Henshin 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 17, The
Wandering Zangill. This is a synopsis that's in the show notes. I'm not gonna read it
to you. However, I am gonna read you the names of all the kaiju and hopefully I
will not embarrass myself in pronouncing them because some of them are a little
hard for my Western American tongue. So we've got Zangiel, Teganielar, Nijikagachi,
Bzonga, Bzonga came back too? Gidos, Levera, Deltandal, and Zomsher, which I have no idea who
Zomsher is but I know who all those other ones are. Yeah, I know all those
other ones are, even though I don't remember where Deltandal popped up in
the episode. Couldn't name it but anyway, doesn't matter right now. What does
matter is just talking about the contents of this episode and the story. I
was definitely impressed by the honor and the story of companionship and the
story of the connection between these two warrior men. They're sword
brothers, which well that's an interesting term and I can talk about it
more later and I'm not gonna talk about samurai stuff specifically because I
don't know enough about samurai culture even though I guess I probably should
reference that as I'm discussing this but I'm actually gonna go a totally
different direction, a very Western direction, and I don't know how old this
concept is within the Arthur mythology. Yes, I'm talking about King Arthur in the
context of talking about Ultraman but just bear with me. But in... oh gosh what's his
name? He's a Catholic guy, Stephen Lawhead. Stephen Lawhead is an author who did
the Pendragon Cycle, which is a five book series where he tells the story of
King Arthur and Camelot and all that stuff but it's a little not
that and it's a little less than that and it's a little more than that and it's
kind of weird. It almost takes a style of the Bible in telling long epoch, you
know, like the Bible covers very many people's lives in sometimes a short
amount of time and sometimes a long amount of time, which is to say from the
beginning of the world to the birth of Abraham is like seven or eight chapters
and that's 1,500 years or 2,000 years. I can't remember what the
timeline is and then spend a little bit of time with Abraham, a little bit of time with
Isaac, a little bit of time with Jacob and then the rest of that's two books of the
Bible worth and then three books, the remainder of the books of the Bible, are
all about the children of Israel coming out of Egypt with Moses and the style
where it switches from focus character to focus character is similar to what
that Stephen Lawhead uses in his Pendragon Cycle is similar to how the
Bible switches from focus character to focus character and it's pretty
interesting. That's all to say that in Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle he has
Arthur call his Knights of the Round Table the Cambrogy. I don't know if
that's a Welsh word, probably it's probably Welsh, but it means sword
brothers and it means that they are brothers who were not born of the same
mother, not born of the same father, not even cousins, but they are brothers
because they battle together and they fight together and they support each
other and have each other's backs and that's very much what Gento and this
Kaiju were together. I'm starting to remember his name, I'll find it real
quick. His name is Zangil. I looked, I didn't remember, I looked at my notes.
Anyway, so I really like the camaraderie that they had and it would have been
interesting to see a little bit more between them but seeing the the duo fight
that they had against this one Kaiju, the Niki-Jigachi. Niki-Jigachi, I think I
got it this time. Anyway, it was really cool and a lot of fun. I thought it was um
it was a good choice to bring Niki-Jigachi back because he was a
pretty powerful foe and he kind of like marked a turning point in some ways for
for Blazar and for Gento I would say. Yeah, so that stuff's just one level.
Something else that I want to discuss and I think is important to talk about
is more story related. The other story thing I want to talk about is why do Kaiju
have ghosts and why is there some master to Zangil that's telling him to
put the ghosts in the netherworld of the Kaiju or whatever and why if all that's
true did we have that happening here? By the way, a side tangent, the Tilsenite
sword didn't work until until Zangil hit it with his arm blade sword thing and
transferred into it the ghost fighting ability or whatever that he has which is
really cool and there's a really nice little bit of visual storytelling that
was all you know just there's no dialogue. I'm drawing that conclusion
based on what I saw and what I observed and nobody said anything about it which
is really cool. It's so wonderful method of storytelling. Anyway, so why are there
Kaiju ghosts and aside from that why does it matter for this show? The shtick
with Ultraman is typically that the hero dies or the human host is dead or very
close to death and the Ultra is at least the original response for crashing a
ship and it's not funny I just I'm feeling a little loopy so you'll have to
forgive me. Anyway and yeah in Zet they die fighting next to each other
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
dead or he's mostly dead or I don't think Yuma is an actual like I don't think he's like
corpses crushed under the whatever that horn is and he's like a monohorn I
don't think he's crushed under the monohorn and this is like a ghost of him
or whatever I think you know somehow Ruteon right?
Somehow he saved his life and then they together became Ultraman Ark but anyway
regardless I don't know I almost feel like there's like a foreboding going on
here or like a hinting at something that's gonna go on with Gento maybe his
own death like with how they were clicking how they're reviving how they
have these similarities to each other I don't know it just felt like something
ominous or foreboding or maybe not even ominous necessarily but like like Gento
will die one day and I don't know do Ultras die? Do they really die? I don't know
I haven't been watching enough Ultraman to know that or not but you know Gento
will die one day and the thing that he tells the coffee lady is that his friend
has gone on ahead and that implies that he's gonna go to the same place that
his friend is going or leave just like his friend left and the fact that he's
got a wife and kid that makes it a little scary because you know he could
die and leave them widow and orphan but maybe just means that one day he's gonna
die too just like Zanguil has been wandering around for a long time trying
to tone for what he did and earn his own rest for his soul and I know there's
just like something beautiful and like kind of weighty to that and it kind of
made me a little scared for Gento but you know I think he's gonna be fine I
think he's gonna survive the series he doesn't have to but I think he will and
I know it was just like a really interesting poignant line and I love
this is so like I don't know like film nerd of me or whatever but like this is
great shot that you get for a split second I had to pause pause pause pause
pause to grab it I'm gonna put it here that there's the two servings of coffee
and ice cream or fae I don't know it looks like coffee and ice cream honestly
and there's two there and Gento sits there with the two servings because he
says he'll take them both he'll take the whole order and I don't know it feels
like that feels kind of wistful like he doesn't want to reject Zanguil or the
reject his memory he wants to accept it and like I don't know like feel like
there are consequences to this you know short time friend that he had their
consequences or repercussions to him being in his life and Gento's life for
some time and I don't know like it feels really important and it feels really
meaningful and I don't know that it is it might have just been like a throwaway
thing that they wanted to do for fun but like it's a beautiful moment and even if
it serves no greater purpose in the story that's okay because it's sparking
my imagination and it's making me wonder and it's making me think and kind of
people is like a meme they'll like show pictures of the bench from um from Jet
Man I almost I almost feel like this could become a meme too just because
like it's just I think it's an iconic image I think it's kind of neat and I
don't know I think there's something to it and I think there's something like
real going on here and it really I don't know it didn't like make me sad didn't
it left a mark it definitely it definitely left an impact on me and I
know I like it I like something about it but I'm not quite sure what that is and
I'm okay with that so anyway let me know what you thought about this episode let
me know if you find any of my crazy film theory stuff about the empty plate or
the nothing empty play but the double serving tray of the coffee and dessert
and just what you thought about this general episode in general she thought
the samurai showdown was as cool as I did if you know the name of that I would
love to know the name of it because I'd be really curious to know and I don't
want to waste my time looking for it online so yeah till next time folks take
care be well and be ultra I hope you enjoyed that subscribe to keep up with
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be well this is MJ signing out this has been a story over everything production