Engine Inspection presents Going Ultra! This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
Joining me as I talk about Ultra and Blaze are Episode 21, which was called...
Insurance Hero! Yes, it is Insurance Hero.
And it was a really interesting episode. I liked it a lot, I had a lot of fun with it.
I have very few notes on it because there's not much for me to stay on it,
other than the fact that I liked it. And basically what I have to say is I hope
that this breather, I guess is what it was before the finale, is a recalibration
of the show and of the series and of the story, and it's not a blip.
A momentary dramatic shift away from big, meaty, juicy story details
into something kind of mundane and meaningless, perhaps. That's one way to look at it.
And that that's the calm before the storm before we get into this big...
whatever the end game is going to be. So I really liked this story because
it was a meaningful story. It was about people. It was a nice human story
about Tetsuo, this insurance kaiju disaster and salesman, and Michiko,
this old lady, who she seemed to be well off, or at least the home that she
and her husband lived in together before he died. It was a nice home,
and maybe he did well for himself. I don't know if it's a family state or how
inheritance type of stuff works in Japan, but it was a nice home, nice big home,
and he ends up doing all this cleaning for her, and he works really hard.
I think the story is that he's in this awful job that he hates. He doesn't really
want to be an insurance. He wants to be doing something else, something more
meaningful to him, and he just doesn't know what that is. It seems like he was
in music school, perhaps, because he says that lots of his other friends have gone
to music or become rock star kind of deal, and they're pursuing their dreams,
and he doesn't really have a dream. He just wants to live a life or whatever.
I think there are things that he wants. He's just lying to himself or hiding
from them, or he's not willing to acknowledge the things that he wants,
because if you admit that you have a dream and it's a big dream, then you can
fail. It's easier sometimes not to admit that you have a dream. Anyway, this is
Guy Grant Cardone, who's an entrepreneur, business-y type guy, and he has this
book out called 10X, which I never read, but I've heard lots of people talk about
it. They talk about whatever you say your goals are, you should say you want 10
times that goal, because saying that is going to put you in the mindset to get
it, and it's going to help you to achieve that dream or that goal of yours.
Honestly, if you fall short of 10 times what you wanted, you still may get very
close to it, which, yes, it's another businessman entrepreneur trading in old
saws. If you shoot for the stars, you'll hit the moon or whatever, and that's
fine. You can be as critical of you as you want of it. From what I know, he seems
like a decent fellow, and I'd hate to kill him, but his book has been helpful,
and his philosophy has been helpful to people who care about helping others, who
care about things that I care about, criminal justice reform, ending the
warfare state and things like that, which we don't need to talk about now, because
I'm an Ultraman, and we're having fun with this insurance salesman. Anyway,
just, you know, your dreams are important, and I don't know why Tetsuo has not
really gone for his dreams, and the story doesn't, the show, the episode, the
story that we get here with him now doesn't explain that, but it does show that
he's a good person with drive and compassion, and he cares about people, and
there's a younger guy who's in his insurance office who is doing all phone
calls, and he mocks Tetsuo for going out. It's not the 80s anymore, going out and
doing cold call, or knocking. He's going knocking, and knocking for sales is a
very hard thing to do. I have some experience with it. I'm not knocking for
sales anymore, so that might tell you some of what I think about it, but I
definitely made decent money when I actually made money, just, you know. There
were a lot of nos and very few yeses, but anyway, here we are, and that wasn't my
dream, honestly. My dream is to be a writer and a storyteller, which is
something I'm kind of doing here and kind of doing now. I'm analyzing these
stories, and I'm telling you the way I think things should have gone, and things
I like to have these stories, things I'd like for them to incorporate into my
stories, and I'm also telling you about my stories that I'm working on creating
as well. So anyway, but this younger guy has this philosophy of he's going to
say whatever he needs to say, and he's going to do whatever he needs to do to
get the sale, which is coming in awful and bad, and Tetsuo doesn't have that
philosophy. He wants to be more honest. He wants to be just something about him.
He has a good character, and I don't mean he's a good character in everything to
watch. He has good character. He's a good person at heart, and that makes his
story interesting and engaging, and that leads him to put his life in danger to
save Michiko because she's in her home. She's his first person to sign in who
knows how long, and she ends up signing for him partially because I think
she sees through the salesman thing, and she sees what his true character is
because she burns something, and he ends up going to the store, I think, and then
cooking for her, and he cleans for her, and he does all this stuff. He just goes
above and beyond, but he doesn't really have anything else going, and he just
throws himself into helping this old lady genuinely. I think he gets wrapped up
and caught in it because, well, he's just that kind of person. He's a good person.
