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Henshin Inspection presents Going Ultra. This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist,

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I'm an analyzer. Join me as I talk about Ultraman Blazar, episode 17, The

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Wandering Zangill. This is a synopsis that's in the show notes. I'm not gonna read it

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to you. However, I am gonna read you the names of all the kaiju and hopefully I

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will not embarrass myself in pronouncing them because some of them are a little

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hard for my Western American tongue. So we've got Zangiel, Teganielar, Nijikagachi,

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Bzonga, Bzonga came back too? Gidos, Levera, Deltandal, and Zomsher, which I have no idea who

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Zomsher is but I know who all those other ones are. Yeah, I know all those

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other ones are, even though I don't remember where Deltandal popped up in

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the episode. Couldn't name it but anyway, doesn't matter right now. What does

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matter is just talking about the contents of this episode and the story. I

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was definitely impressed by the honor and the story of companionship and the

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story of the connection between these two warrior men. They're sword

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brothers, which well that's an interesting term and I can talk about it

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more later and I'm not gonna talk about samurai stuff specifically because I

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don't know enough about samurai culture even though I guess I probably should

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reference that as I'm discussing this but I'm actually gonna go a totally

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different direction, a very Western direction, and I don't know how old this

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concept is within the Arthur mythology. Yes, I'm talking about King Arthur in the

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context of talking about Ultraman but just bear with me. But in... oh gosh what's his

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name? He's a Catholic guy, Stephen Lawhead. Stephen Lawhead is an author who did

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the Pendragon Cycle, which is a five book series where he tells the story of

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King Arthur and Camelot and all that stuff but it's a little not

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that and it's a little less than that and it's a little more than that and it's

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kind of weird. It almost takes a style of the Bible in telling long epoch, you

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know, like the Bible covers very many people's lives in sometimes a short

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amount of time and sometimes a long amount of time, which is to say from the

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beginning of the world to the birth of Abraham is like seven or eight chapters

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and that's 1,500 years or 2,000 years. I can't remember what the

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timeline is and then spend a little bit of time with Abraham, a little bit of time with

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Isaac, a little bit of time with Jacob and then the rest of that's two books of the

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Bible worth and then three books, the remainder of the books of the Bible, are

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all about the children of Israel coming out of Egypt with Moses and the style

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where it switches from focus character to focus character is similar to what

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that Stephen Lawhead uses in his Pendragon Cycle is similar to how the

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Bible switches from focus character to focus character and it's pretty

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interesting. That's all to say that in Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle he has

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Arthur call his Knights of the Round Table the Cambrogy. I don't know if

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that's a Welsh word, probably it's probably Welsh, but it means sword

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brothers and it means that they are brothers who were not born of the same

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mother, not born of the same father, not even cousins, but they are brothers

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because they battle together and they fight together and they support each

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other and have each other's backs and that's very much what Gento and this

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Kaiju were together. I'm starting to remember his name, I'll find it real

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quick. His name is Zangil. I looked, I didn't remember, I looked at my notes.

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Anyway, so I really like the camaraderie that they had and it would have been

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interesting to see a little bit more between them but seeing the the duo fight

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that they had against this one Kaiju, the Niki-Jigachi. Niki-Jigachi, I think I

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got it this time. Anyway, it was really cool and a lot of fun. I thought it was um

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it was a good choice to bring Niki-Jigachi back because he was a

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pretty powerful foe and he kind of like marked a turning point in some ways for

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for Blazar and for Gento I would say. Yeah, so that stuff's just one level.

