Sonozaki grabbed it and he fired like three or four shots at her,

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and that very well could have killed her.

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Sonozaki was already down during that time, so I would think she would have...

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I think he was down at the time. I would think she would have been able to go get the gun and stop him,

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but that needed to happen in order for him to shoot at her in order for her...

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things to burst as they did.

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You can disagree about the choreography of the scene a little bit if you wanted to fight about that,

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which I don't really want to fight about it, I just wanted to bring it up that I thought it was a little strange,

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and when she kicked it away, I thought, like, that's a tactical error, isn't it?

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And then sure enough, it was, but then again, you know, it's fiction, you know?

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You need that kind of stuff. So anyway...

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But her fighting and his fighting were fantastic, and I really enjoyed it, it was amazing.

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Earth-Garon later on showed up, and she was outside, and she saw this liquid nitrogen thing,

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and they used it to freeze the Sea Angel, that's what it's called?

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Anyway, sorry I keep doing that. They used it to freeze the Kaiju with liquid nitrogen,

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a la Terminator 2, or the T-1000 Terminator 2, and sure enough, after it was frozen,

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Blazar was able to get his Javelin out, and he screwed that thing and killed it, and that was super cool.

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Yeah, so that was a lot of fun on the action stuff, so I think I pretty much well covered the story stuff.

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I gave more time and energy to that, which is what I'm here for, but I'm also here for the cool fights,

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because they're a lot of fun, and it's not just the Kaiju fights, it's the ground fights as well,

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which is probably why I like Super Sentai and Ryder so much, because that's all they are,

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or that's what they have a lot of, rather.

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Ryder more so than Sentai, and Sentai more so than Ultraman, so anyway, good stuff.

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I really enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun, and I don't have much else to say about this episode.

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I'll let you know that my goal is to rush through Blazar, put out about five episodes or so of coverage on it a week,

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in addition to Ultraman Arc, which is the currently airing Ultraman,

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and I'm doing this because I want to watch Blazar, and also because it seemed like a good way to jump start

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and get me back on consistently covering Tokusatsu in general.

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I'm starting with Ultraman, and then we'll see where I go from there.

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I'm working on getting self-published a children's book, a middle grade book, about magical bugs that battle monsters,

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very much inspired by Tokusatsu.

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I have somebody who's volunteering to beta-read for me because I beta-read for him a short story of his.

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He says, this feels like young adult horror, and then it feels like a Pokemon fanfic.

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At a certain point, the magical bug creature shows up to save these kids from this monster that's attacking them,

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and he was like, well, that was crazy whiplash, but I was thinking, isn't that what Tokusatsu is?

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I responded to him like, well, it kind of is that, let me explain a little bit more.

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This is inspired by Godzilla, Ultraman, and these other things, and what happens is it is horror.

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People are being attacked, innocents are being attacked by monsters, and then, not in Godzilla so much,

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but the other things, yes, a hero shows up, transforms, fights the bad guy, and that's what it is.

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I've got colorful bugs that show up and fight monsters that are attacking innocent kids in a horror-like situation.

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So, very much drawing on Common Writer, the horror from that, and also just these really scary, high stakes,

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actual deadly danger that people are in as Kaiju are crushing buildings and stuff is falling and things like that.

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So, I'm trying to bring that all in. I'm trying to put it into books for kids, and on kids too.

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Adults can read it. I'm writing it. You can read it. I think that's great, and I think the fact that

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Tsuburai is doing this six-book series of Ultraman Academy, or Ultra Academy, whatever they're calling it,

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is fantastic, and that really dovetails nicely with my efforts as well. So, here we are, Ultraman,

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middle grade books, tokusatsu-y stuff. It's all good, and that's what I'm here for.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Subscribe to keep up with me. Like and share to help me reach more people like you.

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And go to MJMUNOZ.COM to find your next favorite thing. And don't forget to let your voice be heard.

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Stories are always better when you're part of the conversation. Until next time, be well.

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This is MJ signing out. This has been a Story Over Everything production.