He wants to help people. That's what he does, and that's what heroes do, and then
when he realizes that she's in danger, he goes to her home, and it was really cute.
Part of the sales pitch is that if you get the insurance, we're going to give you
this hard hat to make sure that you're safe in the event of a kaiju attack, so he
puts this hat on her, and then he puts it on his back, and he's running around.
They're falling. There's debris. There's all sorts of hijinks going on, but you
really get to see this sweet relationship and dynamic develop between them, and even
when she goes at one point, or when he gets to her, she's like, I've lived long
enough. Maybe it's time for me to see my late husband, and he tells her, no, he
wouldn't want that, and he fights against this lady. Her inclination or her urge
to just give up and die, and he's like, no, you have to live. You have to live for
a while longer, at least. That would make your husband happy. What will make her
husband happy? I don't know, ultimately, but I would think he'd want her to live
a longer, fuller, happier life. Anyway, the thing is, he's not saving her life for
selfish reasons. He's saving her life because he thinks she deserves for her
life to be saved, and that she's kind of throwing her life away. Here's the thing.
She might go on and touch people's lives and help them and do good to them, and
be a source of comfort and support for other people who need her, and it's not
worth her giving up. Every life is precious, and every life is valuable, and
that's something that's touched on and talked about in this episode, even though
it's in the context of this old lady who kind of wants to die or who's kind of
resigned to giving up her life, and this insurance salesman who is just going
above and beyond to help her out. You notice I'm not talking a lot about the
Kaiju or Ultraman or anything like that because they didn't really matter. They
were very incidental to the story, and I really like that. The story was strong
enough to stand on its own with these characters in the context. Would I like
every episode of Blazo to be like that? No. If it'll help us avoid getting any
more useless or soulless updates, then yeah. Upgrades, forms, whatever. New
toys. Because this story had heart, and it was touching and beautiful, and I
loved it, and it was very nice to see. Yeah, there's not really much else to say.
I thought this was a great episode, and I really had a lot of fun with it. I
already said all the stuff I was going to say, so the characters were fun. It was
a nice human story, and I really hope this isn't a blip, and we go back to
kind of business as usual and have the end of Blazo be kind of heartless and a
little cold or something. That would be really sad and really disappointing. But
anyway, this was a great last showing for this series, and I will say one thing. I
like how Hiruma, or, yeah, Hiruma, Gento, runs over and he sees the villains and
he goes to protect them, and he and Blazo are ready to jump into action and fight
the Kaiju, and that was a lot of fun for me. That's pretty much all I'm going to
say. I think Sataguchi helped introduce the Gigaasps, or Gigaasps, Kaiju, the
snowy, abominable snowman guy, back when Zek got the spear in, I guess, episode
five of Zek, and then we get to see Red King. For some reason it's listed in the
wiki as Red King 2. I don't know what the difference is between a Red King 1 and a
Red King 2. He'll always be King Kornkob to me. Anyway, yeah, we get to see them
fight, and they have a funny little relationship where they're fighting out
in the wilderness somewhere, I guess near Michiko's house, it seems like, but I
thought it was Northern climate or something. I'm not sure. Anyway, they're
fighting, and Red King's going to crush Gigaasps with a rock, and Gigaasps are
like, no, please spare me, spare me, and he becomes his servant, which is kind of
funny, and they have a funny relationship dynamic. All told, just to Kaiju
grunting and suit work, you know, pantomime, and that was really cool to see,
so that was really charming. So, like, it was a good human story, but also had
some great suit acting and great, I mean, that's kind of a human story, too, great
suit acting telling the story of these Kaiju in this little silent story with
them, and that was a lot of fun, so I liked that one a lot. Tell me what you
thought about this episode. Do you think it's one of the best episodes, like I do,
or do you think it's one of the worst? Again, let me know in the comments, and
check out my short on this. I'm sure it's entertaining, whatever it is. I can't
remember it at this moment, and I want you to go ahead and subscribe. By the way,
I said the other day that I wanted a thousand subscribers. I want ten thousand
subscribers on this channel, on Henshin's Fiction, and I want ten thousand
subscribers over on Fortress Fiction, where you can discover great stories with
me, and where I'm talking about great stories. Mostly books, but not just books.
I'll talk about other great stories as well. I'm currently working on Peter Pan,
a movie very slowly covering Peter Pan chapter by chapter. It's going to be a lot
of fun. I think it's going to be very exciting, and it's a new plan I have for
maximizing my coverage of books and having a richer experience for myself and
for the audience as well who follows along, reads along, checks out the books,
and hopefully will be convinced to check out books they've never checked out
before due to me talking with them. So anyway, until next time, folks, take care,
be well, be ultra.