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Something else that I want to discuss and I think is important to talk about

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is more story related. The other story thing I want to talk about is why do Kaiju

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have ghosts and why is there some master to Zangil that's telling him to

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put the ghosts in the netherworld of the Kaiju or whatever and why if all that's

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true did we have that happening here? By the way, a side tangent, the Tilsenite

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sword didn't work until until Zangil hit it with his arm blade sword thing and

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transferred into it the ghost fighting ability or whatever that he has which is

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really cool and there's a really nice little bit of visual storytelling that

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was all you know just there's no dialogue. I'm drawing that conclusion

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based on what I saw and what I observed and nobody said anything about it which

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is really cool. It's so wonderful method of storytelling. Anyway, so why are there

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Kaiju ghosts and aside from that why does it matter for this show? The shtick

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with Ultraman is typically that the hero dies or the human host is dead or very

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close to death and the Ultra is at least the original response for crashing a

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ship and it's not funny I just I'm feeling a little loopy so you'll have to

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forgive me. Anyway and yeah in Zet they die fighting next to each other

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and in Ark it definitely looks like that little kid got smushed. I don't know why this is funny but yeah like Yuma is either

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dead or he's mostly dead or I don't think Yuma is an actual like I don't think he's like

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corpses crushed under the whatever that horn is and he's like a monohorn I

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don't think he's crushed under the monohorn and this is like a ghost of him

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or whatever I think you know somehow Ruteon right?

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Somehow he saved his life and then they together became Ultraman Ark but anyway

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regardless I don't know I almost feel like there's like a foreboding going on

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here or like a hinting at something that's gonna go on with Gento maybe his

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own death like with how they were clicking how they're reviving how they

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have these similarities to each other I don't know it just felt like something

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ominous or foreboding or maybe not even ominous necessarily but like like Gento

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will die one day and I don't know do Ultras die? Do they really die? I don't know

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I haven't been watching enough Ultraman to know that or not but you know Gento

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will die one day and the thing that he tells the coffee lady is that his friend

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has gone on ahead and that implies that he's gonna go to the same place that

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his friend is going or leave just like his friend left and the fact that he's

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got a wife and kid that makes it a little scary because you know he could

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die and leave them widow and orphan but maybe just means that one day he's gonna

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die too just like Zanguil has been wandering around for a long time trying

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to tone for what he did and earn his own rest for his soul and I know there's

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just like something beautiful and like kind of weighty to that and it kind of

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made me a little scared for Gento but you know I think he's gonna be fine I

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think he's gonna survive the series he doesn't have to but I think he will and

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I know it was just like a really interesting poignant line and I love

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this is so like I don't know like film nerd of me or whatever but like this is

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great shot that you get for a split second I had to pause pause pause pause

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pause to grab it I'm gonna put it here that there's the two servings of coffee

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and ice cream or fae I don't know it looks like coffee and ice cream honestly

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and there's two there and Gento sits there with the two servings because he

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says he'll take them both he'll take the whole order and I don't know it feels

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like that feels kind of wistful like he doesn't want to reject Zanguil or the

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reject his memory he wants to accept it and like I don't know like feel like

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there are consequences to this you know short time friend that he had their

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consequences or repercussions to him being in his life and Gento's life for

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some time and I don't know like it feels really important and it feels really

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meaningful and I don't know that it is it might have just been like a throwaway

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thing that they wanted to do for fun but like it's a beautiful moment and even if

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it serves no greater purpose in the story that's okay because it's sparking

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my imagination and it's making me wonder and it's making me think and kind of

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people is like a meme they'll like show pictures of the bench from um from Jet

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Man I almost I almost feel like this could become a meme too just because

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like it's just I think it's an iconic image I think it's kind of neat and I

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don't know I think there's something to it and I think there's something like

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real going on here and it really I don't know it didn't like make me sad didn't

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it left a mark it definitely it definitely left an impact on me and I

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know I like it I like something about it but I'm not quite sure what that is and

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I'm okay with that so anyway let me know what you thought about this episode let

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me know if you find any of my crazy film theory stuff about the empty plate or

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the nothing empty play but the double serving tray of the coffee and dessert

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and just what you thought about this general episode in general she thought

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the samurai showdown was as cool as I did if you know the name of that I would

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love to know the name of it because I'd be really curious to know and I don't

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want to waste my time looking for it online so yeah till next time folks take

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care be well and be ultra I hope you enjoyed that subscribe to keep up with

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me like and share to help me reach more people like you and go to mjmunoz.com 

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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

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be well this is MJ signing out this has been a story over everything production