Ancient Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
Join me as I talk about Ultraman Blazar episode 7 and 8, Rainbow Appears.
Wait a minute.
Some of you probably don't think that's the actual title of the episode, but you get it.
The rainbow appears, a rainbow appears, upside down rainbow appears, whatever. It'll be fine.
So the first thing I want to talk about is...
Here, looking at my notes. So the Kaiju is inspired by the Australian Aboriginal Rainbow Snake deity, sometimes called Yurlungur.
Yurlungur. And I think that's really cool. I looked into it a little bit.
It basically... One of the key features of it is that sometimes it's male, sometimes it's female, sometimes it has a very destructive nature, sometimes it has a very positive nature.
There's an idea that all the gullies and streams and lakes and things like that in Australia were formed by it rolling around.
And it like, its body carved these structures. And then in different ways, one of them, there were a bunch of frogs that were sleeping in the ground or something like that.
And then it tickled their bellies and they spit out water as they laughed and those filled the lakes and rivers. Super interesting.
And then there's different stories about the rainbow, about, sorry, Yurlungur.
Being this force of like judgment and even at a point turning people into stone if they were wicked.
Also taking animals that were very noble and turning them into people. And I guess they would stay animals if they were not so great.
There's lots of different things, lots of different myths from what I skimmed and looked into. Just a little bit, I'm for sure not an expert on Yurlungur.
But there's a lot of cool stuff about the rainbow snake from this Australian Aboriginal culture and mythos, I'm going to say.
And I do mean mythos in the positive way, not in the negative way.
So anyway, that was pretty cool. It really seemed like, I think it's... I don't know where this is from, but like the Lord gave it the Lord took it away.
I'm pretty sure that's from the Tanakh and the Hebrew Bible. And I would say that's pretty accurate of Yurlungur.
And maybe that's... I don't know, the thing that I looked at the video that I watched for this to do a little bit of research didn't say that Yurlungur was the chief deity of the Aboriginal peoples.
But very well could be, very well serves, or in fact does serve a purpose of blessing and punishing and judging and condemning those who are wicked.
So, makes sense to me. Anyway, so that was pretty cool.
And that really fits in with the theme of this episode, which I'll get to towards the... well, in a minute or so.
I want to stop real quick and say in episode 8, the beginning, I think they were planning on how they were going to deal with...
I wrote his name down, hold on... how they were going to...
Oh, I wrote it down in different notes. Oh no, here it is.
Nijikagachi, how they were going to deal with Nijikagachi. And there was this awesome music.
I don't know if that score has appeared before and I just haven't noticed it or what, but it was absolutely fantastic and I really dug it.
So that was pretty cool.
Next thing I want to say is...
I thought it was really interesting that Teruaki and Gento kind of fought or disagreed over one of them having to confront the professor because Gento figures that they may have to kill the professor and he's okay with that.
And he wants to make sure that Teruaki is okay with that.
And I found that really interesting because Teruaki even asks him, well, are you okay with that?
And Gento says something like, basically killing this one man in order to save the lives of millions? Yes, I would do it.
And I found that to be very impressive.
It makes sense if you look at the broader context of Ultraman where he's constantly killing throughout the years throughout the show.
He's constantly killing Kaiju, you know, ending one life to save tens, hundreds, thousands, whatever it is at the time, depending on the circumstances.
And it's very interesting. I recently was thinking about how...
Well, in the beginning of this Blazor coverage, I talked about how I like deadly weirdos.
And I also like deadly, thoughtful, soulful people. And Gento was one of those.
So that's really interesting. And I appreciate the fact that he is willing to take a nuanced look at things.
And yeah, if he can save the professor, he will. But if he can't, he's going to kill him.
And regardless, they're going to kill the Kaiju. So it's not even a question of...
Like, let's say the professor wanted this to stop...
Nijikigachi.
And then Nijikigachi was out of his control, so he went on a rampage anyway. Then they would kill the Kaiju.
And that's kind of a big deal, right?
I mean, killing a Kaiju should be similar analogous to killing a human being.
And therefore, if they're comfortable killing a person to save all these lives, or if they're comfortable killing a Kaiju to save all these lives,
they should be comfortable killing a human being to save all these lives. And that's where Gento is coming from.
And I really like that argument, and I like that nuanced approach to it, or that like...
The fact that they slowed down and talked about that for a minute, and then they went on with the rest of the episode.
Because that's an important thing to think about and to acknowledge and to understand.
And I mean, understanding the value of life. Speaking of understanding the value of life,
Tiroaki pleased with the professor that if he has this flood happen, essentially,
that there will be plants and animals, flora and fauna, that are afflicted and hurt by Nichikaguchi's wrath,
and how he should consider that, even if he wants to discount the fact that people are part of nature.
And that's a really interesting take. I find that to be very heartwarming,
that he's thinking about appealing to the professor's love of nature and saying,
Hey, you love nature, and yet you're going to destroy all this nature in order to accomplish this goal of yours.
Like, are you really thinking this through? And is this really the best way to go about this?
Alright, so I want to get a little bit fun.
I love, towards the end of the fight, that they remark that he grabbed the rainbow
that Blazor actually reached up and was able to grab the rainbow.
I'm a little confused as to like the toyotic thing.
I think he got a new Blazor medal or whatever it's called to do the rainbow slash, and that's fine.
But it was really cool. It looked really great. It was like a beautiful toy.
I love how he like arced it between his hands and then, you know, cocked it back and threw that giant, you know,
rainbow saw blade that was super, super cool. I absolutely love that.
And I like this idea of him taking a little bit of the power from Nichikaguchi, or Kagachi, I should say.
And I think it's pretty cool.
I think it's very interesting that the professor is free at the end of the episode
because the authorities figured that there's no way one human being could control an entire Kaidu, especially one so powerful.
And I find that like a very interesting technicality.
And I wonder like, what do you think about that? Do you think that's good? Do you think it's bad?
It doesn't sound like Teruaki and Genta are going to like continue to have a close intimate relationship with him,
or, you know, any sort of relationship with him.
But like they don't seem mad that he's free. I don't think he could ever do this again.
But he had the intent to kill, you know, millions of people.
And I don't know. It's just it's really interesting.
And I'm not even mad at it. I just think it's more of like an interesting thing to think about.
And like, you know, this episode basically raises a question that a lot of, you know, science fiction type stuff has in the past,
which is do humans deserve to live? Do humans deserve mercy? Do they deserve, you know, forgiveness and redemption?
And, you know, the ability to repent for all their sins and all the harm that they've caused in the world.
And I think that's a very good question to ask.
And I like the fact that this kind of bravely asks the question.
And our heroes think that humans do deserve this protection, but our villain certainly didn't.
And I'm not saying he had a point, but it's just interesting. It's just interesting.
It's interesting that they raised the question. It's interesting how they examined it,
because I can see being sympathetic to his, you know, his pain and his plight that he feels for nature because of how it's being treated.
But the answer isn't genocide. And yeah, I just think it's it's fun.
I thought it was a really good episode asking that question and taking the time to examine who deserves to live.
And even at the end there where the professor and Teruaki were confronting each other,
the professor said, like, we're going to let God decide to the victor go to the spoils, basically.
I'm going to try to kill you and you're going to try to kill me.
And whoever wins, that's who nature deserves or proves is the right person because survival of the fittest or whatever.
And it's just interesting how dangerous that ideology can be.
And I really liked them touching on that.
Anyway, I really like this episode or this pair of episodes.
I thought they were pretty great. And I'm wondering what you think about them.
So let me know.
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Until next time, be well.
This is MJ signing out.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.